I know we've all grown terribly cynical. But even so...shouldn't putting money into the opposing party's primaries to support extreme candidates - then turning around in the general and saying those candidates are literally a threat to the continuance of our very system of government - be beyond the 'what a shrewd political move!' pale?
I know we've all grown terribly cynical. But even so...shouldn't putting money into the opposing party's primaries to support extreme candidates - then turning around in the general and saying those candidates are literally a threat to the continuance of our very system of government - be beyond the 'what a shrewd political move!' pale?
ItтАЩs free market politics. The real answer is stop fielding shitty candidates and fix your base. This whole strategy worked because the Republican base is unaligned with the rest of America, at least as far as getting non-partisan voters out during a midterm goes. Consider it an arbitrage that Democrats exploited.
And let it be known, this strategy is just as viable for the right to use. And they will, and they have. Going forward, state level Republicans could change their primaries or funding rules if they actually wanted this to stop.
Lastly, the people who really matter in this equation are the donors: itтАЩs their money being spent. And if it gets them the victory they want then itтАЩs money well spent. Expect more of this and celebrate it as the free market, capitalist, democratic technique it is, something conservatives should embrace.
This "might makes right" lecture is insulting on so many levels.
This administration of Democrats is a horrific disaster in almost any aspect of government and this election is a near guarantee they will get worse.
Your solution is "get dirtier tactics and rationalize it as the free market concept I willfully misunderstand."
If the American people vote to wreck their own country, so be it. No more sympathy for these fools.
But I'd love for you to give me an example of Republicans directly funding Democrats radicals and then publicly branding all Democrats as a threat to democracy. Because it never happened, and every liar like you saying "both sides are doing it" are justifying corruption because it favors your political power.
I appreciate your well stated post, but I can't agree. While it may be a winning approach for the team, dumping money into the opposing party's primaries to ensure ever more extreme candidates is awful for the body politic as a whole. Especially when it's coupled with general election campaigns couched in cataclysmic language about the 'end of democracy' in the event the extremist you made a candidate should win. In my opinion that approach destroys moderation, compromise, and ultimately stability.
Sure, but it makes it incumbent on the party to reign in the more extreme elements of its base. If your party is doing stuff most people disagree with, someone is going to take advantage of that.
My personal opinion is that the Dems and Republican parties are actually dead and weтАЩre dealing with zombies. While we fight one pushing its way through a boarded up window the other one is pushing up through the floorboards. Both are irrevocably corrupt, relentless and dangerous but also weak and vulnerable. Americans just havenтАЩt realized we can kill these monsters because weтАЩre trapped in a dilapidated shack with screaming idiots. Most people donтАЩt want Trump or Biden but all we hear are screams and moans.
Your argument is that, given the rules as they are, this is inevitable. The response is (a) sux that dems need laws in place to prevent them from acting in an anti social way like this, (b) ok then letтАЩs change the rules to block this behavior.
Agreed there are unhinged subsets in the rights base тАФ same for left. I see this as a consequence of these people not getting a good lot under current set up and theyтАЩre willing to turn to whomever expresses an interest in helping them. If we could find worthy leaders who would actually help them they wouldnтАЩt feel the need to turn to destructive outlets. My humble opinion for step 1: detach from China and promote onshoring.
I donтАЩt think thatтАЩs my point and this isnтАЩt a Democrat problem: funding oneтАЩs opponents is simply an obvious strategy in a system that uses money to determine political outcomes. Republicans use this tactic as well, itтАЩs just more obvious in this case because the Republican candidates had a bigger spread between the extreme and median positions.
IтАЩm a finance guy working in futures markets, so my brain organizes this into what looks like a set of correlated markets.
Imagine we have a market called American Governance (AG). Democrats on one side (the bid) and Republicans (the offer) sitting in opposite sides of a market. They are putting out positions and statements (orders) trying to determine where the median voter is (price discovery).
AG is usually pretty stable and may move up and down a lot, but the difference in opinions is tight, low volatility and has a lot of participants.
Now imagine each party has a separate market for their specific product, R and D. These markets are smaller (fewer participants) and the Buy/Sell pressure is about party platform issues, not actual governance. Only partisans pundits participate here setting the platform and agenda of the party. The тАЬpriceтАЭ here is the platform that determines where the orders on AG are placed.
Say in the D market there is some concern about a party position, letтАЩs say policing. New ideas (offers) about how the party should view policing come on the market. If the offer is accepted then the party platform sentiment (price) moves up or down in accordance. These markets will have larger swings in opinion however they largely track with the orders in the AG market. Think of the D market as having higher volatility (more up-and-down motion on the graph) but it averages out to a slope or curve which is reflected in the orders placed on AG. D moves fast and AG bids moves slowly but they are deeply correlated. (Think of something like the connection between cattle and two different feeds. The price of either feed can move around but the price of cattle changes much more slowly).
Normally, R and D track very closely with AG bid/offers, this would be represented as a spread market. Sometimes the spread becomes to large, in this case the R idea market drifted much higher than the matching R idea orders on AG. This created an arbitrage opportunity where a speculator in R (Dem investors) could sell that offer, driving that market higher and making it look like there was a bigger gap in the AG market than there actually is. This would push AG offers higher making the lower bids look more appealing.
Think of like this: the average American has an idea of what American democracy normally is, what the тАЬpriceтАЭ of AG should be. A little higher and a little lower create opportunities for them to buy and sell their shares looking to make a small profit (government improvements) but the price is very stable. If all of a sudden someone started saying the sell тАЬpriceтАЭ is actually way up here now, but the bid price isnтАЩt really moving much or moving more slowly away from that offer, people will take the low bid (ie buy low, sell high). If someone can make the R market move quickly up and sustain that higher offer, it will move the correlated offer in AG and create an arbitrage opportunity.
The only solution for this is regulation. The R and D markets have to control who participates and how big they want their markets to be. In order to keep sustained pressure in AG, they have to ensure R doesnтАЩt get too high (I.e. crazy) so they are incentivized to be moderate and punished for being out of step with AG consumer expectations.
However, if they are too strict with the R market, and it canтАЩt move to meet its party expectations it could also fail to adjust when actual AG sentiment is moving. 2016 primaries are an example of this.
I suppose this was confusing and long and I probably made some mistakes but in our political system money is speech so viewing it like a markets not only appropriate, itтАЩs necessary. We could always try to get money out of politics but the result might unintuitively be less price discovery and more political divergence. Overall, while it may look cynical it makes sense to me and not only reflects how markets regulate themselves but what the majority of Americans feel is the median position. Obviously, if youтАЩre a Republican you donтАЩt feel that way today, but itтАЩs important to consider what the alternatives would look like before simply tossing this into the тАЬDems are cynical assholes,тАЭ bucket.
I donтАЩt track it all but appreciate the write up. Your point that alternatives may be even poorer at identifying median desires is definitely interesting.
As for them claim that this is not a d problem: the mechanism you describe is clearly general. And I wouldnтАЩt be surprised if r also has been doing this. But IтАЩm not aware of examples.
Finally, I consider Trump himself to be an example of this dynamic. He was definitely pushed by the left in 2016, thinking heтАЩd be easy to beat. Wrong there. And i think itтАЩs well understood that the left has some strong motivations to push him again 2024: they have truly succeeded in getting a Pavlovian response from their base and beyond to Trump.
I agree Trump 2016 is an example of this dynamic. Interestingly I think it might also be a case of the opposite problem: American sentiment moving but the RтАЩs not changing to keep up that spread was exploited by Trump, to some extent.
IтАЩm fairly sure the analogy holds but would be interesting to test as an actual trade.
Yep. The price discovery we got from trump was useful.
Interesting point is that if one party swings outward it gives room for the other to swing in their own direction. This satisfies their base and they can still get elected so long as theyre closer to median than the opposition. In other words the pressure to return to the center is surprisingly not that strong. This is a mechanism for desiring the opposition to swing. Yet the best solution is at the center so the average person will not be happy with this outcome. тАж maybe this was your point.
Yes. It should. This celebrating from Common Sense is deeply disturbing.
The people of the USA have chosen a federal government that actively manipulates elections through news media and raids the homes of citizens for having the wrong politics.
And Common Sense is thrilled because it's bad for Trump.
Same argument applies to taking advantage of all the COVID voting rules. GOP seems unwilling to get "down and dirty" and play the ballot harvesting (and other) games. Why can't the NRCC start funding crazy left-wing extremists in democratic primaries?
A virtually impossible task as money is the lifeblod of professional campaign operatives.
You cant set limits on free speech which supporting s candidate is. However you might be able to corral the corruption.
My proposed effort.
The only money that can be spent promoting a candidate must come from a person who can vote for that candidate. No restriction on amount. Not sure one has a Constitutional right to fund someone they cant vote for. We have made that clear by banning certain contributions in the past. ( non citizens, who nonetheless have first amendment rights)
So in federal elections a person can donate to candidates for POTUS, 2 Senators and one Congressman. No donation out of state any more. No need to go all over the country to fundraise. Get it from home.
No PACs no billionaires donating across the country, no Union or Corp money, no Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer Senate PACs buying loyalty.
All campaign money left over is refunded pro rata to donors by Jan 1 after election.
Elected officials dont get pensions, just a salary and 401k and election finance fraud is jail time for violators.
Make people running for office fund a campaign from constituents not professional party hacks.
And what about the "in-kind" political contributions from the big media which cheerlead for a candidate and suppress negative stories? They are worth billions but are completely unregulated.
It is truly staggering how much money poured in from out of the state of Georgia to support the campaigns of Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff.
I know we've all grown terribly cynical. But even so...shouldn't putting money into the opposing party's primaries to support extreme candidates - then turning around in the general and saying those candidates are literally a threat to the continuance of our very system of government - be beyond the 'what a shrewd political move!' pale?
ItтАЩs free market politics. The real answer is stop fielding shitty candidates and fix your base. This whole strategy worked because the Republican base is unaligned with the rest of America, at least as far as getting non-partisan voters out during a midterm goes. Consider it an arbitrage that Democrats exploited.
And let it be known, this strategy is just as viable for the right to use. And they will, and they have. Going forward, state level Republicans could change their primaries or funding rules if they actually wanted this to stop.
Lastly, the people who really matter in this equation are the donors: itтАЩs their money being spent. And if it gets them the victory they want then itтАЩs money well spent. Expect more of this and celebrate it as the free market, capitalist, democratic technique it is, something conservatives should embrace.
This "might makes right" lecture is insulting on so many levels.
This administration of Democrats is a horrific disaster in almost any aspect of government and this election is a near guarantee they will get worse.
Your solution is "get dirtier tactics and rationalize it as the free market concept I willfully misunderstand."
If the American people vote to wreck their own country, so be it. No more sympathy for these fools.
But I'd love for you to give me an example of Republicans directly funding Democrats radicals and then publicly branding all Democrats as a threat to democracy. Because it never happened, and every liar like you saying "both sides are doing it" are justifying corruption because it favors your political power.
I appreciate your well stated post, but I can't agree. While it may be a winning approach for the team, dumping money into the opposing party's primaries to ensure ever more extreme candidates is awful for the body politic as a whole. Especially when it's coupled with general election campaigns couched in cataclysmic language about the 'end of democracy' in the event the extremist you made a candidate should win. In my opinion that approach destroys moderation, compromise, and ultimately stability.
Sure, but it makes it incumbent on the party to reign in the more extreme elements of its base. If your party is doing stuff most people disagree with, someone is going to take advantage of that.
My personal opinion is that the Dems and Republican parties are actually dead and weтАЩre dealing with zombies. While we fight one pushing its way through a boarded up window the other one is pushing up through the floorboards. Both are irrevocably corrupt, relentless and dangerous but also weak and vulnerable. Americans just havenтАЩt realized we can kill these monsters because weтАЩre trapped in a dilapidated shack with screaming idiots. Most people donтАЩt want Trump or Biden but all we hear are screams and moans.
Your argument is that, given the rules as they are, this is inevitable. The response is (a) sux that dems need laws in place to prevent them from acting in an anti social way like this, (b) ok then letтАЩs change the rules to block this behavior.
Agreed there are unhinged subsets in the rights base тАФ same for left. I see this as a consequence of these people not getting a good lot under current set up and theyтАЩre willing to turn to whomever expresses an interest in helping them. If we could find worthy leaders who would actually help them they wouldnтАЩt feel the need to turn to destructive outlets. My humble opinion for step 1: detach from China and promote onshoring.
I donтАЩt think thatтАЩs my point and this isnтАЩt a Democrat problem: funding oneтАЩs opponents is simply an obvious strategy in a system that uses money to determine political outcomes. Republicans use this tactic as well, itтАЩs just more obvious in this case because the Republican candidates had a bigger spread between the extreme and median positions.
IтАЩm a finance guy working in futures markets, so my brain organizes this into what looks like a set of correlated markets.
Imagine we have a market called American Governance (AG). Democrats on one side (the bid) and Republicans (the offer) sitting in opposite sides of a market. They are putting out positions and statements (orders) trying to determine where the median voter is (price discovery).
AG is usually pretty stable and may move up and down a lot, but the difference in opinions is tight, low volatility and has a lot of participants.
Now imagine each party has a separate market for their specific product, R and D. These markets are smaller (fewer participants) and the Buy/Sell pressure is about party platform issues, not actual governance. Only partisans pundits participate here setting the platform and agenda of the party. The тАЬpriceтАЭ here is the platform that determines where the orders on AG are placed.
Say in the D market there is some concern about a party position, letтАЩs say policing. New ideas (offers) about how the party should view policing come on the market. If the offer is accepted then the party platform sentiment (price) moves up or down in accordance. These markets will have larger swings in opinion however they largely track with the orders in the AG market. Think of the D market as having higher volatility (more up-and-down motion on the graph) but it averages out to a slope or curve which is reflected in the orders placed on AG. D moves fast and AG bids moves slowly but they are deeply correlated. (Think of something like the connection between cattle and two different feeds. The price of either feed can move around but the price of cattle changes much more slowly).
Normally, R and D track very closely with AG bid/offers, this would be represented as a spread market. Sometimes the spread becomes to large, in this case the R idea market drifted much higher than the matching R idea orders on AG. This created an arbitrage opportunity where a speculator in R (Dem investors) could sell that offer, driving that market higher and making it look like there was a bigger gap in the AG market than there actually is. This would push AG offers higher making the lower bids look more appealing.
Think of like this: the average American has an idea of what American democracy normally is, what the тАЬpriceтАЭ of AG should be. A little higher and a little lower create opportunities for them to buy and sell their shares looking to make a small profit (government improvements) but the price is very stable. If all of a sudden someone started saying the sell тАЬpriceтАЭ is actually way up here now, but the bid price isnтАЩt really moving much or moving more slowly away from that offer, people will take the low bid (ie buy low, sell high). If someone can make the R market move quickly up and sustain that higher offer, it will move the correlated offer in AG and create an arbitrage opportunity.
The only solution for this is regulation. The R and D markets have to control who participates and how big they want their markets to be. In order to keep sustained pressure in AG, they have to ensure R doesnтАЩt get too high (I.e. crazy) so they are incentivized to be moderate and punished for being out of step with AG consumer expectations.
However, if they are too strict with the R market, and it canтАЩt move to meet its party expectations it could also fail to adjust when actual AG sentiment is moving. 2016 primaries are an example of this.
I suppose this was confusing and long and I probably made some mistakes but in our political system money is speech so viewing it like a markets not only appropriate, itтАЩs necessary. We could always try to get money out of politics but the result might unintuitively be less price discovery and more political divergence. Overall, while it may look cynical it makes sense to me and not only reflects how markets regulate themselves but what the majority of Americans feel is the median position. Obviously, if youтАЩre a Republican you donтАЩt feel that way today, but itтАЩs important to consider what the alternatives would look like before simply tossing this into the тАЬDems are cynical assholes,тАЭ bucket.
I donтАЩt track it all but appreciate the write up. Your point that alternatives may be even poorer at identifying median desires is definitely interesting.
As for them claim that this is not a d problem: the mechanism you describe is clearly general. And I wouldnтАЩt be surprised if r also has been doing this. But IтАЩm not aware of examples.
Finally, I consider Trump himself to be an example of this dynamic. He was definitely pushed by the left in 2016, thinking heтАЩd be easy to beat. Wrong there. And i think itтАЩs well understood that the left has some strong motivations to push him again 2024: they have truly succeeded in getting a Pavlovian response from their base and beyond to Trump.
I agree Trump 2016 is an example of this dynamic. Interestingly I think it might also be a case of the opposite problem: American sentiment moving but the RтАЩs not changing to keep up that spread was exploited by Trump, to some extent.
IтАЩm fairly sure the analogy holds but would be interesting to test as an actual trade.
Yep. The price discovery we got from trump was useful.
Interesting point is that if one party swings outward it gives room for the other to swing in their own direction. This satisfies their base and they can still get elected so long as theyre closer to median than the opposition. In other words the pressure to return to the center is surprisingly not that strong. This is a mechanism for desiring the opposition to swing. Yet the best solution is at the center so the average person will not be happy with this outcome. тАж maybe this was your point.
No.
Yes. It should. This celebrating from Common Sense is deeply disturbing.
The people of the USA have chosen a federal government that actively manipulates elections through news media and raids the homes of citizens for having the wrong politics.
And Common Sense is thrilled because it's bad for Trump.
Any means to an end.
ThatтАЩs how the Dems rumble.
Same argument applies to taking advantage of all the COVID voting rules. GOP seems unwilling to get "down and dirty" and play the ballot harvesting (and other) games. Why can't the NRCC start funding crazy left-wing extremists in democratic primaries?
Sadly, it works. The problem is the open primary.
It should probably be regulated to be illegal, but тАЬmoney is speechтАЭ so here we are.
Agreed this is anti-social. Yet another reason motivating campaign finance reform.
A virtually impossible task as money is the lifeblod of professional campaign operatives.
You cant set limits on free speech which supporting s candidate is. However you might be able to corral the corruption.
My proposed effort.
The only money that can be spent promoting a candidate must come from a person who can vote for that candidate. No restriction on amount. Not sure one has a Constitutional right to fund someone they cant vote for. We have made that clear by banning certain contributions in the past. ( non citizens, who nonetheless have first amendment rights)
So in federal elections a person can donate to candidates for POTUS, 2 Senators and one Congressman. No donation out of state any more. No need to go all over the country to fundraise. Get it from home.
No PACs no billionaires donating across the country, no Union or Corp money, no Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer Senate PACs buying loyalty.
All campaign money left over is refunded pro rata to donors by Jan 1 after election.
Elected officials dont get pensions, just a salary and 401k and election finance fraud is jail time for violators.
Make people running for office fund a campaign from constituents not professional party hacks.
Sounds good to me. We sure have a problem with George Soros pouring money into pro crime and pro Gender Ideology causes/people - all over the place
And what about the "in-kind" political contributions from the big media which cheerlead for a candidate and suppress negative stories? They are worth billions but are completely unregulated.
It is truly staggering how much money poured in from out of the state of Georgia to support the campaigns of Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff.