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Comment by 1337biz | Hacker News Reader

It is just an author's way to say 'I am a left winger'. If the author wanted to say 'I am a right winger' George Soros would take the role of the evil billionaire villain. Every group has its own enemies that help them strengthen their identity.

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Not long after I moved to Kansas in 2012, I received a postcard supporting some tea party idiot for the legislature. Was a four color printing on thick glossy paper. Paid for by the Koch's PAC Americans for Prosperity. I kept getting these cards every other day until the primary. By comparison, the campaign materials for the other candidates were clearly run off of someone's photocopy machine.

The cards, and bigger publications, started up again before the general. This is in a small rural district. This entire process was repeated across the state and was accompanied by constant television advertising. Led to Brownback getting enough support so he could get his infamous, and disastrous, tax cuts through the previously hostile legislature. Tax cuts strongly supported by the Kochs.

2014 and 2016 saw a repeat of this advertising blitz.

When the Democrats get angry at the Kochs, it's for good reasons. When I saw AFP interfering in something as small as my tiny district, I thought it was quite creepy. Soros's funding hasn't been even remotely as large nor as pervasive.

I understand the issues around campaign finance reform but what you are describing is one of the most transparent and open activism that is imaginable. They most likely target smaller elections where it is possible to swing results just by running a decent campaign with a setup that is easily scalable and reproducable across many districts.

Surely there's some underlying facts involved in this? I mean, if Koch is actually funding it and Soros isn't you can't just switch them.

No, but journalists set their priorities by what they are spending their time on. If you have some politically activist billionaires who invest in advocacy groups, you will always find some topic that angers your audience. The right just pushes the narrative that Sorros wants to regulate the Internet and funding all the Net Neutrality campaigns.

> No, but journalists set their priorities by what they are spending their time on. If you have some politically activist billionaires who invest in advocacy groups, you will always find some topic that angers your audience. The right just pushes the narrative that Sorros wants to regulate the Internet and funding all the Net Neutrality campaigns.

What does he gain from it? Motive is the determinant between activism and greed.

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