Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley is 15% Republican and 53% Democrat [1]. Tech is a highly skewed industry. 98% of Netflix employees donated to Democrats in 2020, 77% of Amazon employees. Overall 84% of political donations in major tech companies goes to Democrats [2].

https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/governance/civic-en...

https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-employees-donate-overwhelm...

View on HN

If you look at the chart over time it looks like 'no party preference' is eating the republican side of the graph. It looks like the republican party is fracturing, which is great because we need more than two political parties. I wish the other side would break up too.

> I wish the other side would break up too.

At least in recent years independents (in Congress) have caucused with Democrats, but not Republicans. This is evidence that the Dems are slightly broken up already.

To get more fine-grained, each party has sub-divisions (e.g. "Freedom Caucus" in the Republican party). The real problem is that these sub-divisions basically don't cross over to allying with the other party on particular issues. If they ever do do that, and do it consistently (not as one-off decisions from individual representatives) then the US will effectively have a more than two party system.

But even if that happens, the actual people getting elected will almost always only have an R or a D after their name. First past the post, as it is done in the US, can't really sustain more than two competitive parties.

This is starting to change in SF

https://www.brionessociety.org/

Having a more-than-two-party system would require restructuring the Constitution entirely.

So let's do it. Start with South Africa's constitution as a model.

As soon as elected officials agree, it will happen. 99% of aaod officiala are in one of the 2 major parties.

Unless non elected-officials win a revolution.

They live very comfortable lives with the current two party system. If we had one party only they would have to take responsibility for what’s happening. With a two party system you always have the other side to blame. With more than two parties you start losing power. The current system is just perfect for putting on a good show for the plebes to keep them fighting each other while the powerful pull the strings in their own favor.

Firstly. Political parties were not around when the Constitution was written. The founders didn't want political parties, they were a British import Secondly. Why South Africa? since they ended apartheid, got rid of their nuclear weapons and did everything the international community expected of them South Africa has declined, it's no longer the gem of South Africa, and quality of life has reverted to the mean. Why would you make that your foundation? it's like saying American politics need to be more like Mexico

This is just a chart for Silicon Valley. The Republican party fractured in California since the 70s, that much is certain. The Democrats have enjoyed a supermajority monopoly in that state for quite some time. But this is not an indication of the country as a whole. Of course, in other areas, the Republican base got stronger since the 70s.

In the US land votes. I looked it up once how many large cities have a Republican mayor.

If the US ever abolishes the electoral college you'll see Democrats campaigning in rural Texas and Republicans in Silicon valley California because EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS. It would get both parties out of their comfort zone.

No. Abolishing the electoral college is a dumb idea akin to abolishing the European commission.

A large part of why Trump got so far and why the debt is so bad is because this institution intended as a forum for states and statesmen has become a shitty version of the the house of representatives it was intended to check because 17th amendment changed the franchise from the state as an institution to the state as a collection of people.

Those numbers are for individual donations; donors are legally required to disclose employer, but that doesn’t mean their employer was directing their donations.

To look at the “tech industry,” look at company-directed activity, primarily lobbying expenditures, corporate PAC donations, senior exec political donations, and especially the same categories at industry groups like trade associations. That picture is far more balanced between the parties.

BTW I would suggest looking elsewhere for your political info, Newsweek does terrible reporting on this stuff. The article you quote makes a basic mistake, confusing 98% of donations going to Democrats with 98% of employees giving to Democrats. Most Netflix employees did not make any political donations at all in 2020 (or indeed, ever).

I’d also add that there were two events relatively close to each other which I think shaped this a lot: California proposition 8 blocking gay rights in 2008 and the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United to legalize dark money. The cruelty of Prop 8 spurred unusual levels of reputational consequences for backers (on HN, notably Mozilla’s Brendon Eich) and I think that really pushed Silicon Valley Republicans to try to cloud as much of their donation history as possible. They can say our company supports diversity, donate to their company PAC, which donates to another PAC, and when that PAC backs something unpopular there isn’t a direct donation trail making it easy to have “<>.com executive J. Blow backed this candidate” blow up on social media or deter prospective hires.

That trend is only going to strengthen as the Republican Party stakes out positions which are unpopular outside their core supporters.

To be clear, donations from a person to a corporate PAC, and subsequent donations by that PAC, were not affected by Citizens United.

Citizens United removed limits on “outside expenditures,” but disclosure is still required. Netflix reported no outside expenditures in 2020, for expample (also viewable at Open Secrets).

supporting democratic candidates while working for companies that exacerbate the problems they supposed want to fix makes it hard for me to call someone a democrat unambiguously

which problems are you referring to?

That doesn't stop them spending in such a way that they achieve their aims regardless of which color of tie is more dominant in the corridors of power.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com