Posted by:
Human
(
)
Date: September 20, 2017 04:58PM
Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I personally
> think a lot of it stems from Citizens United, the
> supreme court decision that opened the floodgates
> to money. This mattered because ultimately there
> is only one huge source of cash: rich people,
> largely on Wall Street but also on Main Street.
> So both parties knock on the same doors to get
> cash and adopt largely the same policies, policies
> that benefit he same interests.
Not sure about this. Trump spent far less money than Clinton, and less of it came from big wealth:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/campaign-finance/Also, Bernie achieved a heckofalot with way less money than Clinton in the primaries, and a lot of his money came from regular folks like ourselves handing over an extra sawbuck or two.
Trump and Bernie demonstrate that a solid message indicating "we're against them and for the people" needs far less money to be effective; and Hillary demonstrated that money isn't everything, and certainly can't make up for a candidate's inherent weaknesses with their own base. She had plenty of money, plenty of supportive media and still...
Americans can seize their country back, even in the face of Citizens United.
I'm confused by Citizens United. It's horrible, and yet my heroes at the ACLU argued for it! And convincingly! But even so, money isn't everything, so long as it's clearly reported where a candidate's money comes from.
The REAL problem is once they, whoever they are, are elected! How to keep them on our side, when there is a massive, well-dug-in establishment ready and able to tell the newly elected President and Congresspeople 'how things really are'. That's the real problem, not the election. (Yes, I'm still myopic enough to believe that Obama was not capable of such blatant mendacity; to choose his cabinet and govern in the exact opposite direction in which he campaigned. I think rather he had no choice, that the Office has no real power.)
Human