you can't ban money in politics, and you're a moron if you think you can. it's a cat and mouse game that you can't win, and i'm not willing to waste my time pretending that you can.

it's not like elections weren't bought before these recent supreme court rulings. the difference is just whether it happens in public or behind closed doors. so, do you want to take the debate back to behind closed doors? because that's all you'll ever actually succeed in by passing laws that try to restrict the flow of cash.

and, it's no coincidence that the people pushing this - elizabeth warren, cenk uygur - pretty much all used to be republicans. it's an idea that you need to be a conservative in order to take seriously, because it's essentially rooted in the idea that the reason that people don't have any power is because there aren't any rules. leftists know better than this - we have a deeper analysis than that.

in theory, an informed electorate shouldn't care about who is paying who to do what because we'd know better than to fall for it. there is one rule that i'd like to put in place, but i don't think that sanders or warren (and this is more of a warren thing, because it comes from the right of the spectrum) even support it - i'd like you to have to make your contributions public, and that would include small donations. if you're going to donate to a political party, you should be prepared for that information to get entered into a publicly available, searchable database. that way, people like me can do the research and figure it out.

if we don't care enough to do the research, all the laws and rules in the world will make no actual difference. if we do care enough, it's just a question of figuring it out - and somebody will probably even do it for you.

the basic reality is that i'm just not in the group of voters that are getting targeted with these kinds of proposals, which are designed to appeal to fiscal conservatives. i legitimately haven't the slightest interest in this, and i'm not remotely intellectually invested into debating it or voting for it.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this