This is very lazy slopulism, but I'll take a stab at defending lobbying. Lobbying is a way for relevant stakeholders to make their issues known. Are there problems with lobbying? Absolutely, but it's not bribery.
One one hand, lobbying means interfacing with government leaders directly; engaging in face to face communication, and building relationships so that your interests are heard. No one thinks that's bad.
However, the US has taken many steps since well before Citizens United to build a kind of legal fiction which has made bribes legal, which is wrapped in the same language as what I'll call "ethical lobbying." As the OP points out, as long as on the record there are enough levels of separation between the politician and the person or organization giving the money, it's completely fine. The fact that the CEO and the politician are having lunch together is just a coincidence as they are definitely old buddies who have a shared mutual friend.
This problem has existed for a while in the US, but the Citizens United decision and the expense of running re-election campaigns has made it far, far worse.
[0]https://www.protothema.gr/files/2025-03-06/ekthesi-lobbying....
“It’s just that a bag of cash is persuasive”. Well, no shit. It’s called bribery.
This is just a sleight of hand with definitions.
Lobbying, in practice, has turned into a form of bribery.
now consider if that is the entire set of stakeholders
National Association of Realtors – $3,751,000
Blue Cross/Blue Shield [health insurance] – $2,705,050
American Crystal Sugar [agriculture] – $2,667,500
National Beer Wholesalers Association – $2,585,000
American Israel Public Affairs Committee – $2,572,500
Operating Engineers Union – $2,528,306
America's Credit Unions – $2,489,160
American Bankers Association – $2,249,580
Sheet Metal, Air, Rail & Transportation Union – $2,226,900
Trump 47 Committee – $2,220,530
Given this list, it’s really hard to be surprised about how America operates internally, and which businesses are sacrosanct. You could produce this list to the questions “why is real estate so expensive? Why don’t we have free healthcare? Why do we care so much about Israel? etc.”
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
You can see any individual politicians and who they're funded by or see which industry funds which candidates
But now that Dark Money[0] is legal, there's limited value in these numbers
[0] https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/money-politics/influenc...
TIL
>1, Populism characterized by low-quality (often gen AI) memes and conspiracy theories.
>2, Populism characterized by vague, disingenuous, or excessively idealistic claims.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slopulism
I disagree with categorization though. Or now lower quality writing will be also branded as AI generated?
If only America was some kind of "representative" democracy where it was already the job of politicians to find this out.
If you get around that principle by paying, however indirectly, it's a degree of bribery.