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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> AIPAC is a lobby, just like many other lobbies

Sure. One among many. They’re influential, but not deterministic.

> that they've paid $53M to politicians

No, they don’t. They’re reporting campaign donations.

There is a tendency, when we disagree with an election, to tally up the donations made to the other side while ignoring all the times the best-funded candidate got trounced. (Jeb!) The influence of money in politics is one of sharply-diminishing returns. It is invaluable for name recognition. It doesn’t swing people on fundamental issues.

Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular. Partly because of our Jewish diaspora. Partly because they were a reliable ally. And partly because they give us a lot of money. But two out of three of those factors also apply to the Gulf states, and we tend to be a bit less deferential to them because they’re just not as popular.

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https://x.com/goddeketal/status/1934945918047998203/photo/1

aipac is boasting about funding majority of congress and is openly forcing candidates to pledge loyalty. If they dont pledge, they unleash the usual tools: funding the competing candidate, non-stop smearing campaigns via israeli-loyal media outlets and ethnically jewish journalists (==all mainstream media), bogus accusations of "antisemitism" and etc

> aipac is boasting about funding majority of congress and is openly forcing candidates to pledge loyalty. If they dont pledge, they unleash the usual tools

Sure. The NRA does the same. There are various pro-Palestinian groups who also did the same last cycle; they may have helped swing Michigan for Trump.

Spending money doesn’t change minds, it helps activate latent sentiment. Particularly on low-priority issues, which foreign policy usually is for most electeds.

spending money absolutely does change minds of a politician, this is the main purpose of a lobby and this is how proposals become laws.

for example the most recent bogus "IHRA definition of antisemitism" was heavily lobbied and coordinated. This is the prime example of what money can do in politics

Have you paid for a lobbyist or effected legislation?

You can raise and lower magnitudes. But you can’t change the sign of a position. Not unless it’s an issue the elected has literally never heard of before. (Or cannot remember. Lots of geriatrics.)

Also, $50mm nationally is simply not a lot. There are individual leftist donors with strong pro-Palestinian views injecting that much into the media stream.

aipac is a middle-of-the-pack spender at best.

Its about impact, not only funding, because aipac has not only carrot ($$$), but also a stick (an army of lapdog press journos willing to write and smear anybody for anything).

Just tells you how thrifty they are

> The influence of money in politics is one of sharply-diminishing returns. It is invaluable for name recognition

This part is true.

> There is a tendency, when we disagree with an election, to tally up the donations made to the other side while ignoring all the times the best-funded candidate got trounced. (Jeb!)

While this is too specific to a particular type of election to hold true in general (no pun intended). The POTUS election is almost by definition the most high profile election in the US, therefore the money does the least to boost your name recognition, as evidenced by $2B in "free" media publicity for the 2016 winner.

However, the WH is not the only race that matters. According to https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c... "For house seats, more than 90 percent of the candidates who spend the most win."

This article goes into great length to explain why correlation does not mean causation, but it also makes the case that a lot of the races that are indeed somewhat low-profile, and that's where money makes the big impact.

> it also makes the case that a lot of the races that are indeed somewhat low-profile, and that's where money makes the big impact

I will amend my prior statements to be constrained to national politics. You can absolutely buy policy at the state and local level, because if you’re a candidate’s sole sugar daddy you have obvious influence over and goodwill owed from them.

The moment a candidate gains a profile, however, that channel becomes a two-way street. Donors will donate to maintain access and goodwill. Refusing to donate means being cut off; the elected has the leverage.

Despite your presumption that US policy is set "because it's popular" it empirically is not: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Israel's sway has more to do with the power it holds over the political classes rather than because of its "natural" popularity. It spends billions trying to sway public opinion, which is increasingly ineffective, but despite this their vise like hold over the American political class remains firm.

This includes not only lobbying bribes and Epstein-like blackmail and lavish funding for anybody who wants to run against an anti genocide candidate.

Russia behaves very similarly in countries it seeks to influence and plenty of naive people are driven to believe that that their relative success at doing this just means that theyre naturally popular there.

> Despite your presumption that US policy is set "because it's popular" it empirically is not

Not what I claimed.

Vocal, motivated minorities who are willing to back a primary challenger, show or not show to off-cycle elections and potentially even switch parties over an issue command in American elections. What the majority loosely believes is irrelevant; this should be common knowledge given how our partisan primary system works.

The loose majority in American elections doesn’t care about foreign policy. A motivated minority does, and that minority has historically—in both parties—broken decisively in favour of Israel. This issue, moreover, was one that was important enough to enough of them to be a deal breaker. (And “them” doesn’t just mean American or even Israeli Jews. It encompasses a wide variety of liberal, neo-conservative and evangelical interests, for example.)

Not everywhere. But in enough places that if you’re a politician from one of the majority of places where Israel is a total non-issue, you don’t want to alienate your colleagues for whom it is an issue. Because there was no upside to fighting a battle against Israel, again, nobody in your district was going to reward you for going de Blasio on out-of-scope problems.

> Israel's sway has more to do with the power it holds over the political classes

Sure. The point is the “political classes” are those people who are willing to back a primary challenger, show or not show to off-cycle elections and potentially even switch parties over an issue. It’s far more similar to how NIMBY politics work than Russia’s election interference, which has a track record of backfiring more than helping.

>Not what I claimed

Yet what you directly claimed hinges upon this fallacy.

>Vocal, motivated minorities who are willing to back a primary challenger

Or foreign countries.

(is Russia also a "vocal, motivated minority" in Moldova...? or is it just plain and simple foreign meddling? Russia believes it's motivated minorities).

>What the majority loosely believes is irrelevant

Sure. But, this would make your clain of "Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular" uniquely self-contradictory.

> what you directly claimed hinges upon this fallacy

No. It doesn’t. It’s why I never cite general popularity for Israel. Only strong favour for and against.

> this would make your clain of "Israel has had unique sway in America because for most of its history it has been uniquely popular" completely untrue

Nope. Israel has a vocal minority that loves it. It has not had, until last last year, a vocal minority that hates it. Most people don’t care, and when they gave a view on caring, it was mild support. That’s a unique popularity profile that I don’t think any other country, other than maybe Cubans, have held.

Even today, very few voters would trade pocketbook issues for a pro-Palestinian policy portfolio. Several would for a pro-Israeli one.

It’s a tempting tale, and simplifying model, to assume unilateral causes of policies. Sometimes that is true. In this case, the theory requires a level of coördination across decades and the American public that borders on anti-vaccine levels of delusion. (It’s also, again, a self-defeating mythology. If Israel’s influence is untouchable, it isn’t worth touching.)

>It doesn’t. It’s why I never cite general popularity for Israel

Yet you cited "Israel is uniquely popular" as a reason for why they get their way.

Which is not true.

>Israel has a vocal minority that loves it. It has not had, until last last year, a vocal minority that hates it

It not only had a vocal minority that hates it it had a vocal minority of Jews that loathe it.

The minorities arent the point though, the money and the foreign influence over America's government is.

Remember the "vocal minority" in Moldova who fight for pro Russian policy? Theyre not "vocal minorities" thats just Russia.

Israel is no different. It's a foreign country taking control over the American government.

>Even today, very few voters would trade pocketbook issues for a pro-Palestinian policy portfolio

That's probably increasingly less true these days (genocide isnt a historically popular policy) but beside the point.

The "minority" which operates on behalf of a foreign government is getting real close to ramming $200 per barrel oil down everybody's throats not because theyre "motivated" but because America is run along plutocratic lines and is fully captured by that foreign government.

>It’s a tempting tale, and simplifying model, to assume unilateral causes of policies

I assume that'd where the "uniquely popular" thing came from.

To say that Israel has fully captured the American government is ridiculous. Pro-Israel spending is a fraction of all political spending.

take aipac, which barely scratches the top 10 of single-issue focused organizations. Aipac donated 43 mil to campaigns in 2023-24. The League of Conservation Warriors donated 50 million. Is the U.S. gov't being captured by environmental advocacy groups?

If you look at foreign agent registered spending, Israel spent 5.7 million in 2024. Compare that with China who spent 5.8 billion with a B.

Israel's influence is not just about how much money it spends openly on candidates and AIPAC is not the only foreign agent of Israel channeling cash to political campaigns.

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