Swiss Billionaire’s Mega-Influence on U.S. Politics | Hacker News Reader

Swiss Billionaire’s Mega-Influence on U.S. Politics

realclearpolitics.com

31 pointsSirLJ34 comments

There's an undercurrent of special pleading in this reporting: conservative judicial activism is what got us into this mess and the last decade has seen conservative groups trounce progressive ones in terms of raising "dark" money, but it's suddenly a problem when a progressive foreigner plays by the same rules. Hmm.

And in case it isn't clear: I'd like to ban all private money from public elections. But there's a clear bias in the reporting here, which is unfortunately consistent with RCP "losing the plot" w/r/t being a nonpartisan news source.

>conservative groups trounce progressive ones in terms of raising "dark" money, but it's suddenly a problem when a progressive foreigner plays by the same rules.

What are some foreign conservative billionaires that we should be worried about?

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

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

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

(And yes, for instance Murdoch is technically an American citizen, but for technical reasons i.e. "to satisfy the legal requirement for US television network ownership.")

Aren't all 3 of those people American citizens?

There's a reason there's an operative "dark" in "dark money."

On net, I don't care if the billionaire is a foreigner or not. I care that they're a billionaire.

You seem to care about their political alignment as well, otherwise you wouldn't have attempted to discredit the RCP's reporting for having a bias against a foreign progressive billionaire.

Not especially. I do care about special pleading, particularly the when pleader is the one that lit the fire in question.

I would like there to be no private money in politics, full stop.

Vladimir Putin

Putin wants to destabilize. He's not trying to shape politics one way or another. He wants chaos and anarchy for his enemies. However, lots of billionnaires wish to influence society toward their "vision".

He’s a conservative foreign billionaire and influences US politics (which addressed the parent’s question in my opinion).

And he’s certainly trying to “shape politics one way or the other”. The whole disaster is in Ukraine is based on shaping geopolitics. And US conservative politicians and pundits have been used in the run up for that purpose

He cares about the old Soviet Union/Russian Empire glory days. That's it. He could not care less who's in the white house, he'll cause them trouble whoever they are --that's all he cares. He personally may be conservative but he is not trying to make the US conservative or liberal --it makes no diff to him.

Honestly has anyone ever been swayed by a political ad? I wonder if this is something both the left and the right freak out way too much about. I’m just not convinced people’s political opinions are that malleable.

Also, I do believe in the power of ads otherwise. But I wonder if politics is for most people, a little different, a little more tribal, like sports fandom.

The conventional wisdom is that political ads don't change people's minds about who to vote for, but they do change people's minds about whether to bother voting (or voting for a major party and not a throwaway third-party).

I wonder if it’s a self fulfilling prophecy to some extent. Like big money follows the tailwinds. Republican enthusiasm is high right now, maybe big democrat money isn’t being spent this cycle because of that. Idk, I have absolutely no data to back this up.

This cycle is a little different from other recent ones, though. Democrats are in charge of the White House, both houses of Congress, big media, big business (everything except the Supreme Court), and people's lives are still getting worse in ways they can't ignore. Money can buy messaging, but I don't think the truly-undecided public are buying it.

I vote independent often and had considered voting democrat a few times. The last few years have made me hope that party goes the way of the Whigs.

> Honestly has anyone ever been swayed by a political ad?

You may wish to 'enbiggen' your circle of friends and start associating with people on the left-hand side of the bell curve. For example, folks who take horse deworming medication for COVID:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin_during_the_COVID-19...

Further, modern propaganda does not try to convince ('The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model'):

* https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

> Despite being a power player in U.S. politics for decades, it was unclear whether or not Wyss is a permanent resident in the United States or an American citizen

According to https://www.wyssfoundation.org/about: "A native of Switzerland who now lives in Wilson, Wyoming"

Although I'm sure like any billionaire it's hard to pin down one place of residency - with such means at their disposal, surely they spend quite a lot of time in quite a lot of places.

Poor guy must have gotten priced out of Jackson Hole. Sad.

According to the Wikipedia page Wilson has the highest adjusted average gross income in the US[0].

I guess that's not too surprising when, out of just 1500 residents, one's a billionaire, one's a former US vice-president, another is a former Hollywood big shot, etc.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson,_Wyoming

>Wyss told Swiss reporter Giorgio V. Müller in a 2011 interview that “as a non-American" he was only barred from donating money in federal elections. “Otherwise,” he said at the time, “as a foreigner, everything was possible for me.”

Can someone explain in simple terms why wealthy individuals who are not US citizens can become so hell bent on influencing American politics? If you're so invested, just become a citizen!

Influencing the U.S. gives you the best leverage on your dollars. The U.S., for better or (more probably) worse, is the leading country of the West. It has the largest population, the largest economy, the dominant culture, and, most importantly, the largest military.

This is also why Israel lobbies and exerts such outsized influence the USG.

Most probably because United States influences them so much.

As an Iranian, United States politics have brought so much misery upon my country, I feel like we should get a vote in U.S elections at this point. Or I don't know like half a vote. Or 1/10 of a vote. I don't know somehow let us be heard our country which once was on the path of reforms and whatnot is being crushed under the weight of senseless sanctions!

Disclaimer: Current U.S. resident, rant over!

The short answer, from an American perspective: we love influencing the rest of the world, so they'd like to return the favor.

Plus, this way you don't have to pay US income tax.

So they're trying to improve America as revenge?

I don't see a revenge motive. More like "I believe my country/business/whatever is unduly influenced by this superpower, so I'm going to influence the superpower directly."

As a Canadian this is a good description of why I make a fair number of comments about US politics on the internet. I'm not sure I'd call it unduly though, it's somewhat inevitable that superpowers influence foreign politics.

Because America influences the world we live in. When you live in the empire, keep one eye on Rome.

Because the US loves to meddle in the policy of foreign countries. That's reason enough for powerful people in other countries to try to do the same in the US.

TLDR; America rules the world’s financial system, and much more. So the world has good reason to be interested in American politics.

American senators run shakedowns on whole countries.

Americans love to think they 'influence the rest of the world'. The reality is that a powerful cabal of billionaire offshore oligarchs such as Hansjörg Wyss effectively manipulate planetary politics to their ends. Given Wyss's altitude it seems likely he is meddling in many other sovereign state's politics too

The null hypothesis is that both dominate the world's politics. No need to be picky.

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/2031922/mercenar...

You should worry more about NRA, Reglious cults & Drug companies funding politics than any other business.

Americas stupidity is spreading even in developing world now. Concepts such as flatearth, creationist theory, anti-abortion, owning guns and mass shootings and ponzi schemes.

America is settings a bad example

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