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Comment by diogenescynic | Hacker News Reader

>How could anyone in good conscience think this is good for the people?

They don't. The politicians who voted for this only represent the interests of the lobbyists and financial backers who 'donated/bribed' them during their campaign. Politicians don't care about the will of the people at all, several studies have shown this.

Before America can accomplish much of anything--we need real and substantial campaign finance reform. Too many corporations are able to influence elections and it's not good for democracy. I would think after this last election, democrats could run on this as a national security issue, if they were smart but no one has ever accused them of that.

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I'm not sure campaign finance reform would do much. Look what we saw in this last election; regular everyday people (generally the non-urban ones) have poor education and don't understand the issues. All they care about is the "Mexicans", abortion, guns, which bathroom a tiny number of people use, etc., and they'll vote for politicians who tell them what they want to hear on these issues. These pols can easily convince their constituents that things like this new law are good, because it'll reduce "unnecessary regulation" that "strangles companies" and "reduces competition" and "drives prices up". The voters are too short-sighted and stupid to remember all this and notice when, in fact, prices just go up and privacy protections disappear as a result of laws like this, so the pols won't be held accountable.

Campaign finance reform won't help this kind of thing. Just look at Dave Brat in Virginia; he won over Mark Cantor, despite Cantor being a long-time incumbent with a huge war chest and lobbyist backing and Brat being a little-known Tea Party candidate. Or just look at Trump: how much did he spend on campaigning? Virtually nothing. Hillary was the one spending obscene amounts of money on campaigning, and she was horribly unpopular and lost.

The problem isn't money, it's the voters.

But without the huge donations and constant lobbying, wouldn't the politicians be more inclined to enact legislation that favored their voters over corporate interests.

No, because the corporate interests control all the jobs and that's what voters care about more than anything.

A good first step would be to revoke `Citizens United`

Its voters for sure, but it is also the money, and the media. 24 hour cables news need content! And dog bless Trump if he does not provide a sh*tload of it. It has been reported that received over 2 billion USD in free press coverage.

Given enough money you can convince enough people of things like trickle down economics work, or climate change is a Chinese hoax. So indeed voters need to wise up( not going to happen IMHO ), we need to have less money in politics ( right ), or pigs could fly out my ass. I am just hoping that our AI overlords will be kind.

Much of the funding behind the tea party movement, right wing media, “think tanks”, the armies of pundits on every cable news channel, “grassroots” conservative issue-advocacy organizations (including Citizens United, for instance), anti-Democrat conspiracy books, and so on comes from completely unaccountable and often anonymous billionaires.

Campaign finance laws actually have significant influence on how much money can be spent, how transparent the funding must be, what money can be used for, etc. Media regulations also have a large impact.

A particular fringe world-view doesn’t just pop into significant numbers of voters’ minds out of nothing. It is deliberately tended and promoted by folks with large amounts of money with specific policy goals.

See e.g. this interview with Jane Mayer about Bob Mercer from yesterday, http://www.npr.org/2017/03/22/521083950/inside-the-wealthy-f...

Vote shaming is probably even more effective than fat shaming.

Hate the game, not the players.

Oh please. The game is rigged, but it's not that rigged. At the end of the day, tens of millions of people voted not just for Trump, but for GOP candidates down the line. Millions of people voted for Hillary in the primaries. We got the people we voted for. We could have voted for other people at all stages of the election (esp. the primaries where it makes the most difference) and we didn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erph1L_XwVQ

TL:DW - If I get to choose everyone you can vote for, does it matter how you vote?

Yes, because of two things:

1) it's not one person/group who's choosing who you can vote for. It's a product of the system as a whole, which has competing actors. The GOP does not decide who runs in the Dem races, and vice versa, for instance.

2) you're not as limited in who you vote for as you allege. There are always 3rd-party options. The only reason they never win is because no one votes for them because "they'll never win", a self-fulfilling prophecy, just like believing you'll never succeed and then never trying. If nothing else, voting 3rd-party shows that you cared enough to vote, and didn't like the 2 mainstream choices. If enough people vote that way, one of the 3rd parties will then get more recognition, matching funds, a place at the debates, etc. We've had FPTP voting since the very beginning, but we do NOT have the same political parties that we started out with.

Hillary was not horribly unpopular. She won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. She lost because of only around 200k people.

Hillary was horribly unpopular; saying otherwise is blatantly denying reality. She only won the popular vote (barely) because Trump was so unpopular. She lost because she was so unpopular, causing so many people to either stay home, vote 3rd party, or vote for the also-unpopular Trump, and because of the way the Electoral College works (giving rural states more power per vote).

How many people bothered showing up for Hillary's rallies? That's how you measure popularity and enthusiasm. Hillary didn't have any. People only voted for her because the alternative was viewed as worse.

In the (generally liberal) DC area that I live near, I saw almost no bumper stickers for Hillary. I actually saw far more bumper stickers for Obama than Hillary! Why would I see far more 4 or 8-year-old bumper stickers for Obama than for the current Dem candidate? Because she's unpopular, that's why.

Hillary ran against one of the most unpopular candidates in presidential election history, and she lost. Any other candidate would have easily won. Trump was an outsider, and deeply unpopular even among Republican voters. This should have been an easy election for the Dems to win, but they insisted on running the most unpopular, unpalatable candidate they possibly could have, and that's why they lost.

> Politicians don't care about the will of the people at all, several studies have shown this.

Interesting. I was unaware studies had been done on this. Care to share any links?

you really don't need studies. look at the polling data of things that get passed. The AHCA is being rushed through despite being wanted by only 17% of the public [0].

0: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/poll-gop-trump-obamaca...

But the health care C level execs are getting big tax cuts, and they are repealing the 3.8% tax on some kind of investment income. So its good for everyone!

I don't know if there are any studies, but the single-digit approval rating of Congress says it quite clearly.

Americans love Congress. The approval ratings are very, very high. The ratings you cite are wrong, because they show the wrong thing: they show what people think of other peoples' Congress members. American voters are very happy with their Congresspeople; that's why they keep re-electing them. They just don't like everyone else's Congress picks (esp. ones in the "other" party).

Interesting angle!

I don't know if Americans "love" congress, as much as we are just ignorant to who are what congress is. See someone from the other side, hate em, see familiar name on the ballot, vote for em.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Doesn't apply to the Senate.

Not parent but here you go: "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

There was a study a read (that I can't find now), I think by MIT, that showed there was no correlation between what bills passed in the house/senate and the 'will of the voter' (what people wanted).

Until you took into account money. Then there was a correlation between what was passed and the 'will of the lobbyist'.

Really wish I could find that study again.

Politicians are routinely bought by those with narrow interests.

By coincidence, Planet Money recently did a podcast about automatically filling out tax returns in California:

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo...

tl;dr: In a pilot, 99% of people preferred the auto-filled returns, but the bill to make it law failed by one vote, because of Intuit and Grover Norquist.

Video based on Princeton study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&feature=youtu.be

I can't believe Democrats are beating the campaign finance reform angle after Trump. Hello: the candidate with far greater corporate funding lost. Now, big corporations (the New York Times, etc.) are what stand between Trump and his agenda.

You can't think about this like Democrats vs Republicans, They are both bought out by lobbyists. This is people vs corporation.

In the case of Trump, he IS one part of corporate America. He is benefiting himself and his slice of corporate America.

"Now, big corporations (the New York Times, etc.) are what stand between Trump and his agenda."

There are shades here, not as easy a statement to make as you have made.

While trump would definitely scare the American corps because of his protectionist, destabilising economic policy, the republican establishment is still behind a metric ton of the laws/bills etc that are bandied about, and they are corporate owned.

They still have the pockets of the politicians, they just don't like some of the other stuff. The weapons industry as a softball example would be jumping for joy at Trump.

So the corps are not standing between Trump and his agenda, but they definitely would have preferred a normal republican candidate.

> You can't think about this like Democrats vs Republicans, They are both bought out by lobbyists. This is people vs corporation.

Why do the majority of people not recognize this?

How would one go about finding these studies you mentioned?

Here are my favorite videos on electoral reform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig

Why do you keep saying 'the politicians'?

This was a straight party-line vote. There's a single party here working very hard to centralize and corporatize the internet. There's another party working against that.

I have to say I find it a bit hilarious when something like this happens and it's the result of a select, easily identifiable group and Americans then throw their hands up and declare, "The whole system is corrupt!"

I mean come on.

Campaign finance reform is treating the symptom, and you'll never be able to stuff that genie back in the bottle. Like it or not, money and free speech are interfungible (I'm sure that's not a word), you can't control one without harming the other.

Before America can accomplish much of anything, we need a populace that will invest more into choosing a candidate than deciding who has the pithiest attack ad.

So before America can accomplish anything, we need to get a highly educated population that is rich enough to be able to afford the time to research complex local, statewide, and national politics.

There's a hell of a lot of symptoms between us and the goal, and the current system seems to be doing everything it can to prevent us from reaching it (defunding education, defunding healthcare, preventing efforts to get out the vote, gerrymandering).

Right, and the voters are happily voting for pols who defund education and healthcare.

Well, my point is, they might be trying to vote otherwise, but gerrymandering and voter suppression prevents them. For example, the American people didn't elect Donald Trump, but he became president.

Let me correct you there: the American people did elect Donald Trump and he became president. Electoral College is the way to get elected, and popular vote has zero impact. That's why nobody who wants to win runs for the popular vote.

The poster you responded to referenced gerrymandering. I believe in that person's view, the gerrymandering is a form of corruption. Surely you believe corruption would result in an unfair election result. Though I would understand if you did not believe that gerrymandering is corruption.

http://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482150951/understanding-congre...

The electoral college is basically not gerrymandered. In all but two states, everyone in the state is voting in the same electoral college "district" - i.e., the state - and the boundaries of the states were established sufficiently long ago (1912 []) that we can assume they were not deliberately designed to produce a certain electoral outcome today.

[] Two states have been admitted since 1912 - Alaska and Hawaii - but their borders match preexisting borders (the Alaska-Canada border was last altered in 1903).

The college itself is gerrymandering. It was set up to roughly represent population but to have an educated stop gap against a populist winning. With urbanization and different population growth it is now a system of disproportionate representation.

The people who drew state lines hundreds of years ago had no idea what things were going to look like in 2017; that's just stupid. Gerrymandering is drawing district lines to get a certain outcome. The state borders were not drawn to get a certain electoral outcome, they were drawn because of various political and geographic factors that existed in the 1700s. They didn't even have political parties at the time, nor did they even have a country in the eastern seaboard "states", since those were just independent colonies of England and there was no unification whatsoever. The whole "states" thing and unified federal country didn't come around until much later (the colonies were established in the 1600s, the revolution was in 1776).

The college produces different outcomes than a popular vote - that's true. I also don't think it's a good thing. But gerrymandering is something specific: drawing electoral districts to deliberately produce certain electoral outcomes. It presupposes a system with districts, but is not the same thing.

You know how 10% of counties win elections (see 2008, 2012)? The electoral college is there so that number doesn't become 2%.

First of all, I don't understand how the removal of the electoral college would cause an individual within a certain county to have more voting power, rather than less (wouldn't this be the case? Their "vote" would be equal to any of the other millions of Americans anywhere ? )

Second, I don't understand how in a "no electoral college" universe, the concept of a "county" is even relevant. With every vote being perfectly equal, one would think the balance of power would perfectly equalize across all voters.

Thank you for pointing this out. I was not thinking about it at the time and I will remember it for next time.

The GOP senators who won new seats in the Senate disagree with you.

It wasn't voter suppression that caused this result, it was 5+M people more than in 2008 staying at home and not voting.

I believe you are incorrect. I believe in 2008 it was about 132M and in 2016 it was 139M.

http://www.electproject.org/2008g http://www.electproject.org/2016g

I will also note that the poster you're replying to references gerrymandering as one of the causes of the election results not matching the votes; neither of your statements directly refute that.

http://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482150951/understanding-congre...

For some reason I really thought I saw figures that 5M fewer people voted than in '08. Maybe I'm comparing to '12? I'm too lazy to research this at the moment. However, your own page shows that the voter turnout was 2-3% lower between '08-'16.

As for gerrymandering, that only affects the House races, nothing else. The President isn't affected by that, only by the archaic and undemocratic Electoral College and the way state borders are drawn. The Senate is similar. The GOP swept all three.

I remember hearing the 5M number on the day of the election and maybe the day after, but not all the votes were counted at that point.

It looks like the voter turnout was pretty average. Going back to 1972, the turnout numbers are similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...

Thank you for the reminder about the limitations of gerrymandering!

Senate is 52-48 which doesn't seem like a sweep. This includes two independents which caucus with the Democrats. I think the Democrats actually picked up two seats, which doesn't seem like a sweep either. Also, in your previous comment, you said the GOP won some seats. Which seats were these?

Donald Trump had a victory margin in the bottom 10 of historical elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...

> So before America can accomplish anything, we need to get a highly educated population that is rich enough to be able to afford the time to research complex local, statewide, and national politics.

Believe it or not, it's not a full-time job. Given that we've seen poll after poll showing that the average voter couldn't pass a 6th grade civics class, but I don't see how cutting education spending is the real problem. We spend plenty on education. If that were the root of the problem then the districts which spend the most money would have the best grades, but there's not a strong correlation there.

We spend money poorly, but we spend plenty. There are a lot of things that could improve the American education system, but one thing has been shown conclusively to not do any good on its own and that's spending more money.

Money is not interchangeable with free speech. That's a myth promoted by the moneyholders. Free speech law in the US protects content, not form.

If government can prevent people from rallying near a party convention, government can prevent people from bribing candidates for office.

> Like it or not, money and free speech are interfungible

I know what you mean (interchangeable?), and the problem is that it only goes one way. With money, you can purchase "free speech," e.g. in CA, you can pay signature gatherers a few million to put a proposition on the ballot, because signatures cost a couple bucks apiece. But you can't easily turn free speech into money: 100 million people could send nasty letters to the Koch brothers, and they'd be told to pound sand.

Fair enough, but the more money you have, the more people can hear you and you can't infringe on the ability to spend money in a campaign without infringing, to some extent, on the right to Free Speech.

I do not agree at all that campaign finance reform would be detrimental to free speech. If anything, it'd be a boom for free speech, because you wouldn't have a few ultra-rich people dominating the conversation. Limit everyone to $1000 per fiscal tax year of political donations. This can be given to candidates, or to PACs. The wealthy will still get more, because they're more likely to afford $1000, but average people won't be drowned out.

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