Another way of looking at this would be in terms of the millionaire managerial and professional class holding up the Democratic Party versus the interests of the billionaire aristocratic and executive class holding up the Republican Party.

The billionaires are far less numerous, have far better ability to coordinate and summon resources, and have interests that diverge farther from the thousandaires who actually do most of the voting, compared to the millionaires.

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jfengel 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The term "holding up" is doing a lot of work here. The Republican party has an extremely enthusiastic voter base. Billionaire money might encourage the enthusiasm but in the end the voters turn out and pull levers. They are sincere in their voting.

The Democrats are a bit less enthusiastic, at least at the moment, but in the end it's not the millionaires who pull the levers. It's the rank and file.

It's hard to tell how different it would be if we could somehow get the money out of it. But I am wary of assuming that the voters would dramatically change their attitudes. The millionaires and billionaires tune the party's message to what the voters want. They get the spoils but they're also making their voters happy, assuming they win. If they didn't do that, they'd lose.

It's possible that the Democrats are more conspicuously failing to give their voters what they want when they win. But it's not obvious to me how they could do that. Most of the suggestions I hear are naive and impractical, and come down to "do the thing I want and many millions of others will see how great that is."

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econ 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For election to work you would have to read [all of] the [not legally binding] election programs, ponder the offerings and make up your own mind.

You won't find a single person who does this.

Apparently everyone votes by a different mechanism. One that involves a lot of money.

Even if everyone was well informed and able to objectively make their own choices that are truly their own. You don't actually have to do anything you wrote in your election program.

	▲	threatofrain 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We don't become legal experts to run a business, we hire lawyers. We don’t become doctors to aid in our own health either. So too should people find ways to delegate and evaluate economic and policy analysis.

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laserlight 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> it's not the millionaires who pull the levers. It's the rank and file.

“People can vote whichever side they prefer, as long as their opinions are based on fake news.” It's difficult to talk about rank and file pulling the levers, when millionaires manufacture the news.

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jfengel 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You say that because you know that the news is fake, and you know that because it's not really that difficult to figure out at least an approximation of the truth. You know who are the abject liars (because they routinely tell outright falsehoods), and you know who at least tries to get it right even if they sometimes fail at it.

It's not that hard. People seek out the fake news; the millionaires and billionaires are just providing slightly better versions of it. They could be doing really sophisticated propaganda but they just don't have to. People are pleased to believe the most outlandish lies if it affirms their egos.

	▲	laserlight 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's not that hard when you have proper education, scientific practice, understanding that you don't have to succumb to the fear pumped by those in power, and surplus time and energy to put everything in perspective in a constantly changing world. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's difficult to break out of one's echo chamber.