$45 Million Per Month, As One Does

Fun fact:

George W Bush's entire campaign budget was 198 million dollars.

Citizens United is allowing this one billionaire to donate more than that by himself.

I have some ideas about what we should do with Musk and Trump, but they're against instance rules

Interesting fact about the timing. He started donating as soon as Trump promised to never release the Epstein files.

Billionaires shouldn’t exist. So many lives could be improved with this, it makes me sick.

I'm not American. Can someone explain how they are 'allowed' to do this? Similarly, how is the war chest created?

Dude was born and raised in South Africa pretending to be an American (much like Ted Cruz who was born in Canada) interfering in US elections. It’s fucked.

Probably tax deductible. Also, aren’t Tesla employees happy their owners gave their billionaire CEO a $50 billion bonus instead of sharing it with all their employees? Now they are just passing the bullshit bonus onto Trump instead of the middle class employees that work there.

Is there a website that tracks the whereabouts of billionaires? If not, how hard would that be to build and maintain?

Asking for a friend.

You get the president you voted paid for!

Wait, this is about Elon Musk. Why isn't it in the Musk community over at !technology@lemmy.world ?

Musk plans to give $45 mln a month to new pro-Trump PAC, WSJ reports

I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but the meme really wants you to believe that ordinary people have donation limits and rich people don't. This is an oversimplification.

The limit is still $3,300 in individual donations directly to a campaign, no matter who you are. There is no limit on individual contributions to a PAC, so long as the PAC doesn't work directly with any candidate or campaign when spending the money, and this also doesn't matter who you are.

There isn't a literal rule that separates the rich from the poor here. You too can donate your entire savings to a PAC without limits.

The real inequality is how much we can afford to donate. I won't ever have $45,000,000 in my life, so I won't ever get the level of political influence that people like Elon Musk can buy. I can try to exploit the same systems he does, but he'll always be able to exploit them more.

US is not a democracy, it is a plutocracy, an oligarchy

I was waiting for someone to bring this up, it would be hilarious if Biden does something to put a wrench in this plan as a last FU to the republicans

Musk is a dumb piece of shit that didn’t earn his money.

What's crazy is what its probably going towards.

AKA bombarding a handful of pour souls with ads and messaging in swing counties where it actually matters.

It seems like such a waste.

The funniest thing about this is as soon as he can trump will betray him.

can we all share some info about his daily habits? what his security detail looks like, etc?

EDIT: seriously. someone will do something with the info. we can coordinate without culpability.

I see, it's not as designed then... I'm not from US and I'm so confused every time I hear about rich people funding your politicians like it's perfectly alright and absolutely not fucked up.

There were liberal billionaires holding purse strings about college students protesting the killings in Gaza. This isn't a one-party problem. Though Repubs are more blatant about their corruption because they no longer have any shame.

"Broligarch"

Youve heard of corporations are people, now get ready for one person is a corporation.

How long you suppose the economy can recover if we ban billionaires and rule that they share their profits rather than hoard them?

If only a liberal could become a billionaire.

But, they have morals and don't want to ruin people's lives on the way to the top.

I really wonder why so many of the super-rich back Trump. He has a really bad track record when it comes to honoring contracts, let alone promises. Add to it that he already tried to overthrow democracy, in which case your campaign contributions would become worthless the moment he manages to seize power.

damn, think of all the great lawyers he'll be able to afford now

The worst part is that it works. People are too busy trying to stay affloat they just go by the ads they see and hear.

Regardless of donation limits, election is an innately oligarchic feature. Election strongly favors candidates with money and time to spare. Elections also favor those with wide and influential social networks.

When you want to choose a candidate from amongst the elite, elections are great. If you want a democratic choice, you have to use sortition - choosing at random from the whole eligible pool, like we do for juries.

So...you just copied this from a tweet a few posts down, and made it ugly? Nice job.

yes thats what im fucking saying

I understand the general sentiment, but this whole "we're no longer a democracy" is at best bullshit and at worst a dangerous statement to repeat. There's a lot to fix in the US democracy (and somehow money involved isn't even the most critical issue right now), but simply stating it doesn't exist could empower some really destructive behaviour. Try living next to Russia for some perspective.

How many billionaires are there? How many do the Republicans “have”?

"Elon Musk says" not a Elon fan but where did he say that? I have only seen them say "Sources close to". If he actually does it and we have records yes it is bad. But right now it's just a rumor.