Politics

10177 readers

20 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Socialism

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Republican primary spending projected to approach or surpass $1 billion (www.npr.org)

submitted 1 year ago by Exaggeration207 to c/politics

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Like a never-ending arms race, the price to become president has skyrocketed.

In 2020, almost $6 billion was spent on the presidential race alone, roughly four times what it cost two decades ago. (Even adjusting for inflation, it cost almost three times as much as in 2000.)

Including congressional races, the cost was more than $14 billion, double that of 2016.

In the last open GOP primary in 2016, candidates spent roughly $400 million, followed closely by super PACs, for $768 million in total primary spending, according to the former Campaign Finance Institute (which has since merged with Open Secrets).

In this cycle, candidate spending is expected to jump to at least $500 million with super PACs again spending about the same or a little less than the campaigns.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Valliac 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Why can't we do like the UK does?

You can only campaign for a certain period of time (like, a month or two iirc)
You have a hard limit of what you can spend on said campaign
TV stations must give equal TV time to both parties, and parties can't start campaigning until a certain period after the election is announced.
EDIT: and they use ranked choice voting.

(I'm in the US so I'm pulling a lot of this from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong)

Yeah, people may still vote for an idiot. But it's an idiot they voted for, and not one that was bought for some company for tax breaks.

[–] Nanokindled 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The UK isn't even the best example of this. Denmark. Does it better. Campaign posters have to follow a specific format, can only be posted in specific places, and all candidates are publicly funded. Elections are cheap, quick, and (relatively) honest. Plus it's much harder to become a celebrity politician, or an extremely rich one.

[–] Valliac 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the info. I had a vague idea of UK elections, but didn't realize the specifics of other countries.

[–] AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I mean, I know why our elections don't work like that. Current politicians like the system that keeps them in office. It's also very difficult to change the process.

I strongly believe that until we fix the election process, everything we do is treating symptoms rather than the problem. In addition to the mentioned rules, I would add: Term limits, ending gerrymandering, banning stock ownership for politicians, and removing the electoral college.

How can we expect non-corrupt representatives, when the current system begs for money and has so many loopholes to profit from office?