To have an even bigger impact, consider supporting the DLCC. They strategically support Democratic candidates for state legislatures. Swinging a state legislative body to majority D has a huge impact on people's lives.
For the democrats here in the spirit of directing money downballot, my girlfriend and her sister were asking today where a good place to donate some money would be. I came up with three house dems in Lean Republican races who are viable but getting outraised by republican incumbents.
Becca Cooke (Wisconsin's 3rd) Blue Dog endorsed first time candidate, has a primary against a more liberal sitting state legislator
Missy Cotter Smasal (Virginia's 2nd) Navy vet as is standard in this Virginia Beach district, she won her primary and is DCCC endorsed but needs to close the gap against the Republican incumbent in cash
Carl Marlinga (Michigan's 10th) Came within a point of winning this seat in 2022 despite being heavily outspent, hopefully can pickup the few thousands more votes he needs with some more money
I feel this fact is largely ignored when people complain about Citizens United. Clearly, that case involved balancing concerns about money buying elections with the free speech issues involved in allowing the government to draw lines between corporations like the NYT and a corporation formed to film a movie critical of Hillary Clinton (plantiffs in CU).
The diminishing returns of donations renders the risk of buying elections much less serious and suggests there would be other equally effective means -- for instance if we simply went back to partial public funding by removing the requirement that you need to limit other donations to recieve it.
--
Besides, I think it also points to the fact that the real underlying issue isn't whether or not donations occur via a corporate form or not -- that's still an individual's money -- but about reforming corporate governance so that, eg, corporations can't spend money on lobbying without a supermajority of shareholders approving of it.
Like with the Superb Owl, I'm always amazed just how much ads cost, and how relatively little bang one gets on average for the buck. (Buck fifty now with inflation.) "Free" earned media seems much more efficient by comparison.
I've heard that a large factor in newly-rightly-reborn tech donors is Biden's unrealized capital gains tax proposals. More than most other industries, the wealth one can accumulate via scrappy startups and VC bets is tied to equity that won't pay off for quite awhile, if at all...so taxing these potentially-illusory unrealized gains makes the whole calculus not pencil out. Obviously, for some donors like Elon, throwing one's hat rightward is hardly a surprise at all. I just think it'd be worth contextualizing a bit that this is a pretty ordinary self-interested shift, beyond the usual schmooze-with-winners, not some highly mysterious and sudden lurch. All that needed to happen was some justification that provides social cover for open Trump support - and the suboptimal debate certainly did that and then some.
(It's an interesting tangential question how much of the Bay Area's general lefty libertinism is sincerely held, versus maintained by such permission structures and fear of interpersonal/career consequences for defecting.)
Nate Silver’s recent kerfuffle with the DNC chair is interesting. Matt recently said he trusts Nate’s models more than those generated by political scientists because Nate is a degenerate gambler. I think Matt has his causal direction wrong. Nate Silver is inherently non-tribal. Some people do not embrace their herd with the same commitment as others. Nate has a high degree of commitment to truth as he sees it. He does not allow tribal loyalty to diminish his view of what is true. He minimizes motivated reasoning and just calls balls and strikes.
MY is unusually non-tribal in his thinking for a guy that is such a normie and engaged Democrat. This is why I subscribe. But his partisan attitude does make him less smart about seeing truth. The Biden age thing is a good example. I said (and many others) Biden is too old. People pushed back on this simple arithmetic because their partisan views made them dumb. Matt eventually got there. But it’s easy to see Matt’s tribal loyalty decreases his IQ.
Silver appears to be the most rigorous truth teller in the “take” business. It’s not because he’s a gambler it’s because it’s who he is. Which is why he said the DNC chair is a lying coward. Because it’s true.
A subtle note to add clarity to what I’m saying. I’m a Sam Harris fan. Sam largely is a truth teller and even wrote a book on lying and how it’s corrosive. But Sam has his blind spot not related to a tribe but to a way of seeing the world. Sam believes in institutions. I do too. But his loyalty there has him pulling punches on Fauci and other institutional leaders. He did this because he didn’t want to give aid and comfort to conspiracy theorists like his ex-buddy Bret Weinstein. I understand that but I did think slight less of Sam for not saying what was true.
Hedging in truth telling because we’re concerned either giving ammunition to bad people is a common thing. Some people do it so much that they become essentially dishonest. Sam and MY are definitely not there. But most politically partisan “take” people are.
There has been a lot of talk about free speech absolutism lately. I would love to see a group in our political ecosystem that are truth absolutist. I think this would be much better than the current politically motivated misinformation experts. I know it sounds like another fact checking operation but we still haven’t gotten that right. A group dedicated purely to truth as we know it and acknowledging the proper context would be good. Fuck the consequences. If Trump is right about something then he is right end of story. No thinking about the consequences of acknowledging truth.
Nate Silver is the closest thing I’ve seen to this. I hope the Democrats beat Trump and the DNC chair is a lying coward. That’s awesome!
Matt's whole point was that Nate's gambling spirit is why he's vigorously non-tribal. He cares more about making correct calls than seeing one group always win. It's like the sports bettor who refuses to root for any team, because he knows there will be opportunities where it's best to bet against any team.
I understand but he does it even when he doesn’t have money on the line in the form of a bet. It’s who he is outside of gambling. And it likely makes him a better gambler. The gambling doesn’t make him more honest.
Josh Chafetz on why the claim that throwing out Chevron will "empower Congress" is ridiculous:
"The Looper Bright decision purports to empower Congress, but in fact partakes of a larger program of judicial self-aggrandizement at the expense of both Congress and the agencies. Potential congressional responses include both changes to statutory drafting and increases in congressional capacity. These responses would be salutary, but they are not sufficient. At the end of the day, the Supreme Court's anti-administrative bent is a major obstacle to public policymaking, and will remain so until the court either is reigned in or changes in tune."
The power that could rein in the court most effectively is Congress and yet its inability to act is the reason why the court must be reined in...seems like an interesting catch-22.
It's more that SCOTUS is trying strip power away from Congress and give it to the judiciary and that's bad for a number of reasons and Congress should fight back rather than just making a Larry David face.
They are trying to strip power away from the presidency and the agencies its controls. Whether you consider that a good thing or a bad thing, that's what happens with less deference to the agencies' interpretation of the law.
I could maybe buy the pro-Congress argument if we didn't have a filibuster and a normal parliament without weird gerrymandering, and the umpteen years of Congressional inaction.
I was basically agreeing w/ the Tweet. In a world where we had true Congressional supremacy, like the UK has, I could see the argument against Chevron, but the Court knows Congress won't really act, and as a result, they get an unpopular right-wing policy most people won't understand.
When it comes to money in races I think it's better to think of there being a sort of minimum threshold you need to have to become viable and above that the law of diminishing returns starts to really kick in. Take the recent Bownman race, obviously 20 million dollars is an absurd amount of money to spend on a house primary but that's not why Bowman lost. He lost because he took a lot of unpopular positions with voters in a new district that wasn't a good fit for him. BUT had his opponent been some obscure city councilmember with no money Bowman might very well have hung on due to the power of incumbency.
I wish we’d ban political advertising and today’s whole reality TV show process.
Instead of party primaries, something like a 3 round election, where it’s a wide open field for round 1, top 5 for round 2, and then always the final 2 for the last round. Structure campaigns as a series of debates and town hall events aired on PBS and NPR.
Combine that with Ben’s earlier idea of shortening the campaigns, these rounds could be like one month each, so a total campaign season of 3 months.
Something like that would allow voters to actually vote for their preferred candidate (especially in round 2), and could *hopefully* tilt the campaign to focus on policy debate and persuasion.
Isn't banning political advertising just going to further tilt the field in favour of electing celebrities who already have "built in" advertising? Do you consider that a good thing?
Beyond the 1st amendment issues that COT mentions, you also have to address that fact that the majority of the country has no idea who *most* candidates are and by banning political advertising you give enormous advantage to people who are already celebrities/well known.
Good article, though using "one of the largest electoral landslides of the 21st century" when talking about a presidential election is like saying "one of the most cost-effective American infrastructure projects of the 21st century" or "one of the most widely read poems of the 21st century".
On popular vote, sure. But there’s a chance that the electoral college looks very lopslided, which, to the less attentive voter will look like a huge landslide.
Matt, you hit it at the end. The mega donors are buying access, either for their egos or for their business interests What I find striking is how little it all costs compared with the potential benefits. Trump’s policies on EVs and China are worth billions to Elon Musk. Spending a few percent of that to get on Trump’s good side? Easy, right?
I think the most effective form of advertising these days would not be ads, but rather memes. They're cheap to produce, and a viral image or short video clip can have a much larger reach than a TV or paid ad.
It's worth noting that, even though Amy McGrath lost badly in 2020, she did outperform Joe Biden by about 2%. Her $100 million of campaign spending probably had something to do with that.
I mean, strong progressive Charles Booker ran with far less money in 2022 and got .04 percent less than McGrath - maybe the reality is only about 38% of people in Kentucky want to send a 21st century Democrat to the Senate, no matter how moderate or progressive they are.
To have an even bigger impact, consider supporting the DLCC. They strategically support Democratic candidates for state legislatures. Swinging a state legislative body to majority D has a huge impact on people's lives.
https://dlcc.org/
Can you please do a lit review of whatever research exists on the highest ROI way to spend money in a city council race?
For the democrats here in the spirit of directing money downballot, my girlfriend and her sister were asking today where a good place to donate some money would be. I came up with three house dems in Lean Republican races who are viable but getting outraised by republican incumbents.
Becca Cooke (Wisconsin's 3rd) Blue Dog endorsed first time candidate, has a primary against a more liberal sitting state legislator
Missy Cotter Smasal (Virginia's 2nd) Navy vet as is standard in this Virginia Beach district, she won her primary and is DCCC endorsed but needs to close the gap against the Republican incumbent in cash
Carl Marlinga (Michigan's 10th) Came within a point of winning this seat in 2022 despite being heavily outspent, hopefully can pickup the few thousands more votes he needs with some more money
I feel this fact is largely ignored when people complain about Citizens United. Clearly, that case involved balancing concerns about money buying elections with the free speech issues involved in allowing the government to draw lines between corporations like the NYT and a corporation formed to film a movie critical of Hillary Clinton (plantiffs in CU).
The diminishing returns of donations renders the risk of buying elections much less serious and suggests there would be other equally effective means -- for instance if we simply went back to partial public funding by removing the requirement that you need to limit other donations to recieve it.
--
Besides, I think it also points to the fact that the real underlying issue isn't whether or not donations occur via a corporate form or not -- that's still an individual's money -- but about reforming corporate governance so that, eg, corporations can't spend money on lobbying without a supermajority of shareholders approving of it.
I used to think it was possible to change people’s minds, but after reading this, I now know it’s not possible.
iswydt
Like with the Superb Owl, I'm always amazed just how much ads cost, and how relatively little bang one gets on average for the buck. (Buck fifty now with inflation.) "Free" earned media seems much more efficient by comparison.
I've heard that a large factor in newly-rightly-reborn tech donors is Biden's unrealized capital gains tax proposals. More than most other industries, the wealth one can accumulate via scrappy startups and VC bets is tied to equity that won't pay off for quite awhile, if at all...so taxing these potentially-illusory unrealized gains makes the whole calculus not pencil out. Obviously, for some donors like Elon, throwing one's hat rightward is hardly a surprise at all. I just think it'd be worth contextualizing a bit that this is a pretty ordinary self-interested shift, beyond the usual schmooze-with-winners, not some highly mysterious and sudden lurch. All that needed to happen was some justification that provides social cover for open Trump support - and the suboptimal debate certainly did that and then some.
(It's an interesting tangential question how much of the Bay Area's general lefty libertinism is sincerely held, versus maintained by such permission structures and fear of interpersonal/career consequences for defecting.)
"I’m assuming the Biden campaign used rigorous ad testing to determine the efficacy of certain ads"
Are we sure it's good to assume the Biden campaign did the smart thing?
Nate Silver’s recent kerfuffle with the DNC chair is interesting. Matt recently said he trusts Nate’s models more than those generated by political scientists because Nate is a degenerate gambler. I think Matt has his causal direction wrong. Nate Silver is inherently non-tribal. Some people do not embrace their herd with the same commitment as others. Nate has a high degree of commitment to truth as he sees it. He does not allow tribal loyalty to diminish his view of what is true. He minimizes motivated reasoning and just calls balls and strikes.
MY is unusually non-tribal in his thinking for a guy that is such a normie and engaged Democrat. This is why I subscribe. But his partisan attitude does make him less smart about seeing truth. The Biden age thing is a good example. I said (and many others) Biden is too old. People pushed back on this simple arithmetic because their partisan views made them dumb. Matt eventually got there. But it’s easy to see Matt’s tribal loyalty decreases his IQ.
Silver appears to be the most rigorous truth teller in the “take” business. It’s not because he’s a gambler it’s because it’s who he is. Which is why he said the DNC chair is a lying coward. Because it’s true.
A subtle note to add clarity to what I’m saying. I’m a Sam Harris fan. Sam largely is a truth teller and even wrote a book on lying and how it’s corrosive. But Sam has his blind spot not related to a tribe but to a way of seeing the world. Sam believes in institutions. I do too. But his loyalty there has him pulling punches on Fauci and other institutional leaders. He did this because he didn’t want to give aid and comfort to conspiracy theorists like his ex-buddy Bret Weinstein. I understand that but I did think slight less of Sam for not saying what was true.
Hedging in truth telling because we’re concerned either giving ammunition to bad people is a common thing. Some people do it so much that they become essentially dishonest. Sam and MY are definitely not there. But most politically partisan “take” people are.
There has been a lot of talk about free speech absolutism lately. I would love to see a group in our political ecosystem that are truth absolutist. I think this would be much better than the current politically motivated misinformation experts. I know it sounds like another fact checking operation but we still haven’t gotten that right. A group dedicated purely to truth as we know it and acknowledging the proper context would be good. Fuck the consequences. If Trump is right about something then he is right end of story. No thinking about the consequences of acknowledging truth.
Nate Silver is the closest thing I’ve seen to this. I hope the Democrats beat Trump and the DNC chair is a lying coward. That’s awesome!
Matt's whole point was that Nate's gambling spirit is why he's vigorously non-tribal. He cares more about making correct calls than seeing one group always win. It's like the sports bettor who refuses to root for any team, because he knows there will be opportunities where it's best to bet against any team.
I understand but he does it even when he doesn’t have money on the line in the form of a bet. It’s who he is outside of gambling. And it likely makes him a better gambler. The gambling doesn’t make him more honest.
Honestly I love Silver's bluntness and willingness to basically say "you're full of shit and I don't respect you" directly to public figures.
I will add a shout out to scientist Sabine Hossenfelder. I love her. A truth teller for sure.
Thank, you Matt! What if DEMS went all in for Healthcare-for-all--in all races, that was a key campaign promise?
Josh Chafetz on why the claim that throwing out Chevron will "empower Congress" is ridiculous:
"The Looper Bright decision purports to empower Congress, but in fact partakes of a larger program of judicial self-aggrandizement at the expense of both Congress and the agencies. Potential congressional responses include both changes to statutory drafting and increases in congressional capacity. These responses would be salutary, but they are not sufficient. At the end of the day, the Supreme Court's anti-administrative bent is a major obstacle to public policymaking, and will remain so until the court either is reigned in or changes in tune."
https://x.com/joshchafetz/status/1814318816710508676
The power that could rein in the court most effectively is Congress and yet its inability to act is the reason why the court must be reined in...seems like an interesting catch-22.
It's more that SCOTUS is trying strip power away from Congress and give it to the judiciary and that's bad for a number of reasons and Congress should fight back rather than just making a Larry David face.
They are trying to strip power away from the presidency and the agencies its controls. Whether you consider that a good thing or a bad thing, that's what happens with less deference to the agencies' interpretation of the law.
I could maybe buy the pro-Congress argument if we didn't have a filibuster and a normal parliament without weird gerrymandering, and the umpteen years of Congressional inaction.
I don't get what you're getting at here...
I was basically agreeing w/ the Tweet. In a world where we had true Congressional supremacy, like the UK has, I could see the argument against Chevron, but the Court knows Congress won't really act, and as a result, they get an unpopular right-wing policy most people won't understand.
When it comes to money in races I think it's better to think of there being a sort of minimum threshold you need to have to become viable and above that the law of diminishing returns starts to really kick in. Take the recent Bownman race, obviously 20 million dollars is an absurd amount of money to spend on a house primary but that's not why Bowman lost. He lost because he took a lot of unpopular positions with voters in a new district that wasn't a good fit for him. BUT had his opponent been some obscure city councilmember with no money Bowman might very well have hung on due to the power of incumbency.
My own half-baked take:
I wish we’d ban political advertising and today’s whole reality TV show process.
Instead of party primaries, something like a 3 round election, where it’s a wide open field for round 1, top 5 for round 2, and then always the final 2 for the last round. Structure campaigns as a series of debates and town hall events aired on PBS and NPR.
Combine that with Ben’s earlier idea of shortening the campaigns, these rounds could be like one month each, so a total campaign season of 3 months.
Something like that would allow voters to actually vote for their preferred candidate (especially in round 2), and could *hopefully* tilt the campaign to focus on policy debate and persuasion.
Isn't banning political advertising just going to further tilt the field in favour of electing celebrities who already have "built in" advertising? Do you consider that a good thing?
Beyond the 1st amendment issues that COT mentions, you also have to address that fact that the majority of the country has no idea who *most* candidates are and by banning political advertising you give enormous advantage to people who are already celebrities/well known.
A ban on political advertising would have to come with an end to primaries.
In that case, you'd vote for whoever the party you trust nominated, short of some scandal.
The First Amendment would stand in the way of a political advertising ban. I am coming around to endorsing a French style two round system though.
You shouldn’t legally be allowed to say that.
Good article, though using "one of the largest electoral landslides of the 21st century" when talking about a presidential election is like saying "one of the most cost-effective American infrastructure projects of the 21st century" or "one of the most widely read poems of the 21st century".
On popular vote, sure. But there’s a chance that the electoral college looks very lopslided, which, to the less attentive voter will look like a huge landslide.
Good ol' 1912: Woodrow Wilson gets only 41.8% of the popular vote, but an electoral vote landslide of 435-88-8.
Matt, you hit it at the end. The mega donors are buying access, either for their egos or for their business interests What I find striking is how little it all costs compared with the potential benefits. Trump’s policies on EVs and China are worth billions to Elon Musk. Spending a few percent of that to get on Trump’s good side? Easy, right?
“Matt, you hit it at the end. ”
This one was written by Ben Krauss.
Yep...I should have seen that! Ben, you hit it at the end!
I think the most effective form of advertising these days would not be ads, but rather memes. They're cheap to produce, and a viral image or short video clip can have a much larger reach than a TV or paid ad.
It's worth noting that, even though Amy McGrath lost badly in 2020, she did outperform Joe Biden by about 2%. Her $100 million of campaign spending probably had something to do with that.
I mean, strong progressive Charles Booker ran with far less money in 2022 and got .04 percent less than McGrath - maybe the reality is only about 38% of people in Kentucky want to send a 21st century Democrat to the Senate, no matter how moderate or progressive they are.