Tweedism poisons our political process / fix this first or ultimately We The People fail.

[wundermaus]

Lawrence Lessig on Why Elizabeth Warren Needs to Run for President

I was banned from posting on a thread in this forum for proposing we Democrats are also immersed in political corruption.
Let me be clear - The American political system is corrupt, but we are not unique to this condition.
And I am not arguing that we are as corrupt as the Republicans.
We American are bound in a system that is corrupt: Tweedism.
Until we realize, acknowledge, and fix this corruption, we are trapped in a system of systemic tyranny.
We need to vote with our eyes wide open to this stark reality.

[JHan]

1. Politics will attract "corruption"..

(Thank you Saul Alinsky for your insights on this and how to wield that to an advantage)

We have a responsibility to improve systems so they become more robust as a check and balance against corruption. When you say "Democrats are also immersed in political corruption" identify the source of that corruption and explain it further.

Elizabeth Warren is not a Savior, that is unfair to her. We don't need saviors embodied in the person of one individual - this is the problem we face , it is at the heart of cult of personality politics. No one person is coming to save me. This should not be about one person running. It should be about strategically putting those who will support the sea change we want in positions of power and ensuring that they remain in power to implement what we wish. It's about shifting the dynamics of power. It's about majorities, it's about controlling committees and controlling the agenda.

Republicans are prepared to destroy democratic norms to accomplish that, Democrats believe this should be done without destroying those norms.

We don't need a new name to describe anything.

How can any conversation about electoral dynamics not point to the SCOTUS decisions shaping our politics? How did those SCOTUS decisions come to be? It is SCOTUS deciding that spending money is free speech which is responsible for the gross influx of money into campaigns. what were the ripple effects of these decisions which I'd argue go back as far as Buckley vs Valeo? In this climate are big donors supposed to not do anything? Where's the contextual analysis for the reasons 501c3s and 501c4s go buck wild?

When a George Soros donates 50 million to various campaign organizations, during a campaign which raised just over a billion, how do you assess *his* influence?

I am far more interested in the who is donating, why they're donating. "what side are they on" intrigues me more than how much they donate.

[MarcA]

2. This should be its own post. n/t

[mcar]

4. So we'll said, JHan

[George II]

3. I'm a Democrat, I'm a politician, I'm not corrupt.

[Gothmog]

5. I am more concern about issues in the real world that we can deal with

If Democrats do not retake control of the House or the Senate, then trump will be free to run wild and have even less restraints than now. I am working hard to elect Democrats in a good number of races. We have one really competitive and two potentially competitive congressional races, a competitive senate race and a number of local/county races that I am working on. I like living in the real world and dealing with real world problems