Unless that’s the cost of maintaining the facade.
That is of course assuming they’re not myopic reactionary morons which they sure seem to be.
they spent millions to push their candidate within the partys
The prevalence of “no on prop 40” here in CA was wild. Especially since its such a no brainer of a proposition it doesnt need a counter campaign. The big argument against it is that if they can tax billionaires, they could tax the normals too. Its so out of touch the campaign forgot that normal people get taxed all the fucking time. We literally vote for new taxes. Its such a wild concept for the rich.
That’s the exact argument we got (*meaning, WA state has a millionaire tax that the billionaires are trying to repeal)! It’s hilarious.
“Will they stop at millionaires?!” We might go a little lower, but yeah, not much.
We vote in new taxes for ourselves all the time. They act like it doesnt come out of our pockets all the time. Its just a nonsense argument.
I’m in one of the least interesting general elections and it’s still important for the propositions. (The real interesting stuff was in the primary, though!).
Vote! And if you have a time machine, vote in the primary too! (And if you don’t, vote in the next primary!)
The do to make you believe your vote matters
Cory Doctorow (highly recommend his writings btw) said it best: "Is voting politics? Well, sure, but voting is to politics as shopping is to boycotts. For several decades now, most voters have been asked to chose the lesser of two evils (and now they’re asked to choose the significantly lesser of two evils). Voting can change things, when there’s something good to vote for, or something very bad to vote against, and when lots of people show up at the polls.
But to make voting effective, you have to do politics. You have to get involved in the primary races that select the candidate. You have to go to candidates’ meetings and ask tough questions. You have to ring doorbells for your chosen candidate, volunteer to take your neighbors to the polls and volunteer to defend the polls from chuds and ICE fascists. The part of voting that takes place in the booth is the least important part of politics."
Full blog post: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/#stop-fucking-that-chicken
To be clear, I am not saying “don’t vote.” I am saying “vote, and then also encourage everyone you know to vote. Become that one person your elected officials dread showing up in town halls, because you’re going to loudly demand that they keep their campaign promises.”
Cory Doctorow is very smart and a visionary technologist, but not a voting expert. Voting is always a critical part of meaningful social change.
Part of using the ballot as a force of change is participating in local organizing and running for local office.
The “don’t bother” messaging is 95% from Russian troll farms.
There’s just SO many of them here. I wish the mods/admins would fucking do something about it. But they’re too worrried about their civility rules being upheld. Aparenrly, you can urge people to not-vote against fascism as long as you’re polite about it.
I wish Ukraine would do us (and ultimately themselves) a favor there.
Shhh, they haven’t seen this new thread yet. You’re calling them.
Let them come, it’s good entertainment. They fall into a very fascinating intersection of pseudo-intellectualism, hubris, and privilege. It’s an absolute riot watching them defend the deaths of minorities as necessary. They’ll either double over backwards with some weird logic or just shout Gaza.
They give leftists a bad name
Yeah, they’re not leftists.
They’re not leftists, they’re either paid shitheads, bots or fascists.
Paid to give leftists a bad name, but I do think there are quite a few that actually believe what they’re selling. It’s a lack of critical thinking
Maybe there is a small percentage, but I doubt they would be so aggressive on election morning before most of America woke up.
b-b-b-b-but they’re both bad!!! I am very smart.
b-b-b-b-but they’re both bad!!!
Nah, the new hotness straight from .ml is that voting for anybody = uncritical support of fascism and genocide. Apparently, the only way to save Palestine is to sit on your ass at home and post internet memes.
Some so-called anarchists also have a similar opinion
Yes, in the way a tooth ache and getting curb stomped are both bad.
I compare it to cancer and chemo.
Uh-oh here we go again
There are also Billionaires spending fortunes on Dems. There’s probably some bias toward republicans but it’s not like it’s only one party getting money dumped on it. Maybe billionaires aren’t special and get caught up in the same culture war political bullshit as everyone else.
There’s probably some bias toward republicans but it’s not like it’s only one party getting money dumped on it.
So you didn’t read the article you shared?
Did you? There’s pretty clearly billionsaire democrat donors in there.
They never do
Begging for the smallest amount of critical thinking 😭
We can look at the info a company publishes. Let’s look at Meta in 2026: https://www.meta.com/people-practices/meta-political-engagement/
- PAC contributions: roughly 60/40 split between dem and GOP candidates
- Corporate donations: roughly 70/30 split between dem and GOP affiliated recipients, roughly 60% of total spending to non-partisan recipients.
Lobbying links aren’t working for me.
Billionaires don’t care who is in power as long as their interests are protected. Despite the massive amount of pandering and ass kissing Meta does with Trump, they are using their money strategically to back candidates who will support their interests in races where there interests are going to be impacted.
Begging for the smallest amount of critical thinking 😭
[bad-faith “both sides” propaganda redacted]
Welp, considering you’re currently at -14 as I type this, I’d say you got what you begged for!
Well put!
Found the Russian bot
Psyop bullshit.
Pounded with facts and logic!
I’m not sure what message you are trying to convey with this image, do you want to elaborate? (Genuine question)
- Meta is clearly not a representative sample
- Twice as much money is going to the GOP compared to the Dems.
Fair point on Meta, it was the first company that came to mind and I didn’t do any investigation to see if it was representative. It’s also a company and not individual contributions like the graphic you shared.
I still don’t think it’s useful to look at total spend to each “party” vs the spread of spend from each source and what they are targeting. I’m not arguing against the idea that billionaires are seeking to influence elections. Of course they do. But what I think is important to consider is what specific races they are funding and why.
I still don’t think it’s useful to look at total spend to each “party” vs the spread of spend from each source and what they are targeting.
Party represents what they are targeting, because party lines are how much of our legislation is defined. For example, low taxes on wealth is associated more with Republicans, and less restriction on abortion rights is associated with Democrats. Even if they may sometimes mix across party lines, they tend to have extremely strong correlations between party and policy, so donating to a given party is effectively donating for the policies they tend to represent.
The largest donors donate vastly more to Republicans than they do to democrats.
If you want individual policy, it lines up.
Big-tech PACs donated 2-to-1 toward Republicans and Republican-aligned ad and influence campaigns in favor of data center construction: https://www.industrialinfo.com/news/article/money-votes-and-data-centers-will-political-spending-overcome-rising-public-opposition-to-data-cente--359789
Billionaires have outspent on ads to fight a one-time billionaire’s tax in California 250-to-1 https://www.commondreams.org/news/wealth-tax-opponents-spending
Law enforcement PACs spend lots of money on Democrats… https://readsludge.com/2020/06/24/law-enforcement-pacs-give-millions-to-the-politicians-who-set-their-budgets/ …and Democrats shift to being more pro-police. https://truthout.org/articles/in-2024-platform-democrats-lurch-right-on-policing-and-immigration/
Again, it’s not that these issues don’t sometimes mix across party lines, the police spending is a good example of that, but generally speaking when a party receives donations, it’s because the donors believe they are supporting that party’s political positions.
Biden got a solid chunk of gold from the Apple Chairman? I don’t remember that.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/07/tim-cook-gift-to-trump/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook
id like to have a gold ingot too
I’m not sure where I said that.
