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Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

wsj.com

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Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#311

Post by iron0013 »

eej71 wrote: post #303
iron0013 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But by vote count, Clinton’s message clicked with more people than Trump’s did. That’s why he had to rely on the electoral college to “win” by negative-several-million votes.

Why dwell on an irrelevant number? It's not material to the presidential election. At all. There is no reason the mass media should even report it. It's not germane to the outcome. It only serves to confuse everyone. The rules for winning a presidential election are well known and well established. You have to win a majority of the electors spread over many states. This means composing a message that broadly resonate…

You said Clinton’s message “...just didn't click with a lot of people. Trump's did.” That’s a numerical comparison. Are you saying that X > X+3000000? It’s an incoherent claim, so find another argument.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#312

Post by mrguyorama »

jacob019 wrote: post #292
mrguyorama wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe republicans or "independent" voters will ever actually cross the aisle anymore. Trump still has massive MASSIVE support from registered republicans.

Less than a third of Americans identify as republican.

And that third gives Trump something like a 90% approval rating. My base assumption is that in order to win them over, you'd have to significantly match up with their world view. A significant part of their world view seems to be that "Democrat = bad" so that's kind of a non-starter, and I'm not sure I'd want someone elected who has compromised their platform, morals, principles, etc enough to be liked by people who still support Trump.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#313

Post by omegaworks »

zelias wrote: post #301

I'd respect the hell out of Bloomberg if he came out and said "damn right I'm buying this election...because the rules are that messed up" followed by a comprehensive plan to forever get money out of our elections.

I respect the guy that's said that very thing since he started running. Bernie is proving that we can win without corporate PAC money and he has a plan to get dark money out of politics.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#314

Post by zelly »

12xo wrote: post #306

I wonder if the entire race could be won by offering an incentive of sorts. Say a $50 Amazon gift card for every (new) voter who sends a pic of their vote receipt or something... Granted its a lot of money, but so is gifting billions to the media conglomerates for more (useless) ads...

It's entirely possible.

Make a publicly facing form on darknet to send in your vote receipt along with your full name, SSN, voter registration number, etc. (cross referenced against leaked databases) to prevent double dipping and spoofing. Send over $50 of Bitcoin (better yet Monero) on verification.

Literally no one can stop this.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#316

Post by brightstep »

takeda wrote: post #236
jdkee wrote: post #216

Why is it healthy for American democracy to have an oligarch purchase the U.S. Presidency like a shiny, new yacht?

Yeah it's really sad, Bloomberg essentially is Democratic version of Trump.

In some ways he's far more dangerous. He implemented a truly scary authoritarian police state during his term as mayor of New York City.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#317

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #305
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some humans are lazy and some humans are greedy. Capitalism exploits the greedy humans into generating wealth by rewarding them greatly, it also generates many jobs and assets for the economy. Yes that one person gets rewarded greatly, but many masses would not benefit if they never existed or were never motivated to do those things. The lazy humans will fleece the system until there's nothing left. Some people need…

Do you really believe that the billionaires are the virtuous ones and everybody else is lazy? My theory is that they have been able to focus the wealth the country generates on themselves instead of others. If all billionaires retired tomorrow I believe the country would keep working the same way and the economy would keep growing. Do you think e-commerce would be any smaller without Bezos? No way.

> Do you really believe that the billionaires are the virtuous ones and everybody else is lazy?

I literally called them greedy in my argument, not virtuous. I don't believe they are all virtuous, some might be. Some are seeking their passions. All are greedy in some capacity.

> If all billionaires retired tomorrow I believe the country would keep working the same way and the economy would keep growing.

I don't understand, we replace them with another person? Or would a government entity take over their assets they generated.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#318

Post by dagw »

takeda wrote: post #236
jdkee wrote: post #216

Why is it healthy for American democracy to have an oligarch purchase the U.S. Presidency like a shiny, new yacht?

Yeah it's really sad, Bloomberg essentially is Democratic version of Trump.

In what way, other than both being old, white, rich and from New York.

Trump wanted to tack hard away from the center and to tear down the Republican establishment and rebuild it with a more populist vision. Bloomberg is running to stop the Democrats from tacking away from the center and to 'protect' the party from those threatening to tear it down and rebuild it with a more populist image.

Trump ran as an outsider populist, Bloomberg as an insider technocrat.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#319

Post by tomjakubowski »

mrguyorama wrote: post #285
danso wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Party registration is not an immutable property.

I was pointing out that it was not "supposed" at all. Trump is a former democrat in exactly the same way that Bloomberg is a former republican. There was no reason to weasel word it

Bloomberg was elected two times as mayor on the Republican ticket. Trump was never elected as a Democrat.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#320

Post by tryitnow »

tropo wrote: post #274
jdkee wrote: post #216

Why is it healthy for American democracy to have an oligarch purchase the U.S. Presidency like a shiny, new yacht?

The alternatives are worse. The choices: 1. purchase it with their own money 2. purchase it with money from bribes 3. blackmail party insiders for the nomination and support Using their own money is the cleanest and most honest way to do things.

Not really. So far the biggest fundraiser in the Democratic primary has been Bernie Sanders and he has raised most of his money from small money donors.

So it's absolutely possible to raise money without using one's own money or taking bribes.

And even if a candidate raises money from a 100 billionaires, that's better than one billionaire. The more people you raise money from the more likely it is that those people have conflicts with one another that can then balance one another out.

A single billionaire financing their own campaign is just too much centralized power for my tastes, even if I trust that billionaire and generally like his policies.

Power corrupts.

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