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Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

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321–330 of 553 posts

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#321
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...

In many states it is illegal to share a photo of your ballot.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#322
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...

Secret ballots prevent that kind of attack. Everywhere I have voted in the US, at least, doesn't include ballot selections on the receipt.

I saw someone recording a video of themselves selecting the choices on the voting kiosk. No one is going to stop you from doing that, nor would it be practical to try.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, but hasn't money always played a big role in politics? It's hard to define where a wealthy persons legitimate advantage lies and when it becomes purchasing the presidency. I'm all for a meritocracy, but getting money out of politics doesn't seem like anything easily solved.

The amount of money Bloomberg can/is using to buy this election is unprecedented in a Presidential candidate. The simple definition for attempting to buy the presidency is "any money you control", including your bank account, your business, dark money groups, etc. Elections should be funded entirely by donations from individuals.

Ok but I'm saying even with these rules wealthy people will have an advantage in many ways. Funding for a campaign is just one element of an elite wealthy candidates advantages, this guy has his own press and no one can do anything about that. But like I also said I agree that in an ideal system it's a pure mertirocracy for the jobs qualifications, that in practice is very hard to get though.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#324
post #216

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

What is healthy, is that an American spent his money how he liked, the American media is free enough to have reported on it, American citizens are now well-informed enough to know that some of the folks they talk to online are paid, and the American election will be based on the interactions of a free people.

He's not purchasing anything - as long as Americans care enough to be informed, he's blowing hot air that no one will believe.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#325
post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

It seems a lot of people seem upset is because it works ( as in, polls reflect some movement ).

That said, Biden was up in polls initially based on name recognition alone.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#326
post #75

So he's hiring a bunch of barely-over minimum wage workers to spread his message... and? What do you think the other politicians are doing with the millions they raise? This isn't a story.

Big difference between money sourced from individual donors and money sourced from an individual. In the former case, money represents the collective will of a group of supporters. In the latter, it represents the will of one rich guy. That's not democracy.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#327

What a fascinating choice between two New York billionaires. A populist carnival barker vs. a man who built his own personal tech/media empire. I'd bet dollars to donuts Mike's got a tech team in place right now that is running rings around the DNC's haphazard patronage party.

Most of us have until Super Tuesday (March 3rd) to choose literally any other option.

Look up your state to find the rules that apply to you:

https://voteforbernie.org/

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the moral limit should be set in a way that all citizens benefit from a growing economy equally. I view it as a moral failing of a society that the upper x percent are steadily increase their share of the output of the economy while a majority doesn’t benefit much from growth.

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…

There is absolutely nothing socialistic about any of the campaigns in the running. You're just creating a straw man.

Accruing capital almost never has anything to do with hard work or laziness. It's a lot of luck. What family you were born into, what area of the world, if you had parents growing up etc. You could be the laziest POS and have more money than you could spend in a lifetime.

Tax-funded education and healthcare is necessary to offset some of the insane luck a trust fund kid has vs kid with a single mother with debt and no inheritance in sight. So everyone can have a fair shot at participating in capitalism. Nothing remotely socialistic about it.

Re: Bloomberg bankrolls a social-media army

#330
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. Also it's not about explicitly buying votes but there's a lot of lower information voters out there who currently are pri…

> A big difference is Bloomberg currently is 100% self funding his campaign while the '16 Hillary campaign had a lot of money yes but it came from donors supporting her. Bloomberg is self funding and is only where he is because of the massive amount of money he's throwing around from his own pocket. It's not clear at all that Bloomberg would have failed had he run a traditional campaign. I'm not bothered by self-fund…

I'm not saying it's a 1 to 1 correlation between dollars spent and winning just that without being able to spend piles of money a lot of people who've gone from Biden to him wouldn't have heard much about him and that his large spending is artificially increasing his numbers in polls above where'd they be if he didn't have the funds to spam states later in the primary cycle.

No 'low information' is just that people who don't, either through apathy, time or lack of interest, seek out or read that much about the various campaigns. Tons of smart people are low information.

Also your vote might not literally be for sale but it's definitely influenced by the amount of media and information you see about campaigns which is correlated with money. Consider the degenerate case of a campaign with nearly zero money but a perfect fit with your politics. Can't vote for it if you haven't heard of it.

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