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All political ads running on Google in the US

adstransparency.google.com

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Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#181

Post by AftHurrahWinch »

rqtwteye wrote: post #151
cedws wrote: post #67

Political advertising just makes democracy look like a total joke. If you can buy votes by shoving ads in peoples’ faces that’s not a democracy, that’s an oligarchy.

Germany doesn't have negative ads criticizing opponents (at least it didn't have them when I lived there). This makes them refreshingly boring. I would guess at least 90% of the US ads are basically "the other guy is bad. Be afraid" without much content. Getting rid of the negative ads would help a lot.

You might find this interesting!

"The Impact of Negative Political Advertisement on Voter Behaviour in Germany – an Experiment"

https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=f8324712...

"Negative campaigning has been a feature of German political campaigns from the very beginning of the Federal Republic... the central idea of this paper is to examine the considerable difference between negative campaigning in Germany compared with that in the US."

It seems like you're correct that German political ads are almost never US-style 'attack ads' because among Germans, "negative campaigning in Germany is much more risky for the attacker than the impact it may have on the attacked party"

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#182

Post by Yawrehto »

bakugo wrote: post #77
marcosdumay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder who the Republicans are aligned with... I can't think of an answer.

Not the economic elites, or at least not most of them, otherwise they'd be better funded. Hope that makes sense.

Excellent point, bakugo. Let's test this.

First, let's see what proportion of their contributions - measured in total dollars - are from individuals who donated under $200.

For Trump, that figure is 29.65 (https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/donald-tr...)

For Harris, it's 44.08 (https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/kamala-ha...)

Hmm. That's odd. Maybe we could see how much many they get from sources categorized as 'Labor' - unions and the like are unlikely to be economically elite. (Navigate to the 'Industry' tab for both.) Trump, $208,000. That's a fair bit.

Harris, $31,000,000.

But wait! It's possible the economic elite is funneling the money through big contributions, like PACs. So let's look at big contributions and who funded them the most (for Trump, the percent of money coming from big donors is 68.44; for Harris, it's 55.76)

The largest contributor to Trump's campaign is Timothy Mellon, at $125,000,000. The largest contributor to the Harris campaign, which was not an individual, donated under $60,000,000. (Go to 'Contributors')

There were 501,229 Trump donors and 2,224,602 Harris donors. So Trump supporters donated an average of $1,956 and Harris about $620 (counting all donations, from both outside and inside sources; check 'Demographics' and the 'Total Raised' row in Summary, I used the 'Combined' figure, for both).

Conclusion: The data supports the opposite of your claim -- Republicans appear to be the party of economic elites, while Democrats pull from a larger base that donates smaller contributions

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#183

Post by AftHurrahWinch »

sweeter wrote: post #126
unclad5968 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well anyone can buy ads so it's not really an oligarchy. What alternative would you propose for candidates to get they're name out?

anyone can buy ads but who buys the majority of ads and ads with the greatest overall impact and impression? That is very obviously skewed. Campaigns directly have limitations on these things, PACs however, do not. and to your question there, one example is to look at Japan. They give candidates an allotted minimum amount of time on TV for free. A candidate gets platformed purely by running. Not only that but we alre…

> and to your question there, one example is to look at Japan. They give candidates an allotted minimum amount of time on TV for free. A candidate gets platformed purely by running.

I would be willing to try it in one of our laboratories-of-democracy, but my expectation is that a lot of people would run just for the free opportunity to self-promote. "Hi my name is Ron Popeil and I'm running for city council. I firmly believe that every homeowner deserves, nay, needs a Ronco food dehydrator!"

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#184

Post by Terr_ »

outside1234 wrote: post #123
primitivesuave wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political advertising emerged within a decade of the birth of the republic. Abraham Lincoln famously had his face plastered everywhere, and his campaign monikers like "Honest Abe" are still in use today. The real push toward oligarchy, in my opinion, is the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs FEC. The only available remedy at this point is for the American electorate to stop relying on political ads and make…

This. Something like 5 people are almost entirely funding Trump's slump (hard to call this mess a campaign) towards the White House and for sure they are going to want pay back. This is what oligarchy looks like.

> Trump's slump [...] towards the White House

Somehow my mind supplies "slouch" instead, probably because of a poem [0]:

> And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

> Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi...

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#185

Post by AftHurrahWinch »

mwest217 wrote: post #38

Why in the world is a generic NY Times ad categorized as a political ad?

Good question. These ads don't look political to me:

The New York Times: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR047539896236...

The Economist: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR129237820966...

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#186

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lupusreal wrote: post #158
amadeuspagel wrote: post #90

Fascinating stuff. I went down a rabbit hole with this particlar ad: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR132650406472... It links to a website called fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website, and what initially made me curious was the idea of spending money to advertise a government website, getting this additional credibility. Like, if the facts are so strongl…

> fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website Are you being straight serious here, or are you doing a rhetoric thing where "I was confused" is just a shorthand for "I think some people might plausibly be confused" ? I could see some people who aren't net-saavy thinking that domain looks like a government website, but I'm surprised that anybody here might see a .com like that…

usps.com. amtrak.com. mta.info. These were just the first that came to mind.

I think there are specific reasons behind each of these, but the fact is that I am used to interacting with government websites that end in .com, so it wouldn't surprise me if some county's court system also used a .com.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#187

Post by labster »

fakedang wrote: post #125
outside1234 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Something like 5 people are almost entirely funding Trump's slump (hard to call this mess a campaign) towards the White House and for sure they are going to want pay back. This is what oligarchy looks like.

5 people? Last time I was on X, nearly every Silicon Valley/tech billionaire was crooning from the rooftops for Trump. You could argue it's the native X bias, but these were all the famous billionaires and multimillionaires who are top names in the SV space. All rooting for a Trump win, perhaps anticipating a quick Vance presidency.

Of course all of the billionaires are rooting for Trump, because they want to be in business next year. Harris will understand voting for other parties, but Trump punishes disloyalty.

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#188

Post by BobaFloutist »

lysace wrote: post #69
sneak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing what works in one with what works in the other is meaningless at best. The idea that any of these concepts could be generalized between the two is silly.

Ah, scale-ism. ;-) I can't instinctively imagine how the size of a nation could realistically impact the results of this particular decision (banning political ads). Could you perhaps propose a realistic theory?

Well, there's an enormous amount more money to be made in the United States with political advertising, so you're going to get a great deal more pushback from advertisers on any such attempt /s

Re: All political ads running on Google in the US

#190

Post by lysace »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #188
lysace wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, scale-ism. ;-) I can't instinctively imagine how the size of a nation could realistically impact the results of this particular decision (banning political ads). Could you perhaps propose a realistic theory?

Well, there's an enormous amount more money to be made in the United States with political advertising, so you're going to get a great deal more pushback from advertisers on any such attempt /s

:-)
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