If Mongolia pays a bunch of US citizens to vote for some candidate that promises to push the US towards militarily supporting Mongolia, do you think the First Amendment supports that?

Or more accurately, imagine if the US had special rules and exceptions for dual citizens of Mongolia and the US that don't exist for any other country and then it allowed those dual citizens to push for certain candidates without having to be registered as a foreign lobby.

Now try substituting Mongolia with Russia or China.

The First Amendment does not explicitly mention campaign spending (or political campaigns at all), and until 2010, the First Amendment was not considered to apply to monetary spending in political campaigns.

The right to petition the government is explicitly protected, but that doesn't apply in the case of IL-9, which was an open race and therefore none of the candidates were actually elected representatives.

They really interpret the First to protect lobbying and campaign donations?

I mean the Second as written also isn’t primarily about the right to pack heat, so it’s not that surprising.

Citizens United is an abomination. Its the reason we're in dire straits at present. It "legalized" bribery.

Money is speech, and is sacred, but books with gay people in them aren't speech, and need to be carefully controlled.

Citizens United cough

If donating money is free speech why don’t you try giving some to a group categorized as a terrorist organization

Oh I agree she ran a better campaign given that there isnt ranked chocie voting. Im just stating that I am very unhappy that 25% of the dem electorate are looking for clown meme candidates. Thats by far the biggest lesson from her campaign, 25% of primary voters do not care about anything other than memeage. I cant say thats a good way to get competent politicians but it is now the world we live in.

> But as for "better candidates", I'm sorry but my advice is "run a better camapign".

I know this is wishful thinking but itd be nice if politics had just a little bit of substance instead of purely being a popularity contest where competence at governing is irrelevant.

Also Kat still lost. If the progressives backed one of the local candidates they likely win, so its hard to really say she ran such a great campaign. She blew it for them

This is what I've been saying to the people who blame the voters for Trump's win in 2024. Democrats knew how dangerous he was and how weak of a candidate he should have been and they still decided to skip the primary and run an unpopular candidate so late in the race after it became clear that Biden wasn't going to make it after the first debate. They met a serious and decisive moment with incompetence and the public is facing the consequences of that. They should be taking this all more seriously and doing introspection on the loss rather than blaming the voters.

Did you miss the part where I pointed out that the results were identical to just one cycle ago where AIPAC wasn't a factor at all? I'm a politically engaged Illinois Democrat (to the point where I have precinct maps of CD7 and CD9 running for local political discussions), I understand what AIPAC was doing here. Unfortunately for your argument, it doesn't appear to have had any effect.