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Comment by drawkbox | Hacker News Reader

> from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square.

Are you not doing as exactly as you are highlighting?

If there were underlying forces at work that were foreign would that not mean it wasn't fair and square?

Citizens United vs FEC[1] unfortunate decision in 2011 led to infusions of foreign funds[2] that outnumber what US citizens are legally allowed to contribute. Too much money and now foreign money that is the real problem, it reared it's ugly head in 2016 no matter who won.

We have to backtrack on Citizens United vs the FEC decision or else foreign countries and oligarchs will be deciding every election. If that becomes the norm, it was a good run for the United States but it will be ending.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

[2] https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-...

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The winning candidate spent significantly less money in this instance.

Also I tend to agree with Citizens United. Unions and Corporations should be allowed to express their views on a candidate.

If there is someone running for office and making a BS claim about steel workers, I would want steelworkers unions to have the right to advertise and inform me that it is BS.

Also if you get into issue based stuff, it becomes extremely overzealous to prevent unions and Corporations from being able to speak up during an election. Planned parenthood, for example, has a lot of misconceptions about it, they should have the right to do something about that.

I also understand the scope for abuse with citizens united, but I don't think curtailing first amendment rights is ever a good idea.

Probably worth noting that I'm not American, my opinion of this case is shaped by my listening to SCOTUS oral arguments of the case on YouTube many years ago.

The winning candidate won by something like negative three million votes. What other country would consider that a democratic outcome?

In Canada the Government is occasionally elected without the majority of votes. It is also where the Prime Minister is simply the "first among the caucus" and not elected in a separate election.

These are referred to as "minority" Governments.

Any other country where the election isn't based on the nationwide popular vote.

Because it was not a popular vote. And people voting were aware it was not a popular vote.

You cannot divine now how many would-be Trump voters in blue states stayed home versus would-be Clinton voters in red states.

AFAIK basically all other democracies function this way - using voting districts - never using direct representation to elect representatives [1].

One similar example of this is the recent German election - I believe AFD had like ~10% of the popular vote, but only won 5% of seats in the parliament.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_representation

Germany (and NZ) use MMP - everyone gets 2 votes one to select someone for their local voting district - that provides half the seats in parliament, the other vote is for a party, these votes are used to choose the other half of the seats which, taking into consideration the parties of the local representatives who have already been elected, are used to pad out the party representatives to match the country wide party vote.

In both countries there is a threshold (5% party votes) that a party must get to get party seats ... looking online in 2013 AFD (spit) got less than 5%, below the threshold, and got no seats, in the recent election they got above the threshold and were awarded 92 seats (14%) - seems to me that the system is working as designed.

But just because they got seats it doesn't mean that the other parties are required to stoop to form a government with them.

MMP is a far better system than the FPP system used in many other places, most people end up with someone they voted for representing them, unless they are in an extreme minority (<5%), and it's pretty immune to gerrymandering. Personally I'd argue for reducing the 5% threshold to the size of one seat so even more people are represented.

Plus the two million eligible voters who were denied their right to vote.

But who’s counting?

It’s more fun to argue about facebook, benghazi, email servers, value voters, likeability...

> The winning candidate spent significantly less money in this instance.

Possibly, or political systems are ripe for misdirecting where funds originate now.

> Unions and Corporations should be allowed to express their views on a candidate.

Totally agree, the problem becomes when those are shell corporations or money funneled via foreign entities.

I am sure any sovereign nation would not want the majority of the money influencing their own people's choices from external sources to the country.

It just wouldn't be best for quality of life and making sure what is done is right for the country if the actual citizens have less say in the direction of it. So much money is in now that targeting and manipulation of votes from foreign wealth is the absolute norm, that is poisoning democracy and freedom, the very thing we want to protect and are sworn to uphold.

Trump received billions in free advertising in the form of “earned media”.

I don’t know if one could even account for all the third party spending.

Money is not speech, corporations are not people.

Any one who cares about free speech would advocate for restoring the Fairness Doctrine, so we know that angle is just rhetoric.

> Money is not speech

What does this even mean? It costs money to put advertisements in mass media. Either you believe everybody should be able to do that, or you believe that only some people should be able to address the public at large.

Why do you assume public political discourse should cost money?

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

The fairness doctrine enforces two sides of view, aligning nicely with two parties. But, most issues don't have two sides. Some have three, four, or five and some have just one side. The fairness doctrine is gone because it wasn't good, not because of some conspiracy around money and speech.

How did you make the leap from pay-to-play to conspiracies?

Sure Unions and Corporations should be allowed to express their views on a candidate. But np more than any other individual - that's the real problem, money amplifies people's (or corporation's) voices and corporations have a lot more money to spend on elections than the median voter

How do you frame that kind of thinking today though? Pewdiepie can reach 3.2 million people with a YouTube video. As can hundreds of podcasters. That's more effective than any ad. If Joe Rogan does 50 podcasts with folks pushing one narrative, and the corporations and unions who support that narrative donate to his patreon page as a result, how do you enforce this?

If The Young Turks do 3000 hours of pro Hillary content, which is watched and shared by millions, how do you propose they be regulated? If unions simply give them money instead, rather than buying ads on TV, is that now illegal?

If I am a billionaire and my fellow billionaires and I want to start a TV channel where we do 24 hour marathons promoting clean energy and encouraging voters to vote for candidates who will bring us clean energy, my right to do this is taken away?

> Pewdiepie can reach 3.2 million people with a YouTube video

Yeah, but how many of them are old enough to vote? :-P

> The winning candidate spent significantly less money in this instance.

Citizens United likely isn't the only fix that's needed, but it never should have been reversed regardless. That said, perhaps if CU was still around this analytics company would have never got off the ground to begin with.

We have to backtrack on Citizens United vs the FEC decision or else foreign countries and oligarchs will be deciding every election.

You are saying that the dollar amount spent decides every election. Do you really believe that democracy is nothing more than rule by whoever spends the most money?

You are saying that the dollar amount spent decides every election. Do you really believe that democracy is nothing more than rule by whoever spends the most money?

Not entirely but is has a very big impact, are you saying that money spent in an election doesn't have an impact? We don't even know the true dollars spent anymore...

Follow up, do you want MORE foreign funds deciding elections for your nation over what citizens and national companies contribute?

This isn't just for elections either, this is for legislation after election... I don't believe anyone would want foreign money deciding their leaders, best interests and laws.

foreign money deciding their leaders

Again you assume that money directly decides who our leaders are. The best evidence says it works at least partially the other way around: the leaders most likely to win attract the most money. And as was pointed out already in this thread: the winning candidate in this election was the one with less financial backing.

Furthermore to the extent it is true that money influences elections, we need to solve that problem first - rather than suggesting, as you do, that our leaders ought to be "bought and paid for" by our own home-grown evil corporations and special-interest groups. What kind of improvement is that?

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