alt Hacker NewsIt's so cheap that normal people could band together and re-buy democracy. It's the banding together part that is hard.
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I already pay for my government in taxes (which ironically these big cos don't pay).
Besides, if I were to gather up 4 million to lobby, the opposition would simply spend 8 million instead which they could come up with just as easily. They don't have to outrun the bear, the just have to outrun you.
Normal people can't offer speaking fees, consulting gigs, and other sinecures to politicians and their staffers after they leave the government.
This is what a PAC is. Political Action Committee.
They primarily only get headlines for outrage topics when people don’t like what they’re pushing toward. Many of the top PACs are from groups like realtors or sheet metal workers lobbying for their interests.
Most people skip PACs and donate straight to political candidates instead. Individual donations to candidates outweigh anything the AI companies are spending by a huge number.
I think of that Netflix series on FIFA and its rampant corruption. The bribes in question are laughable, considering that FIFA is a multi-billion dollar operation, and it's always some round number like $1M. At least add some cents to it so it's not glaringly obvious in the bank accounts.
And you cannot offer the Kushner family OpenAI shares. The 4 million is just the surface.
That's how Groupon originally started.
It seems to me that there's really nothing at that store that "normal people" want to buy.
Everything that we want to do can be done through ordinary collaboration with no need for the state. The special services which the state provides (violence and threats of violence, imperialism, inhibition of movement of people and goods across imaginary lines, etc) are the kinds of things that are really only interesting to the kinds of people who are already spending their money on lobbying.
It would not surprise me that the cost of lobbying rises exponentially as the policy moves left on the political spectrum. That pro-business, pro-austerity, neo-liberal policy is orders of magnitude cheaper to lobby for, then pro-worker, pro-democracy, pro-consumer policy.
The estimated spending on the 2026 election season is $11.6 billion [1]. One primary has had an estimated $60 million spent on it (ie the Michigan Democratic primary). Thomas Massie's primary had an estimated $35 million spent on it. A GOP Super PAC has earmarked $342 million for 8 Senate races [2].
Over $5 billion was spent on lobbying in 2025 [3].
To truly move policy you need to get pliable representatives first and that's not just money. There is a pipeline here. First, you get the right connections. That could be coming from a wealth family, be the nephew or grandson of some politician, do your time as a staffer or whatever. Going up through the ranks acts as a giant filter to make sure you will maintain the status quo. So you have to find candidates to run for these offices who have been weeded out by the existing processes. And if you don't have enough of them, the DNC or RNC will spend selectively against you in the primary and general election. And an increasing number of races have over $100 million spent on them.
Buying back democracy would be very, very expensive.
And then after all that there's the income and jobs pipeline. Your children get six-figure jobs with think tanks and interested companies. You leave office and get placed on boards of large companies. You can't compete with that.
[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/media-advertising/articles/2026-el...
[2]: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5818507-gop-super-pac-...
Many of the groups that spend the most on lobbying are composed of "normal" people who have banded together for some common interest. For example:
- The AARP ($21M annual spend) has 38M members
- The National Association of Realtors ($54M annual spend) has 1.5M members
- The American Medical Association ($24M annual spend) has 300K members
Of course that doesn't mean that their interests necessarily align with your interests.