The media's craving for a horse race would not be solved by moving away from FPTP, but by having better media or at least media that was not driven by profit.
Agreed 100%.
Two things on that—the UK, like the US, is cursed with FPTP and per recent polling, are heading toward a shellacking in the upcoming elections. How long they stay out of power may hinge largely on Keir Starmer. He's not the most popular politician, so his time on top may be short-lived.
A lot of that blame can be laid at the feet of Bibi.
It takes a lot of money to run a political campaign and counter lies.
He already has a lot of money.
Thats really not true. Biden himself is a good example of that. He was significantly out raised in the primary, yet he still won. There is a point of diminishing returns.
Ugh. What a colossal misallocation of capital across the board and the enormous opportunity cost dragging like a dead horse behind it.
Considering the literal trillions of dollars at play, plus control of the most powerful military in the world, I think those values are actually undercapitalized.Ugh. What a colossal misallocation of capital across the board and the enormous opportunity cost dragging like a dead horse behind it.
That, as a nation, we’re able to look at those kinds of numbers going to such a fundamentally inane thing, and then just keep doing it and increasing it over time is… just ugh.
Our system and the priorities that it incentivizes are just the worst. Even our basic civic institutions are organized around hoovering up as much money as possible from as many people as possible.
Yes, I get that part of it. At least as some form of justification for it within the wildly idiotic approach we’ve taken to the whole thing.
So, based on the bolded, it's only natural that Trump or someone of his ilk would be able to exploit it to its fullest. It was only a matter of time until someone hit the jackpot.
Yes.
I mean, it's not like that money is just shot into outer space. It pays a lot of people's salaries both directly by the campaigns and all the supporting businesses around it. I'd say the only true waste is stuff like printed signs and pamphlets that are just garbage at the end of all this plus fuel for flying/driving candidates and their staff around but frankly in the grand scheme it's almost immeasurably small. Purely economically speaking though, it's actually beneficial to the overall economy.
On the one hand, the US is the size of a continent, with dozens of large, populous media markets. Then the need to do in-person campaigning and having GOTV infrastructure across the nation.
And just as a reminder, Trump and the RNC have their funding set up so the legal amount of a donation 6600 USD goes first to Trump's campaign funds, the next set of funds goes to the PAC known that he is dipping into for legal funds. Trump's campaign spokespeople say that non of the funds are going to his legal bills. (On one hand this sorta feels truthful as when has he ever paid his bills, on the other Trump says "the sun is shining" and you should look outside to double check.)
And you just know he's going to have a "fuck you, pay me" rule for showing up at events for down-ballot candidates. I have a sneaking suspicion that Trump's coat tails are going to be very expensive.
such a bad stat. Yea, of course the person with the most support will naturally be donated the most money. A lot of, possibly even most races aren't even competitive.
...and yet, they're still spending. I think they might know a little more about what it takes than you.
If you're reduced to saying that something is "beneficial to the overall economy" because there are people that make their livings at it, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of looking for justifications. You have to consider the direct and indirect costs and effects to decide whether something is beneficial or not. Many things humans engage in are not. Motor vehicle accidents create jobs too, right? But we ought to try to reduce them because their costs and externalities are pretty negative.
Thats not contrary to anything. They raise more than their opponents, which is the point.
well yea, there is no negative for Biden/DNC to spending more
On the contrary, there is a very real negative impact to constant fundraising, and we've heard that over and over from our elected officials. Like, for many, especially junior representatives, they basically have to dial for dollars from day one just to get re-elected, which leaves little time for the work they were elected to.
Not actually true. If you look at the link I sent, you'll see that incumbency is a power all its own, and it is entirely possible to under-spend and win as an incumbent. In fact, almost all of that 12% of people that spent less but won were incumbents. So like everything, there is more than one dimension, but money spent is a provably strong one. Especially if you're the challenger. As such, the best thing Dems can do is where they are incumbents, make sure their GOP challenger can't outspend them. And where they are challengers, their best chance is to outspend the GOP incumbent.
Anyone know what the other "key platforms" are? I sure don't and didn't know this was part of the Democrat's platform. And I guess, the Democrats don't either as the link below only has the 2020 platform. Will an update come at the convention?
Are you trolling here?I stopped donating to any campaign after Citizens United. My wife still does the small donor thing, actually sends $20 bills to various campaigns to avoid mailing lists.
I've unsubscribed from actblue and spend a few weeks unsub-ing from every one of the 15 solicitations I got daily. Today I have zero, so I hit the right list, finally.
The campaign-industrial complex, nice term and again, with CU it's even bigger than we know.
On another plank - today's newspaper has an article on Gov. Newsom's back-peddling on implementing indoor heat protections for workers. The article I read said:
Anyone know what the other "key platforms" are? I sure don't and didn't know this was part of the Democrat's platform. And I guess, the Democrats don't either as the link below only has the 2020 platform. Will an update come at the convention?
https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
Why would this be a surprise? He literally served in the previous Trump administration and is so far right in his politics that he's hosted fundraisers for America First. He's also a completely unapologetic supporter of Israel, even now.
Oh no, not the coveted Mariano Rivera endorsement! Biden is DOOOOO0000000OOOOOOMED!
You underestimate Latinos in the Bronx and Washington Heights, Manhattan.
