I’m not American. Can someone explain how they are ‘allowed’ to do this? Similarly, how is the war chest created?
You see, despite appearances, companies are actually people. Not in a real, people kind of way. Specifically, in a “the best of both for them” kind of way.
Then was have to remember that paying to circumvent and unduly influence democracy is, we’re to beleive, “free speech ^^^^tm” and, contrary to any and all logic, is actually very democratic. Then you have to remember that there aint no limit on freedom in America, baby!
If that doesn’t make sense to you then you’re a freedom hating commie.
The Supreme Court declared money to be “free speech” and therefore protected by the first amendment. Therefore, if you are a billionaire and wish to throw elections to a fascist of your choice, that is protected speech.
The case is referred to as Citizens United. It’s also the source of the phrase “corporations are people, my friend” as it affords first amendment protections to corporations which are not people. Except in the crooked eyes of the fascist Supreme Court majority.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert did a lovely series about this.
But in short, Donating millions to Trump. Illegal. Donating millions to Trump PAC. Legal. Trump can not spend Trump PAC money directly. Trump can say “boy I wish I had millions of dollars in political ads in a specific states at specific times about these specific topics.” Trump can also get pretty specific about the details.
What a racket.
You spelt democracy wrong. /s
You spelt Oligarchy wrong (absolutelly not /s).
Cleptocracy oligarchs. Yay!
Thank the corrupt supreme court.
Trump can also get pretty specific about the details.
I want the Big Macs to be wrapped in 100 dollar bills for the commercial. After the commercial send them to my room to make sure they were wrapped correctly. Do it even if we cut the Big Macs out of the commercial as well.
Short version: strategically place judges at all levels of jurisdiction, bring cases in front of them that upend protections aimed at preventing exactly that type of oligarchic power buying and thus rewrite the laws through these hoops until Freedom of Speech is conflated with buying elections.
The distinction is that a Super PAC, is explicitly NOT for the direct benefit of a candidate: it’s for the donors to use their free speech to publish messages of their choice.
It’s legal hair-splitting
damn, think of all the great lawyers he’ll be able to afford now
So…you just copied this from a tweet a few posts down, and made it ugly? Nice job.
yeah I copied it from your mom.
NO I didn’t copy it and make it ugly FFS I stole it from someone else on the interwebs as is tradition. Nice job.
There were liberal billionaires holding purse strings about college students protesting the killings in Gaza. This isn’t a one-party problem. Though Repubs are more blatant about their corruption because they no longer have any shame.
There were liberal billionaires holding purse strings about college students protesting the killings in Gaza.
What do you mean by the verb phrase “holding purse strings about” here?
I know what holding purse strings means: one controls the money for an operation hence gets to decide.
But what does to mean to “hold purse strings about” these protests? You’re saying they were funding them? Or funding reporting? Or funding the schools? Or what?
What’s “about” mean here?
Zionists aren’t liberals in my book. They’re just a slightly different flavor of fascists who dress up their sick ideology with a Jewish facade rather than the more traditional Christian facade.
Not necessarily- most Zionists are Christians- they have the belief that the apocalypse will be declared by the antichrist at the Temple, so they want Israel to take control of Palestine, demolish the Al Aqsa mosque and rebuild the Temple.
source?
I haven’t heard that - can you point me to an article or something?
Look up Bill Ackman. There are others, but his name is the one I recognize from hearing about him on podcasts.
He also planned to have a bulletproof window cyber truck. He should plan to get his head surgically removed from his ass. Since that is apparently where it’s been for a decade.
No, he should throw a bag of money at a deaf proctologist who doesn’t use social media.
If he had a say over the operation, after 3-5 years they’d end up shoving a robotic arm up there so he could tweet faster
I have some opinions on what we should do with Musk and Trump, but they’re against instance rules
If at first you don’t succeed…
WINK
A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat!
Know wh’ I mean? Eh?
Say no more!
Yes, bats, remember bats …
I learned a cool magic trick that changes the color of people’s posts! Check it out:
I have some ideas about what we should do with Musk and Trump, but they’re against instance rules
Hey, that looks like a nice DIY project!
“Broligarch”
Broldigharchs
Dude was born and raised in South Africa pretending to be an American (much like Ted Cruz who was born in Canada) interfering in US elections. It’s fucked.
Wait until you hear about this guy named Rupert Murdoch.
That Aussie cunt and fat boy Elon were sucking eachother off this year in the same suite at the Superbowl whilst plotting America’s demise.
Or as we call him in his original country, ‘Cunt’!
Eh, now you’re getting xenophobic.
There’s a ton of reasons to criticize musk on without resorting to such stupid argument “he’s not a real 'murican”
I love Elon Cuck cosplaying as a “Texan cowboy” but too stupid to realize his hat was on backwards 😂😭🤡
What a dipshit.
To be fair, you can’t be President if you’re a naturalized citizen so the xenophobia thing is kind of built-in.
In this case, thank fuck because we’d have Musk running for President, guaranteed.
To be double fair that was written in there pretty explicitly as a preventative measure from the English getting a loyalist elected and reclaiming us.
Our whole schtick is (supposed) to be that anyone who wants to come here and make a life here is an American.
There’s plenty of things to be pissed at Musk for, especially in relation to how his family made their money in Apatheid South Africa (emerald slave mines), but him being born elsewhere isn’t it.
Lol. These fuckers are all ladder pullers. Check out the tenets of project 2025. They want to kick immigrants OUT. Musk is donating $45 million per month toward kicking immigrants out. He got his though, so…
That shtick is just a shtick. Every country with a functioning government has standards for who they’ll allow to immigrate and become a citizen, and Musk is precisely the kind of person I’d want to keep out. He’s making a life here as a billionaire, not an American, because billionaires have no real nationality, just flags of convenience. I don’t want him on my planet, much less in my country, and I especially don’t want his greasy money in our politics.
Well if we’re lucky, he’ll move to Mars.
That’s cool and all, and I generally agree, but the sheer fact that he’s a foreigner isn’t something to go after
Yeah, this isn’t europe.
Well Putin did it, was found out, and - nothing happened so. Why not.
What’s crazy is what its probably going towards.
AKA bombarding a handful of pour souls with ads and messaging in swing counties where it actually matters.
It seems like such a waste.
I wouldn’t be too shocked if the PACS were being used to funnel money to people’s pockets instead of an actual PAC purposes.
In the end, most advertising is a waste.
If idk, all car companies came together, pooled their resources and knowledge and created joint car lines, using standardized optimized production lines across all of them, resulting in only one line of car per use case (one large truck, one small truck, a 2 person car, a 4 person car, a family car, etc etc) then no advertisement would be necessary. They could make the prices as low as possible to cover costs while still allowing some research into better technology. Everyone would just know/be able to find out “oh if I want a car I go to these people” and then you just choose the car that fits you, there’s no advertisement necessary because there’s no alternatives.
Of course, that doesn’t work because people are shitty, it would be a monopoly and the monopoly would jack prices up to infinity, the quality would be as bad as possible, resulting in an incredibly bad product for incredibly bad value.
But theoretically, if people were good and working for the general good of everyone, took pride in their work to do it as well as possible and deliver a product with the highest quality possible, the above scenario would work.
If idk, all car companies came together, pooled their resources and knowledge and created joint car lines, using standardized optimized production lines across all of them, resulting in only one line of car per use case (one large truck, one small truck, a 2 person car, a 4 person car, a family car, etc etc) then no advertisement would be necessary. They could make the prices as low as possible to cover costs while still allowing some research into better technology. Everyone would just know/be able to find out “oh if I want a car I go to these people” and then you just choose the car that fits you, there’s no advertisement necessary because there’s no alternatives.
Of course, that doesn’t work because people are shitty, it would be a monopoly and the monopoly would jack prices up to infinity, the quality would be as bad as possible, resulting in an incredibly bad product for incredibly bad value.
You are basically talking about a socialist or communist ecenomy, and there are good reasons that that is a horrible idea for certain industries (and a good one for others, and an even better one with some kind of bastardized hybrid system like the chip industry in Taiwan).
There is no best system, IMO everything should be evaluated a la carte instead of trying to centralize or privatize things ideologically.
Many private organizations that get like this are like the worst of both worlds though, where they lose the entrepreneurial spirit, efficiency and drive without any of the “benevolent” motivations and restrictions of a centralized system, especially when they get rich enough to push back against ethics.
I mean, I said it doesn’t work
US is not a democracy is a plutocracy, an oligarchy
Is any other country a democracy? I thought for it to be a democracy you needed “everyone” to vote for every law rather than electing representatives.
You’re foolin’ yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship! And how’d we get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.
Yes.
Tucker Carlson, famous proponent of democracy.
Youve heard of corporations are people, now get ready for one person is a corporation.
Regardless of donation limits, election is an innately oligarchic feature. Election strongly favors candidates with money and time to spare. Elections also favor those with wide and influential social networks.
When you want to choose a candidate from amongst the elite, elections are great. If you want a democratic choice, you have to use sortition - choosing at random from the whole eligible pool, like we do for juries.
yes thats what im saying
Musk is a dumb piece of shit that didn’t earn his money.
Fortunately he’s one of only a hundred or so people evil enough to be a billionaire.
Good thing there aren’t any more evil people than that, given all it takes is the willingness to be evil enough to make billions.
There are 756 billionaires in the USA, 2,781 in the world.
They are propped up on the efforts of tens of millions of immoral ultracapitalists all clamoring for a piece of the pie, willing to exploit the labor of billions of people to hoard as much global capital at the top of the chain as they can.
Don’t underestimate the evil of capitalism.
I was waiting for someone to bring this up, it would be hilarious if Biden does something to put a wrench in this plan as a last FU to the republicans
Now that he’s not running he can do a lot of last fuck yous and take the grenade for them. Don’t know if he will.
