Shame on Y Combinator
Citizens United and McCutcheon were such disasters for our democracy. Hopelessly partisan 5-4 votes from the USSC as well. No surprise given the way big money usually leans.<p>Corporations aren&#x27;t people, and money isn&#x27;t speech, no matter what five people in robes say.<p>The problem here isn&#x27;t who Thiel supports, it&#x27;s that he has the ability to throw $1,250,000 on a whim to that person. Very, very, <i>very</i> few people can do that.<p>The reason millionaires and billionaires funnel so much money into elections isn&#x27;t for the hell of it. It&#x27;s because they know that money buys advertising, attack ads, etc. They know it helps their side win. Because yes, there are many stupid people in this country who are easily swayed by these tactics.<p>Yes, we all know it&#x27;s not a guarantee that the candidate with the most money wins. But wealthy people (mostly) aren&#x27;t stupid: they wouldn&#x27;t be spending the money if they knew it wouldn&#x27;t sway any votes.<p>It&#x27;s not about buying the election, it&#x27;s about increasing their chances of winning. An analogy would be buying 1000000 raffle tickets instead of 1 like most other people get. But our entire democracy is based around the idea of one person, one vote. Allowing unlimited money into politics effectively gives <i>vastly</i> more votes to the wealthy.<p>Get the money out of politics and it&#x27;s no longer an issue how big of a piece of shit Thiel is. He can like whoever he wants to and I couldn&#x27;t care less. Oh shoot, I hope he doesn&#x27;t see this and start bankrolling vendetta lawsuits against me now :&#x2F;