Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumI posted this in GD, where it sank- because, you know...
Anyway, it's a really good article. Long, but well worth the time. Talks about major donors to all the candidates, and how the networks are raking in the big $$$. I was actually a bit surprised about a couple of the Repubs.
American democracy belongs to the billionaires now
"...With three 2016 debates down and six more scheduled, the two fundraisers with the most surprising amount in common are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Neither has billionaire-infused super PACs, but for vastly different reasons. Bernie has made it clear billionaires wont ever hold sway in his court. While Trump... well, you know, hes not only a billionaire but has the knack for getting the sort of attention that even billions cant buy.
Regarding the rest of the field, each candidate is counting on the reliability of his or her own arsenal of billionaire sponsors and corporate nabobs when the you-know-what hits the fan. And at this point, believe it or not, thanks to the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision of 2010 and the super PACs that arose from it, all the billionaires arent even nailed down or faintly tapped out yet. In fact, some of them are already preparing to jump ship on their initial candidate of choice or reserving the really big bucks for closer to game time, when only two nominees will be duking it out for the White House.
Capturing this drama of the billionaires in new ways are TV networks eager to profit from the latest eyeball-gluing version of election politicking and the billions of dollars in ads that will flood onto screens nationwide between now and November 8th. As super PACs, billionaires, and behemoth companies press their influence on what used to be called our democracy, the modern debate system, now a 16-month food fight, has become the political equivalent of the NFL playoffs. In turn, soaring ratings numbers, scads of ads, and the party infighting that helps generate them now translate into billions of new dollars for media moguls.
For your amusement and mine, this being an all-fun-all-the-time election campaign, lets examine the relationships between our twenty-first-century plutocrats and the contenders who have raised $5 million or more in individual contributions or through super PACs and are at 5% or more in composite national polls. Ill refrain from using the politically correct phrases that feed into the illusion of distance between super PACs that allegedly support candidates causes and the candidates themselves, because in practice there is no distinction..."
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176097/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_big_money_and_what_it_means_in_election_2016/#more
olddots
(10,237 posts)and can't be "dicussed" by the people who think politics is a sport .
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)Publicly funded and capped campaign financing laws NOW!
newfie11
(8,159 posts)But the oligarch will never allow it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)hopemountain
(3,919 posts)explanation of how pervasive big money and lobbying are across america - and then he looked straight at hillary. hehe.