Establishment Democrats: "Can't we kinda half-condemn Netanyahu? Send him a letter or slap him on the wrist? We still need his checks for re-election."
We might as well make a public fund for elections. Cap election spending in the fund and treason charges if your caught bypassing it with foreign aid. There's need to be a lot more changes for this to take effect and it'd never pass but...
Never say never. Keep talking about these ideas, write members of congress, protest with signage about it, engage with others on why it is necessary. Social change seems impossible to a lot of people until it isn't. Berlin wall, prosecuting Milosevic and Rwandan leadership, revolutions of 1989, etc. As Nelson Mandela said, "it always seems impossible until it's done."
The max a party can spend in the UK is less than £30M. John Oliver joked that in the US thirty million dollars is the budget for a candidates balloons.
In 2024, Democrats spent about $6.7 billion, Republicans spent about $7.6 billion, and third-party candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., spent a little more than $500 million
The founding fathers were human beings, absolutely. I think that they get made to be almost larger than life sometimes, But we should never forget their human nature. That said, they were also the elite of their society. Most of them were career politicians, land owners with thousands of acres in their possession, Transcontinental business owners, Or were just generally wealthy as hell.
The last time I went to Mount Vernon they were talking about the wallpapers in Washington's house, and they made special mention that most of them were imported from London on custom order. I think that kind of gives you an idea of the quality of life that Washington had, and his position inside of his world.
So I wouldn't say that they were just like us, or at least the vast majority of us.
Well yes, I didn't think to mention that as it was pretty common amongst the entire upper and most of the middle class of America at the time to own slaves.
So that wasn't as unique/distinguishing as the other points I mentioned. Supposedly over half of slave owners around the time of the civil War owned only one slave. So it was a pretty common " asset" if I may speak so plainly.
Owning thousand of acres of land, being part of political Dynasty, owning entire ships and shipping companies, owning entire newspaper and print shops that printed an entire colony's worth of paper materials, these were all the enterprises of the founding fathers. Sadly, owning slaves were one thing that that elite class actually had in common with the middle class.
I always love the little footnotes of history where there’s some specific date and the rationale for why that date was picked is “everyone had to go home for the harvest.”
Huh thought there was a way for change that was granted to us or will that get me chat banned and told everyone needs to be civil? Civil like some sort of .. event that happened
It’s really hard to keep up with the whole both sides narratives these days
I feel like the founders didn't realize how big america would get
a single nation state empire is basically impossible to run democratically due to perverse incentives
EU seems to have the best model where federal budgets are primarily designed to go to the state that generated that budget and not as a handout to laggards whose only contribution is shitty politicians. Albeit, greece really stress tested and somewhat broke it, so maybe there's just no model that actually works
the year of californistan is fast approaching, or potentially, might be crazy, but maybe mathematicians cook up some mathematically sound form of an incorruptible governance structure
Since I began paying taxes, I have said they need to remove the "Do yiu want to donate $3 to the general election fund?" option, and just make it mandatory. Everybody pays their $3, and that is split evenly amoung candidates. Thats all the funding you get, use it wisely.
When you're filling your taxes there IS a question of you want to donate 3 dollars to the presidential election fund. It only applies to the president currently seated, i believe.
I've never checked it so i never did a deep dive into it.
With most things I’ve learned from the Trump administration, it’s not whether something is legal or not. It’s “who is going to enforce it?”.
Trump has proven that judges refuse to do their jobs as they would to any one of us for the same crimes. Trump has proven the police, FBI, CIA, etc refuse to do their jobs as they would any of us for the same crimes. Trump has proven that Congress will not do their jobs…. Etc.
Dems are better than republicans but it’s not by much. Hopefully this move towards DSA scares some of the establishment into change rather than panic.
Foreign aid in elections is already illegal. And yet its only been used to go after Democrats. The summer of 2000, Al Gore dealt with months of news coverage over foreign donations, worth like half a million dollars, while Trumps in kind aid from Russia is valued in the billions, and not a word. We tried capping election spending amd the SCOTUS struck it down. Multiple times.
There's a deeper issue. Trump was charged and convicted of several felonies. When the largest news network in the country is allowed to keep its broadcasting license after settling for a BILLION dollars over a misinformation campaign, then something is deeply wrong. Half the country is allowed to live in an alternate reality. They're sold culture war nonsense to keep them so angry and fearful of the other that they cant see the gridt right in front of their eyes.
I got curious how that actually works so I looked it up.
First, you must be a major party candidate to receive it. So democrats or republicans. (Or have had received at least 25% of the vote in the previous election.). Second, if you elect to receive the campaign fund grant, you cannot receive any private campaign donations, and your spending is capped at the fund amount.
"In 2008, Republican nominee John McCain accepted an $84.1 million public grant. Barack Obama declined public funding and raised approximately $745.7 million over the election cycle. Obama was the first major-party nominee to reject the general-election grant; McCain was the last major-party candidate to accept one. No major-party nominee has accepted it since."
For 2024, the available general-election grant was $123,595,200.
So, in other words, it seems that today's campaign spending levels, this fund is obsolete and useless.
Which in my opinion just goes to show how broken campaign contribution laws are (Citizens United), as spending is out of control, corporate "voice" leaves less room for democracy and lobbying is far too entrenched.
Then we're still stuck with only wealthy people in office, because the other 99% of us wouldn't be able to go through a term without a paycheck. We should set a salary for elected positions that is tied to the median wage of their constituents. I think we should require the same of corporate executives - their pay gets capped at 3x their median employee's wage (just throwing out a number) and if their employees see pay increase, then their pay increases.
7 billion a year we hand to Israel. Far more than ANY other country. Its the size of NJ. I get it: politicians need to raise money to stay in power. Israel/AIPAC makes it VERY easy, vs having to be on the phone all day, every day asking for money. In walks AIPAC with a wheelbarrow of cash and tickets to your favorite event. This is why we need, desperately, to overturn Citizens United, and get money out of politics. Our politicans are NOT working for We the People (well, a few are... but the vast majority are in it for the money)
My dude, no one thinks they literally turn around and spend it back on us.
The point is if they have the money to manipulate and buy off our country, they don't fucking need anything from us. We shouldn't be sending them anything.
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u/NtheLegend 18h ago
Establishment Democrats: "Can't we kinda half-condemn Netanyahu? Send him a letter or slap him on the wrist? We still need his checks for re-election."