132 points

Despite his efforts, Dolan’s message did not gain enough traction. His campaign, funded largely by personal loans, couldn’t match Ocasio-Cortez’s $8 million war chest.

You people are living in an oligarchy and “who has more money for this season” being a perfectly normal news bit outside of popular sports is completely insane.

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27 points

You realize that “you people” includes you, correct?

Or are the mega rich treated just like everyone else where you are?

If so, where is this magical land of fairness?

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54 points

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/party-financing lots of countries limit how much can be given to politicians

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3 points

Eh… There are a variety of end-runs around this mechanism.

Hiring politicians on as lobbyists or allowing friends and family to sit on private run boards and trusts can create a back channel for money to flow into a politician’s pockets. Public money can be funneled into private profits for which the supporting politicians are also stockholders. And politicians can receive discounted/free services from friendly private sector constituencies. FOX News, the classic example, is a multi-billion dollar network dedicated to running Republican-friendly media. But when corporate lobbyists and political strategists can be found everywhere from the boards of NPR/PBS to the guest chairs of MSNBC to the editorial rooms of the WaPo/WSJ/NYT, there’s really no safe spaces left.

You can mitigate the direct “bag of cash for favors” effect that, say, John Boehner cutting tobacco lobbyist checks on the floor of the House has produced in the past. But you can’t keep public sector administrators from finding ways to receive kickbacks via private sector channels unless you completely divorce these institutions.

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46 points

I do not life in the US. However because of US hegemony and my country being a suck up to the US i have to follow what is going on there.

But in case there is any doubt. The country i live in, which is Germany is corrupt and authoritarian with a complicit public and private media as well as the “center” parties moving further to the right and helping fascism rise faster than ever before. The “liberal” middle class are to a large extent just self delusional racists and the country will become a fascist hellhole in the next ten years.

So if you have the opportunity, please help spread awareness about all the shit happening here too.

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21 points

Feels like the whole world is on the same trajectory.

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6 points

Yes, that’s right. The last European elections at the latest showed impressively that those dull people who are unable to see through the PR campaigns of the powerful are not an exclusive US problem. It is of course absolutely right that we in Europe rely far too much on the Americans and should set stricter limits to their capitalism, which in my opinion is completely out of joint. But I fear that we have already gotten too far into this quagmire. This is precisely why it is all the more important to raise awareness of this and to name those who are actually responsible for falling living standards and growing inequality - the US-type opportunists, the hangers-on and especially the blatant fascists in the ranks of our politicians and our societies. I am not at all convinced that the reasonable people have a shot, but I sure will continue to make an effort.

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1 point

At least I heard that world war is unpractical thanks to nato…

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-1 points

Politics shift to the right when people feel disparity, and their future looks break. Politics shift left when people feel optimistic about their future.

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-2 points

The country i live in, which is Germany is corrupt and authoritarian with a complicit public and private media as well as the “center” parties moving further to the right and helping fascism rise faster than ever before. The “liberal” middle class are to a large extent just self delusional racists and the country will become a fascist hellhole in the next ten years.

The funniest part is that this has been brought about by the common belief that idealism is stupid and dangerous and leads to fascism, while cynicism is very smart and realistic. One good thing about idealism is that it gives you a reason to fight and sense of good and evil.

What I mean is that idealism, say, 20 years ago would be associated with extremism, neo-Nazis, unreformed Bolsheviks, sect members, radical Islam. But somehow the actual fighting forces sporting all such ideologies work without it too.

As if that “sail” filled not with wind, but with popular emotion were worse than lack thereof, because without it your “boat” wouldn’t be moved from the right (presumably) track. Turns out the “boat” also has “oars”. Evil doesn’t have to be charismatic, although it was that in the 1930s. It can do just fine with apathy and half-consent.

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23 points

That’s because billionaires have purchased SCOTUS. The outcome of a single court case has allowed unlimited money from whomever into election campaigns.

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-29 points
Removed by mod
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22 points

Jesus fuck you people claim it’s rigged no matter who wins

Headline: “Person with most money wins race handily”

Far Left Antifa CCP Tankie on Lemmy: “Damn, seems like the sheer volume of money is determining the winners of these races”

Reasonable Rational Centrist: “STFU, you stupid idiot! Why can’t you just be happy that the person with the most money won?!”

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10 points
*

I like how that guy thinks the hive mind complains when progressives win because of “corporate donations”

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-8 points

Yeah, that’s how elections work. If it were in good faith, it’d be a valid complaint. But it’s not. It’s just another thing they pulled from a hat labeled “how can we make Democrats look bad here?”

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10 points

Yeah those corpos tipping the scales for progressives. Such a thing.

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-4 points

The DNC are not moderates. They are economic far right with imperialist foreign and racist internal policy, but some LGBT rights sprinkled in between.

And i am quite sure if people like Sanders or Stein would win it will definitely not be because of corporations funding them, more the opposite actually.

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1 point

Yeah, Stein was funded by Putin and his buddies.

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67 points

It amazes me that primaries are held this late in the year. It’s only four months or so until the election.

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90 points

Only in America. Other counties campaign for a few weeks. The US turns it into a 12 month fund raising and media spectacular, with primaries at the halfway point.

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16 points

A while back, HR 1 For the People Act promised to remedy much of the issue but it never got a vote in the senate because Republicans held the Senate Speaker until the next congress was formed.

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2 points

And because, having gotten back in power, Dem leadership didn’t take it up again as they too are getting rich from the current system.

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44 points

Why make election season much longer than needed?

Printing ballots can be done quite quickly.

And is 6 months of campaigning really better than 2 months?

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16 points
*

Ffffuuuuuuucccckkk no its not better. It’s just that our system predated most parliaments, and as such the founding fathers made some stupid choices that made it utterly impossible to amend basic quailty of life changes for our democracy.

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6 points

What did the founding fathers decide that made it impossible to have short election seasons in the US?

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4 points

Just in the spirit of pedantry, its not really true to say that the US system predated most parliaments.

Like, maybe its technically true now due to the expansion of democratic and republic systems in the post-colonial era, but parliaments in Western Europe were plentiful and long-established in 1776.

The first American government was notable in that is was completely divorced from a hereditary Monarch, and I don’t wanna downplay that, but a system in which a representitive body of land-owners is elected by an enfranchised class to decide policy and even pass legislation existed in, for example, Iceland since the 10th Century, Catalonia since the 12th, England since the 13th. It was arguably the standard during the enlightenment in Europe.

My two cents, the US system does seem to be remarkably inflexible. I guess it’s complicated to unpack why exactly, but a combination of myth-making, bad-faith originalists, and the sheer size of the country probably all play a part in it

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7 points

It’s better for the politicians wallets.

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4 points

Well no, it’s better for the politician’s campaign’s wallets. If people could spend campaign funds however they wanted then Donald Trump would have quite a few less pending felonies.

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5 points

I agree. Why weren’t they all done last November?

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4 points

The Dem presidential primary still has like two more months.

Biden and his pick for DNC chair set the date, they could have made it whenever.

They choose after the deadline to get on all 50 ballots for some reason.

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12 points

It’s pretty recent that campaigning started so early. Even Obama didn’t campaign as early as trump and Biden do.

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10 points

Has Trump ever stopped campaigning since 2016? I feel like this has gone on for decades.

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-7 points

Dems? Primary?

ROFL.

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2 points

Massachusetts has not held its Senate primary yet either. I had to check, it will be on September 3rd it seems.

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60 points

Moderate? Marty Dolan is a full-blown conservative. Why do we keep pretending like being a Democrat means you can’t be a conservative? The DNCs entire top brass is conservative. It’s a conservative party by objective international standards.

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26 points

Because the Overton window in the United States has many people viewing fascists as friends and anyone further left than center right as “extreme left wing socialist communist Nazi terrorists”.

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12 points

I hate it when ignorant people conflate Nazis and communists. I have argued with so many dumb people who think that the Nazis were a Socialist party, when the exact opposite is true. These people probably think that the DPRK is democratic, too.

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3 points

It’d be like thinking the Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether America should he a direct or representative democracy.

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2 points

Well if’n it weren’t properly a democracy how comes that 'ere Kim fella put it in the name, huh?

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1 point

That’s why they call em moderates. No need for the media to do it as well.

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58 points

In the rest of the world. A 66 year old investment banker would be considered right wing

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48 points

Suck it AIPAC.

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21 points

The ones laughing at Bowman’s loss? Yeah, I’m sure they’re crying so hard tonight

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-28 points

Will you people shut up about the DNC/Israel/“Them” rigging everything now?

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16 points

This guy doesn’t know the difference between rigging and ratfucking, point and laugh at him.

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1 point

I’d rather not give them even that level of attention.

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14 points

Why? We get to tell the truth and apparently deeply bother you all at once. Seems like a win-win for everyone but you , and you don’t matter.

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-6 points

I don’t expect you to actually stop, I just expect to expose you as disingenuous partisans.

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3 points

You could argue that AIPAC is partly responsible for the mess we’re in, as well as other PACs. So, I don’t think that they will stop. Hell, one could hold that stance while voting for questionable politicians on their side. You just gotta make sure that the threat of being primaried remain.

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1 point

After what happened to Jamaal Bowman. Not a fucking chance.

Oh, did people pointing out the unfair latitude given to your favorite genocidal nation make you upset? Whoops.

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0 points

Oh shit we got a new troll in da house

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