Lottery winner
If someone won $500,000,000 in the lottery, what would be the most effective way to spend it to change the political situation in America?
Edit: Asking for a friend. Also; as much as I appreciate the violent suggestions, I’m thinking more positively focused.
You can't. That's not enough money.
Make the lives of your community better instead.
I think some of y'all are really overestimating how much politicians cost. I don't have a photogenic memory but I remember a few years ago on an article like this politicians were being paid like $70k.
I can't decide if this is intentional boneappletea or not, but either way I love you.
There's a huge difference between what they're paid by the state and what their backers pump in to put and keep the 'right' (wrong) people in power.
You’d start by attending $10,000 plate dinners, and shaking hands with candidates and expressing views. Hire a few $60k a year idealists for a think tank to publish papers. Pick 1-2 issues and hammer them. Pay lobbyists to set up meeting and propose/write legislation and amendments.
As some of your (hopefully idealistic) candidates win, you ask them to help drive your issues through. Get them to make concessions to other people’s proposals for support on theirs, helped by your lobbyists. Use your think tank to drove issues and provide talking points and legislation.
That’s the traditional view. A better approach might be to create a 501c3 and run positive message ads that give you a warm feeling about america in general, say nothing of substance, and include a candidate you like’s name sometimes. Then another pac showing pictures of the candidate you don’t like and chanting “hate hate hate” behind them. Play to your audience.
Hire a couple people who are really good at making memes and other easy to digest content relative to your cause, then hire 1000 3rd world workers to constantly spam that content on the 10 biggest social media outlets, chat boards, etc. being sure to hit all the big groups that are in the ballpark of your cause. Amplify existing messages favorable to your cause with reposts and reactions.
Basically just a big astroturfing campaign.
Fuck, if only i was good at making memes. I'll just have to keep spreading seeds and hope the grass takes root!
My first move is to think about safety and longevity. I'm going to need a private island as a base of operations. Caution also dictates having a few backup homes, so my enemies never really know where I am. Beyond that, I need to spread my message, so I'm going to need a private plane. Something modest and a few years old is fine. This is a charitable effort. It isn't about me. And in the name of charity and effectiveness, let's go ahead and add a boat on there, too. Now, to really clear our heads before we get going and make sure we're enacting the right policies, we're going to want to bring in some girls...
Relentless advertising the week before the election. Any sooner than that and you're wasting money. The electorate has the collective memory of a goldfish so wait until the few days, and especially the weekend, before the election and dump it all into an overwhelming advertising campaign. Every other commercial that comes on TV should be one of your attack ads listing everything horrible the candidate you oppose has ever done wrong.
Buying politicians won't work, that kind of money will either buy one for a few years or many for a few months. But $500m is less than a million dollars a year for just the house of representatives and when that money dries up their normal donors will be there with big fat checks ready to change policies back to the way they were before.
In order to enact real change you'll need to actually replace the people in power. And even then the major sticking point is making sure that the candidates you endorse actually make the changes that would limit future corruption.
Considering the small amounts of money we do know about in corruption, I would day you massively overestimate how much someone costs.
They're not all Lauren Boebert, but there's a lot more money than half a billion being thrown around in politics. If half a billion were enough to just buy all the politicians Musk would have done it a long time ago, that's about 1/400th of his net worth when he keeps his mouth shut.
In total, yes, maybe more. But over, likely, thousands of people and, mostly, for minor things here and there.
Also, just throwing money at people is not somehow a failsafe way to get something. Not everyone can be corrupted and not everyone seeing the corruption is going to be quiet about it.
Don’t focus on a national scale, focus more locally. Look at state legislatures. Look at mayoral and school board races.
Semi-related I can confirm. I recently found out that my state senator sold out for only $14,000
Michael Bloomberg spent $1 billion to run a distraction campaign, taking headlines from Bernie Sanders' repeated wins in the early 2020 Democratic primary. Bloomberg spent $500M the first week to flood the internet with influencers and meme makers being absolutely distracted by the low torrent of low effort shit post memes about Bloomberg. It was so obviously an astroturf campaign built on fake sentiment that everyone forgot Bernie won 5 states in a row and was crushing Biden. By the end of the month, Elisabeth Warren also bowed out and took her progressive voters to Biden.
So for $500 Million you can ruin a grassroots campaign! Buy bad memes and pay influencers to distract people.
It’s funny when you pretend that each of those weren’t 100% coordinated by the DNC to prevent Bernie from winning a bunch of states and perhaps the presidency.
Change for the better or for the worse?
(hint: the latter comes cheaper)
Which one involves a giant fuckin nuke?
Both.
You'd be competing against multi-billionaires and huge corporations. It wouldn't be enough, even though it's a ridiculous amount of money for one person.
Changing the US would probably be impossible. Maybe changing your state would be possible. Changing your local community would be much more realistic.
Helping people get homes and food would likely help reduce crime.
Helping people get educations would help some people escape certain situations.
If you're fixed on changing the US political situation and you think there's a party that can change the situation, you can go with political donations. I believe whichever party spends the most money on their campaign is the one that wins more often than not.
Having multiple billions and dumping half a billion at once are two very different things.
The multi-billionaire would probably already know how to more efficiently use the money though, making their millions of political spending stretch much further.
The fundamental cause of America's problem is the two-party system. If you want to get rid of that you have to switch to a proportional representation system. I would suggest working at the local or state level. I do not know of any organization working on this issue. You would likely have to start one yourself or hire someone else to do so.
If you're genuinely going to do it, any suggestion I make here about specifics would be pointless, as you should do significant research before deciding on what flavor of proportional representation to push and where. But, the key is to adopt a system known for accurate and small party representation. If a party gets enough votes to win a single seat, they should be awarded a single seat. If they get a third of the votes, they should get a third of the seats.
Let me know if you want to talk specifics.
I used to say this too, but living in a multiparty country for 20+ years now (NL) I don’t see it as an advantage when you need to govern so large a country. It sounds like an easy solution until you try to get agricultural and city people to agree, and then now try multiplying it by 50.
Unfortunately, a two-party system will likely work best as you’ll need a common consensus to move the country in a single direction.
Just imagine if all we had were FvD and VVD. Because that's what the US has. You can vote between far right, and regular right.
Yeah, we don't exactly have the best government here right now, but at least we have options. There's a surprising amount of fluctuation in dominant parties over the years, something you'll never see in a two-party system.
Unfortunately heading that way in the (dis)United Kingdom as well 😪
Then a one party system would be even better.
There is no such thing as a one party system. I think the word you’re looking for is “dictatorship”.
People seem to want to have more choice, but what they really need to do is choose better.
When I hear “our family always votes…”, that’s where democracy is failed.
Whatever you call it, it's the most efficient way to move a country in a single direction and stick to it, if that's what's important.
Wow. You really don’t care to understand a point other than your own. You want to pivot anyone else’s opinion to meaninglessness, and so I don’t see a need to reply further to a one-note-mentality as yours. Enjoy your holidays and goodbye.
You're saying that choice isn't good and that people need to choose better (perhaps choosing more like you?). Skip the pretense and only have one choice.
I mean, the theoretically best system is a benevolent and wise dictator.
Name one in the modern time.
The guy before me keeps changing my position to secure his point, but no - more isn’t any better than no choice. We have to choose for people with a plan, not a platform, and one that works for all of us and not at the expense of any of us (because one day they’ll come for you).
Regardless of the number of choices that we appear to have, it doesn't matter if the real choices are ultimately made through other means (e.g. lobbyists in the US).
Not sure why the downvotes on OP, it's a reasoned opinion and worthy of discussion.
I think you're saying that if you have too many political parties then the whole system gets watered down so much that nothing happens and the direction of the country can change at any time because there's no unified agenda. Isn't there a system to elect a leader who'd set the agenda and coordinate?
One would hope that through conversation we’d have more reasoned information but it appears camping on a platform is where people go to “win”.
We’ve dozens of parties trying to win to form a coalition, so sheer numbers don’t help. You can easily argue that our politics have grown stale and ineffective here in the recent years, and there’s a growing need for change.
For instance we’ve already had a few elections where a farmers collective party and the far right party have won their elections, but immediately afterwards (sometimes within a day, as in the farmers (BBB)) they’ve abandoned key parts of the platform that helped get them elected. Or their positions are so vile that no other party will work with them.
I’d argue that there are the side effects of taking a position first and wanting change at any cost. This is the cost - only more stagnation.
My point is “more” does not mean “better” - often, it’s just more of the same. Vote for and demand “Better”.
We have, not we've
The conjuction doesn't work when "have" is the verb in the sentence
Contraction. Conjunctions are "and", "but", etc.
You could do what Mike Bloomberg did in 2020 and try and buy your way into an election. Then again when he spent $500,000,000 on his campaign that got him no where.
Be fair, he also spent a couple hundred million dollars buying seats for the Dems so they’d push his favorite policy of disarming the plebs. He slipped up and said it and there should still be a YouTube video up with that exact moment recorded for posterity, though I know YouTube has taken down a lot of them.
Buy yourself a couple of supreme court judges. They're a bargain these days.
$500 Million? How long can you rent a Supreme Court Justice for that much? That might be your best chance at positive change.
Now, if we're looking for Quantity of change over quality of change, you could actually cause the MOST CHANGE by putting that money towards a drone strike on the Capital while Congress is in session.
Just hypothetical answers to a hypothetical question. I'm not advocating anything. No need to put me on any more lists.
Before we get violent, can we at least try LSD in the Congressional water supply to see if that does it in a positive way? ALSO TOTALLY THEORETICAL, FUN CHRISTMAS TALK!
Definitely this one first, but if it doesn't work out, mine can be a back up.
Could probably buy enough congressmen to pass a few laws. Not sure what the best ones would be.
Except scum recognizes scum and only does deals with each other. That's why you hear the prices are so cheap, it's practically a formality.
This is absolutely true about corrupt people seeking each other out.
A disembodied force of pure evil exists in this world, and its minions are working together.
Assassins
Dark, but pragmatic.
I think the best thing you could do with that amount of money would be to start a community organizing non-profit. Things like registering voters, tenant advocacy, helping people gain access to benefits, etc. etc. Basically, just organizing and connecting people to the system.
If you’re restricting things to just electoral politics, though, I’d say focus on close elections at the state level. A half billion dollars isn’t much in the context of a modern presidential election but it’s an absurd amount for state legislature elections. You’re probably not going to turn Mississippi blue or Massachusetts red (or whatever your goal is) but control of a swingy state like Virginia usually comes down to a handful of close elections. You could probably make a meaningful difference in 20 states just with get out the vote funding.
Y'know, I don't think that's enough to make any significant change. It takes more than money - it takes generations. Nothing will change until things get so bad that the comfortable (I assume they're comfortable if they're not engaged) majority get involved at all levels. I'm not pessimistic..
Fund an antifascist center in the top 200 cities in the country (one per state minimum)? Run a study on how to overthrow capitalism and mail a game plan for a general strike to every single American? Start a land bank for a large area that completely collapses western land ownership laws?
Don't bother. Enrich the lives of those around you. Feed homeless. Help friends start small businesses. Fix single mother's cars. Ensure your own stability first, though.
I really like the idea of testing alternative business and corporate structures and definitely not developing a model library for medical devices to print.
Since there no other comments yet, I’ve always had the idea to pick anyone running across any race in the US under the democratic socialist party and donate the max amount to each of them individually. I think all the max values are under $2,500 per individual but so many races are in small towns and whatnot where that could go a long way. I mean folk like Bernie Sanders would also get the max value per individual but it will go further for the downstream races. I have zero background or knowledge in this area so maybe that is just super naive.
It could probably make a big difference in key areas.
You probably couldn't effect enough small towns to turn Texas blue, but if you could saturate some rural PA counties and shift them slightly less red, it could lock down a swing state when it really counts.
Look at what the justice Democrats have done. They put highly progressive people in power. It's not a simple task.
You have to find the right candidates to put the money behind. Cover the expenses and make sure they can put all their time in their campaign.
Ads on every billboard everywhere.
Well, playing the same game as rich guys will result in you losing. But it's important to remember the October revolution was funded with much less.....
Buy citizenship out of the US and build a better country abroad with your foreign investment. Not much to do with the way things are going, but you can make Ireland or Monténégro a better place.
Nuke the entire landmass. Enjoy not having to worry about what stupid shit the US political dumpster fire will regurgitate and manipulate this week. Be loved by almost every country on the planet for doing it. Gals and guys alike will be tripping over each other to suck you. Police stop being penis-waving fucks and start obeying the law, NK shits themselves and rejoins SK, Putin has a heart attack, and everyone starts buying electric cars because you threaten to do it again if not. World peace out of sheer terror. Rainbows and unicorns spawn randomly. And as a gargantuan meteor is about to crash into earth and kill all remaining sentient life, you are deemed the one true god.
Hello fbi, late today aren't you?
(just let me know before you do this, I have some things I need to pack first)
Edit: basically End of Ze World but updated a bit
Donate to GOP's campaign, so they win next presidential election. This will effectively change current political situation