These Russian money transfers were literally earmarked 'to finance election campaign of 2016'

[The Derp]

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Sure...but Conservatives had a foreign nation waging those propaganda campaigns on their behalf. So that's the difference.

 

[Defiant1]

That wasn't the Russians.

Maybe. But it's an example of propaganda working.

Do you have examples of Russian propaganda supporting Trump?

Yes. Here are a small handful (there are approximately over 1,000) Facebook ads bought by Russia, some of which Conservatives on these boards were posting. Some of which I've seen over and over on my Facebook feed, as well as in other forums like Debate Politics. And twitter, of course.

And it's still not proven there isn't a sex trafficking ring run by the Clintons it just wasn't in the pizza shop.

LOL! See what I mean about propaganda working? You are so far gone that you have to believe something even if it's completely untrue and fabricated. All you've done with this post is prove you are susceptible to propaganda. All I had to do was make the suggestion and it took hold in your small mind. You're not a very strong-willed person. You're kind of a weakling, actually.

It's despicable how little you lefties value the decisions made by your fellow Americans.

But keep it up. In fact step it up.

Please, call your liberal leaders and tell them to get on tv and tell us how stupid we are.
Remind our women how they need to listen to liberals because they are too ignorant to think for themselves.

 

[Care4all]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

always thought you were ''easy''.....

votes were not flipped from Trump to Hillary, that was not their goal....

their goal was to cause division among Democrats so to restrict or rather to reduce those who voted....to get people to just stay home.... or maybe vote for one of the independents running...and it seems like it worked.

 

[The Derp]

It's despicable how little you lefties value the decisions made by your fellow Americans.

I don't value the decisions made by Conservatives, who aren't real Americans anyway. So yeah, guilty as charged there. When did accommodation become the norm? Why should I accommodate poorly conceived ideas and propaganda?

But keep it up. In fact step it up.Please, call your liberal leaders and tell them to get on tv and tell us how stupid we are. emind our women how they need to listen to liberals because they are too ignorant to think for themselves.

Your post is tantamount to an abusive husband telling his battered wife "look what you made me do."

The battered wife didn't cause the husband to be an abuser, and liberals didn't cause Conservatives to be pieces of shit.

Take some fucking responsibility for yourselves.

Since you're saying liberals hold that much influence over you, then you're not the strong, independent thinker you're marketing yourself as.

 

[The Derp]

Please, call your liberal leaders and tell them to get on tv and tell us how stupid we are.Remind our women how they need to listen to liberals because they are too ignorant to think for themselves.

This is abuser enabling rhetoric; "look what you made me do".

No. No one made you do anything. You are choosing to be a piece of shit.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

always thought you were ''easy''.....

votes were not flipped from Trump to Hillary, that was not their goal....

their goal was to cause division among Democrats so to restrict or rather to reduce those who voted....to get people to just stay home.... or maybe vote for one of the independents running...and it seems like it worked.

So you stayed home because Russia gave $14,000 to Afghanistan?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

No, Putin did that by having his trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies that you ate up because you're a gullible dupe.

So, tell us your story. How did these Russian "trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies" make you vote for Trump

See, her's the thing, frank. You are the equivalent of a retarded baby ferret, intellectually, compared to these Russian masters of propaganda. And while your vote may not have been changed, they certainly have accomplished the goal of making people like you double down on any moronic thing you say. Which does have lasting effect.

And they, no doubt, DID influence vote totals. That's why they undertake these information campaigns.

You're insulting me after advancing one of the most moronic arguments ever! This is why I never have anyone on ignore.

Tell me how these "Russian propaganda masters" got you to flip your vote

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

That wasn't the Russians.

Maybe. But it's an example of propaganda working.

Do you have examples of Russian propaganda supporting Trump?

Yes. Here are a small handful (there are approximately over 1,000) Facebook ads bought by Russia, some of which Conservatives on these boards were posting. Some of which I've seen over and over on my Facebook feed, as well as in other forums like Debate Politics. And twitter, of course.

And it's still not proven there isn't a sex trafficking ring run by the Clintons it just wasn't in the pizza shop.

LOL! See what I mean about propaganda working? You are so far gone that you have to believe something even if it's completely untrue and fabricated. All you've done with this post is prove you are susceptible to propaganda. All I had to do was make the suggestion and it took hold in your small mind. You're not a very strong-willed person. You're kind of a weakling, actually.

It's despicable how little you lefties value the decisions made by your fellow Americans.

But keep it up. In fact step it up.

Please, call your liberal leaders and tell them to get on tv and tell us how stupid we are.
Remind our women how they need to listen to liberals because they are too ignorant to think for themselves.

Good grief, stop your whining...

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

No, Putin did that by having his trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies that you ate up because you're a gullible dupe.

So, tell us your story. How did these Russian "trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies" make you vote for Trump

See, her's the thing, frank. You are the equivalent of a retarded baby ferret, intellectually, compared to these Russian masters of propaganda. And while your vote may not have been changed, they certainly have accomplished the goal of making people like you double down on any moronic thing you say. Which does have lasting effect.

And they, no doubt, DID influence vote totals. That's why they undertake these information campaigns.

You're insulting me after advancing one of the most moronic arguments ever! This is why I never have anyone on ignore.

Tell me how these "Russian propaganda masters" got you to flip your vote

Ah, so now Frank , whom everyone knows is very smart, denies that any political ad campaign or information campaign could ever influence a vote. Now I see why everyone thinks you are so smart!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

No, Putin did that by having his trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies that you ate up because you're a gullible dupe.

So, tell us your story. How did these Russian "trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies" make you vote for Trump

See, her's the thing, frank. You are the equivalent of a retarded baby ferret, intellectually, compared to these Russian masters of propaganda. And while your vote may not have been changed, they certainly have accomplished the goal of making people like you double down on any moronic thing you say. Which does have lasting effect.

And they, no doubt, DID influence vote totals. That's why they undertake these information campaigns.

You're insulting me after advancing one of the most moronic arguments ever! This is why I never have anyone on ignore.

Tell me how these "Russian propaganda masters" got you to flip your vote

Ah, so now Frank , whom everyone knows is very smart, denies that any political ad campaign or information campaign could ever influence a vote. Now I see why everyone thinks you are so smart!

That's a far cry from "Putin hacked Hillarys election"

Can you show me one of these Russian vote swaying ads?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

No, Putin did that by having his trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies that you ate up because you're a gullible dupe.

So, tell us your story. How did these Russian "trolls pose as Conservatives on social media and bombard you with propaganda and lies" make you vote for Trump

See, her's the thing, frank. You are the equivalent of a retarded baby ferret, intellectually, compared to these Russian masters of propaganda. And while your vote may not have been changed, they certainly have accomplished the goal of making people like you double down on any moronic thing you say. Which does have lasting effect.

And they, no doubt, DID influence vote totals. That's why they undertake these information campaigns.

You're insulting me after advancing one of the most moronic arguments ever! This is why I never have anyone on ignore.

Tell me how these "Russian propaganda masters" got you to flip your vote

Ah, so now Frank , whom everyone knows is very smart, denies that any political ad campaign or information campaign could ever influence a vote. Now I see why everyone thinks you are so smart!

That's a far cry from "Putin hacked Hillarys election"

Can you show me one of these Russian vote swaying ads?

An individual vote? No I can't, but that's an absurd standard invented by Trumpkins, for Trumpkins.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Not at all. I'm against voters having access to "information" that isn't true or comes through foreign governments.

So you would have censored all of Hillary's ads?

The only ads I saw by foreign entities on American media were made by organizations supporting illegal aliens.
I don't see anyone complaining about that.

What great plan do you have that would suppress a person in a foreign country from posting on the internet?

And how would you suppress voters in this country from accessing posts from outside the country?

To be honest, if I were able to control this, I'd change the whole thing to A) include more political parties by B) having proportional representation so people can vote positively and not negatively and I'd limit campaign spending to a certain figure that isn't too high. I'm currently reading a John Grisham book about this very thing, yes, it's fiction, but based on fact.

Basically a large company wants to put in place a right wing judge and the cost of the election spirals for everyone and most of the stuff being targeted at people just isn't true, or half truths etc.

People should be presented with facts and in a manner that is fair, so that people's views and opinions are the thing that is noticed, and not the fake nonsense.

What you want isn't American. It isn't freedom.

Do you seriously believe Congress could pass a bill limiting how much a person/candidate can spend of his own money?

Didn't Trump just prove that it isn't just money you need to win?

There is no law now limiting the number of parties, but you would force people to be in a certain party based on "proportions."

Parties are private organizations, no one is forced to be a member of any party. It's a personal, private choice, voters make about their bodies and you want to take it away.

Ah, freedom to buy people, freedom to be bought.

I'm sorry, but I don't see politicians taking a shit load of money from big business to represent big business instead of the people they were elected to represent as freedom. I'm sorry you do.

Yes, I believe, if Congress weren't a partisan cesspool of evil, that it could limit the amount of money spent.

Let's have a look at some figures to show how fucking crazy the USA is.

Party finance in Germany - Wikipedia

The CDU, the "winning" party in the German Federal elections in September spent about 200 million Euros in an election year. That's about $236 million. This include money for staff wages, everything, basically the campaigning would cost about $100 million for the whole country for the major parties in German for an election year.

Key Senate race now the most expensive ever as outside money pours in

"Candidate committees and independent groups have spent more than $113 million on the Senate race in the key state of Pennsylvania,"

So, about the same amount of money was spent by the major party in Germany, as the two main candidates in ONE SENATE RACE in the USA.

Come on, why is so much money being spent?

In the US they had to report the money that was coming in, and report what was spent. The rich didn't like this, so they made super PACs, basically a way of funneling money into the system so that bribery looks like legitimate campaign financing.

There are ways of limiting campaign financing, for example banning TV ads. Giving each candidate TV time to make their points.

Things can be done, but when the Supreme Court basically opened up campaign financing to the rich and wealthy, it's all gone shit up the wall in the US.

No, there's no law limiting the number of political parties in the US. I didn't say there was. There is, however, law that DOES LIMIT political parties.

Again, back to Germany.

Germany votes FPTP like the US does, AND it also votes PR on the same day for the same political parties.

FPTP is negative voting. People will often vote for someone to stop someone else getting in power. It benefits the major parties basically.

To prove this. German federal election, 2017 - Wikipedia

The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the votes in FPTP. They gained 231 seats out of 299 seats. Yeah, they only had 37.2% of the vote but gained 77% of the seats.

It's not a fair system.

The SPD, the other main party gained 24.6% of the vote and 59 seats.

Now, in PR where there's positive voting the CDU/CSU gained 33% of the vote. So, 4.2% of people in German who voted decided to vote for the CDU under negative voting, but then decided to switch their vote to a smaller party for positive voting.

The SPD gained 20.5% and saw 4.1% of people go and vote for smaller parties. That's 8.3% of people (down from about 10% the previous election) decided to switch their votes. That's more than 4 million people who decided they needed to vote negatively in one race, and positively in another.

The FDP gained zero seats in the FPTP, though they had 3.2 million people vote for them. However they gained 80 seats with PR because 5 million people voted for them.

Do you see the problems here.

In the US the FDP would not be a viable party because they couldn't get any seats because they don't have enough support within a localized area. But nationwide they had 10.7% support. So you can imagine in the US that 10.7% of people are effectively disenfranchised because their party can't gain enough votes in a single area to get them into parliament. So people don't vote for them. They vote Republican or Democrat depending on who they DON'T want to get in.

The system has this massive impact on how people vote.

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

 

[Defiant1]

So you would have censored all of Hillary's ads?

The only ads I saw by foreign entities on American media were made by organizations supporting illegal aliens.
I don't see anyone complaining about that.

What great plan do you have that would suppress a person in a foreign country from posting on the internet?

And how would you suppress voters in this country from accessing posts from outside the country?

To be honest, if I were able to control this, I'd change the whole thing to A) include more political parties by B) having proportional representation so people can vote positively and not negatively and I'd limit campaign spending to a certain figure that isn't too high. I'm currently reading a John Grisham book about this very thing, yes, it's fiction, but based on fact.

Basically a large company wants to put in place a right wing judge and the cost of the election spirals for everyone and most of the stuff being targeted at people just isn't true, or half truths etc.

People should be presented with facts and in a manner that is fair, so that people's views and opinions are the thing that is noticed, and not the fake nonsense.

What you want isn't American. It isn't freedom.

Do you seriously believe Congress could pass a bill limiting how much a person/candidate can spend of his own money?

Didn't Trump just prove that it isn't just money you need to win?

There is no law now limiting the number of parties, but you would force people to be in a certain party based on "proportions."

Parties are private organizations, no one is forced to be a member of any party. It's a personal, private choice, voters make about their bodies and you want to take it away.

Ah, freedom to buy people, freedom to be bought.

I'm sorry, but I don't see politicians taking a shit load of money from big business to represent big business instead of the people they were elected to represent as freedom. I'm sorry you do.

Yes, I believe, if Congress weren't a partisan cesspool of evil, that it could limit the amount of money spent.

Let's have a look at some figures to show how fucking crazy the USA is.

Party finance in Germany - Wikipedia

The CDU, the "winning" party in the German Federal elections in September spent about 200 million Euros in an election year. That's about $236 million. This include money for staff wages, everything, basically the campaigning would cost about $100 million for the whole country for the major parties in German for an election year.

Key Senate race now the most expensive ever as outside money pours in

"Candidate committees and independent groups have spent more than $113 million on the Senate race in the key state of Pennsylvania,"

So, about the same amount of money was spent by the major party in Germany, as the two main candidates in ONE SENATE RACE in the USA.

Come on, why is so much money being spent?

In the US they had to report the money that was coming in, and report what was spent. The rich didn't like this, so they made super PACs, basically a way of funneling money into the system so that bribery looks like legitimate campaign financing.

There are ways of limiting campaign financing, for example banning TV ads. Giving each candidate TV time to make their points.

Things can be done, but when the Supreme Court basically opened up campaign financing to the rich and wealthy, it's all gone shit up the wall in the US.

No, there's no law limiting the number of political parties in the US. I didn't say there was. There is, however, law that DOES LIMIT political parties.

Again, back to Germany.

Germany votes FPTP like the US does, AND it also votes PR on the same day for the same political parties.

FPTP is negative voting. People will often vote for someone to stop someone else getting in power. It benefits the major parties basically.

To prove this. German federal election, 2017 - Wikipedia

The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the votes in FPTP. They gained 231 seats out of 299 seats. Yeah, they only had 37.2% of the vote but gained 77% of the seats.

It's not a fair system.

The SPD, the other main party gained 24.6% of the vote and 59 seats.

Now, in PR where there's positive voting the CDU/CSU gained 33% of the vote. So, 4.2% of people in German who voted decided to vote for the CDU under negative voting, but then decided to switch their vote to a smaller party for positive voting.

The SPD gained 20.5% and saw 4.1% of people go and vote for smaller parties. That's 8.3% of people (down from about 10% the previous election) decided to switch their votes. That's more than 4 million people who decided they needed to vote negatively in one race, and positively in another.

The FDP gained zero seats in the FPTP, though they had 3.2 million people vote for them. However they gained 80 seats with PR because 5 million people voted for them.

Do you see the problems here.

In the US the FDP would not be a viable party because they couldn't get any seats because they don't have enough support within a localized area. But nationwide they had 10.7% support. So you can imagine in the US that 10.7% of people are effectively disenfranchised because their party can't gain enough votes in a single area to get them into parliament. So people don't vote for them. They vote Republican or Democrat depending on who they DON'T want to get in.

The system has this massive impact on how people vote.

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

 

[frigidweirdo]

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

It's not about making people flip their vote. Many people are undecided, and they're influenced massively by advertising.

We know this because some of the biggest companies in the world, especially ones like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC etc, use advertising extremely effectively and convince people to buy their stuff. Politics isn't much different.

Good point. Who spent the most on advertising?

I'm not sure I get the point of your question.

The simple thing here is, people are vulnerable to advertising.

 

[frigidweirdo]

To be honest, if I were able to control this, I'd change the whole thing to A) include more political parties by B) having proportional representation so people can vote positively and not negatively and I'd limit campaign spending to a certain figure that isn't too high. I'm currently reading a John Grisham book about this very thing, yes, it's fiction, but based on fact.

Basically a large company wants to put in place a right wing judge and the cost of the election spirals for everyone and most of the stuff being targeted at people just isn't true, or half truths etc.

People should be presented with facts and in a manner that is fair, so that people's views and opinions are the thing that is noticed, and not the fake nonsense.

What you want isn't American. It isn't freedom.

Do you seriously believe Congress could pass a bill limiting how much a person/candidate can spend of his own money?

Didn't Trump just prove that it isn't just money you need to win?

There is no law now limiting the number of parties, but you would force people to be in a certain party based on "proportions."

Parties are private organizations, no one is forced to be a member of any party. It's a personal, private choice, voters make about their bodies and you want to take it away.

Ah, freedom to buy people, freedom to be bought.

I'm sorry, but I don't see politicians taking a shit load of money from big business to represent big business instead of the people they were elected to represent as freedom. I'm sorry you do.

Yes, I believe, if Congress weren't a partisan cesspool of evil, that it could limit the amount of money spent.

Let's have a look at some figures to show how fucking crazy the USA is.

Party finance in Germany - Wikipedia

The CDU, the "winning" party in the German Federal elections in September spent about 200 million Euros in an election year. That's about $236 million. This include money for staff wages, everything, basically the campaigning would cost about $100 million for the whole country for the major parties in German for an election year.

Key Senate race now the most expensive ever as outside money pours in

"Candidate committees and independent groups have spent more than $113 million on the Senate race in the key state of Pennsylvania,"

So, about the same amount of money was spent by the major party in Germany, as the two main candidates in ONE SENATE RACE in the USA.

Come on, why is so much money being spent?

In the US they had to report the money that was coming in, and report what was spent. The rich didn't like this, so they made super PACs, basically a way of funneling money into the system so that bribery looks like legitimate campaign financing.

There are ways of limiting campaign financing, for example banning TV ads. Giving each candidate TV time to make their points.

Things can be done, but when the Supreme Court basically opened up campaign financing to the rich and wealthy, it's all gone shit up the wall in the US.

No, there's no law limiting the number of political parties in the US. I didn't say there was. There is, however, law that DOES LIMIT political parties.

Again, back to Germany.

Germany votes FPTP like the US does, AND it also votes PR on the same day for the same political parties.

FPTP is negative voting. People will often vote for someone to stop someone else getting in power. It benefits the major parties basically.

To prove this. German federal election, 2017 - Wikipedia

The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the votes in FPTP. They gained 231 seats out of 299 seats. Yeah, they only had 37.2% of the vote but gained 77% of the seats.

It's not a fair system.

The SPD, the other main party gained 24.6% of the vote and 59 seats.

Now, in PR where there's positive voting the CDU/CSU gained 33% of the vote. So, 4.2% of people in German who voted decided to vote for the CDU under negative voting, but then decided to switch their vote to a smaller party for positive voting.

The SPD gained 20.5% and saw 4.1% of people go and vote for smaller parties. That's 8.3% of people (down from about 10% the previous election) decided to switch their votes. That's more than 4 million people who decided they needed to vote negatively in one race, and positively in another.

The FDP gained zero seats in the FPTP, though they had 3.2 million people vote for them. However they gained 80 seats with PR because 5 million people voted for them.

Do you see the problems here.

In the US the FDP would not be a viable party because they couldn't get any seats because they don't have enough support within a localized area. But nationwide they had 10.7% support. So you can imagine in the US that 10.7% of people are effectively disenfranchised because their party can't gain enough votes in a single area to get them into parliament. So people don't vote for them. They vote Republican or Democrat depending on who they DON'T want to get in.

The system has this massive impact on how people vote.

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

It's not about making people flip their vote. Many people are undecided, and they're influenced massively by advertising.

We know this because some of the biggest companies in the world, especially ones like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC etc, use advertising extremely effectively and convince people to buy their stuff. Politics isn't much different.

Yes!!!! I was really influenced by those Afghanistan ads.

Did you see them too?

Of course, despite your little act, information campaigns DO influence votes, which is why they are undertaken.

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Yes, but WHO is supposed to be doing the influencing? The candidate or Putin?

 

[OffensivelyOpenMinded]

Lulz

 

[Defiant1]

What you want isn't American. It isn't freedom.

Do you seriously believe Congress could pass a bill limiting how much a person/candidate can spend of his own money?

Didn't Trump just prove that it isn't just money you need to win?

There is no law now limiting the number of parties, but you would force people to be in a certain party based on "proportions."

Parties are private organizations, no one is forced to be a member of any party. It's a personal, private choice, voters make about their bodies and you want to take it away.

Ah, freedom to buy people, freedom to be bought.

I'm sorry, but I don't see politicians taking a shit load of money from big business to represent big business instead of the people they were elected to represent as freedom. I'm sorry you do.

Yes, I believe, if Congress weren't a partisan cesspool of evil, that it could limit the amount of money spent.

Let's have a look at some figures to show how fucking crazy the USA is.

Party finance in Germany - Wikipedia

The CDU, the "winning" party in the German Federal elections in September spent about 200 million Euros in an election year. That's about $236 million. This include money for staff wages, everything, basically the campaigning would cost about $100 million for the whole country for the major parties in German for an election year.

Key Senate race now the most expensive ever as outside money pours in

"Candidate committees and independent groups have spent more than $113 million on the Senate race in the key state of Pennsylvania,"

So, about the same amount of money was spent by the major party in Germany, as the two main candidates in ONE SENATE RACE in the USA.

Come on, why is so much money being spent?

In the US they had to report the money that was coming in, and report what was spent. The rich didn't like this, so they made super PACs, basically a way of funneling money into the system so that bribery looks like legitimate campaign financing.

There are ways of limiting campaign financing, for example banning TV ads. Giving each candidate TV time to make their points.

Things can be done, but when the Supreme Court basically opened up campaign financing to the rich and wealthy, it's all gone shit up the wall in the US.

No, there's no law limiting the number of political parties in the US. I didn't say there was. There is, however, law that DOES LIMIT political parties.

Again, back to Germany.

Germany votes FPTP like the US does, AND it also votes PR on the same day for the same political parties.

FPTP is negative voting. People will often vote for someone to stop someone else getting in power. It benefits the major parties basically.

To prove this. German federal election, 2017 - Wikipedia

The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the votes in FPTP. They gained 231 seats out of 299 seats. Yeah, they only had 37.2% of the vote but gained 77% of the seats.

It's not a fair system.

The SPD, the other main party gained 24.6% of the vote and 59 seats.

Now, in PR where there's positive voting the CDU/CSU gained 33% of the vote. So, 4.2% of people in German who voted decided to vote for the CDU under negative voting, but then decided to switch their vote to a smaller party for positive voting.

The SPD gained 20.5% and saw 4.1% of people go and vote for smaller parties. That's 8.3% of people (down from about 10% the previous election) decided to switch their votes. That's more than 4 million people who decided they needed to vote negatively in one race, and positively in another.

The FDP gained zero seats in the FPTP, though they had 3.2 million people vote for them. However they gained 80 seats with PR because 5 million people voted for them.

Do you see the problems here.

In the US the FDP would not be a viable party because they couldn't get any seats because they don't have enough support within a localized area. But nationwide they had 10.7% support. So you can imagine in the US that 10.7% of people are effectively disenfranchised because their party can't gain enough votes in a single area to get them into parliament. So people don't vote for them. They vote Republican or Democrat depending on who they DON'T want to get in.

The system has this massive impact on how people vote.

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

...and that's how Putin made me flip my vote

It's not about making people flip their vote. Many people are undecided, and they're influenced massively by advertising.

We know this because some of the biggest companies in the world, especially ones like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC etc, use advertising extremely effectively and convince people to buy their stuff. Politics isn't much different.

Yes!!!! I was really influenced by those Afghanistan ads.

Did you see them too?

Of course, despite your little act, information campaigns DO influence votes, which is why they are undertaken.

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Yes, but WHO is supposed to be doing the influencing? The candidate or Putin?

Anyone who feels that they have an interest in the outcome.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Ah, freedom to buy people, freedom to be bought.

I'm sorry, but I don't see politicians taking a shit load of money from big business to represent big business instead of the people they were elected to represent as freedom. I'm sorry you do.

Yes, I believe, if Congress weren't a partisan cesspool of evil, that it could limit the amount of money spent.

Let's have a look at some figures to show how fucking crazy the USA is.

Party finance in Germany - Wikipedia

The CDU, the "winning" party in the German Federal elections in September spent about 200 million Euros in an election year. That's about $236 million. This include money for staff wages, everything, basically the campaigning would cost about $100 million for the whole country for the major parties in German for an election year.

Key Senate race now the most expensive ever as outside money pours in

"Candidate committees and independent groups have spent more than $113 million on the Senate race in the key state of Pennsylvania,"

So, about the same amount of money was spent by the major party in Germany, as the two main candidates in ONE SENATE RACE in the USA.

Come on, why is so much money being spent?

In the US they had to report the money that was coming in, and report what was spent. The rich didn't like this, so they made super PACs, basically a way of funneling money into the system so that bribery looks like legitimate campaign financing.

There are ways of limiting campaign financing, for example banning TV ads. Giving each candidate TV time to make their points.

Things can be done, but when the Supreme Court basically opened up campaign financing to the rich and wealthy, it's all gone shit up the wall in the US.

No, there's no law limiting the number of political parties in the US. I didn't say there was. There is, however, law that DOES LIMIT political parties.

Again, back to Germany.

Germany votes FPTP like the US does, AND it also votes PR on the same day for the same political parties.

FPTP is negative voting. People will often vote for someone to stop someone else getting in power. It benefits the major parties basically.

To prove this. German federal election, 2017 - Wikipedia

The CDU/CSU gained 37.2% of the votes in FPTP. They gained 231 seats out of 299 seats. Yeah, they only had 37.2% of the vote but gained 77% of the seats.

It's not a fair system.

The SPD, the other main party gained 24.6% of the vote and 59 seats.

Now, in PR where there's positive voting the CDU/CSU gained 33% of the vote. So, 4.2% of people in German who voted decided to vote for the CDU under negative voting, but then decided to switch their vote to a smaller party for positive voting.

The SPD gained 20.5% and saw 4.1% of people go and vote for smaller parties. That's 8.3% of people (down from about 10% the previous election) decided to switch their votes. That's more than 4 million people who decided they needed to vote negatively in one race, and positively in another.

The FDP gained zero seats in the FPTP, though they had 3.2 million people vote for them. However they gained 80 seats with PR because 5 million people voted for them.

Do you see the problems here.

In the US the FDP would not be a viable party because they couldn't get any seats because they don't have enough support within a localized area. But nationwide they had 10.7% support. So you can imagine in the US that 10.7% of people are effectively disenfranchised because their party can't gain enough votes in a single area to get them into parliament. So people don't vote for them. They vote Republican or Democrat depending on who they DON'T want to get in.

The system has this massive impact on how people vote.

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

It's not about making people flip their vote. Many people are undecided, and they're influenced massively by advertising.

We know this because some of the biggest companies in the world, especially ones like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, KFC etc, use advertising extremely effectively and convince people to buy their stuff. Politics isn't much different.

Yes!!!! I was really influenced by those Afghanistan ads.

Did you see them too?

Of course, despite your little act, information campaigns DO influence votes, which is why they are undertaken.

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Yes, but WHO is supposed to be doing the influencing? The candidate or Putin?

Anyone who feels that they have an interest in the outcome.

Oh, so you think it's okay for Putin to spend millions, if not billions of Russian money influencing the outcome of US elections do you?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

Yes!!!! I was really influenced by those Afghanistan ads.

Did you see them too?

Of course, despite your little act, information campaigns DO influence votes, which is why they are undertaken.

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Yes, but WHO is supposed to be doing the influencing? The candidate or Putin?

Anyone who feels that they have an interest in the outcome.

Oh, so you think it's okay for Putin to spend millions, if not billions of Russian money influencing the outcome of US elections do you?

Of course he says that....because Trumpkins will say ANYTHING.

 

[Defiant1]

I'm not talking contributions, I'm talking about a person financing their own campaign.

BTW, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns

No, businesses can't contribute to federal campaigns, and yet they do.

The Koch brothers have a business, Koch Industries, and they pump millions into politics every year. Because businesses are run by people and employ people and they funnel money through this and that way.

A person financing their own campaign. Well, you can limit that, it's not hard. You just prevent them spending money on it.

You're not an American, are you?

Yes!!!! I was really influenced by those Afghanistan ads.

Did you see them too?

Of course, despite your little act, information campaigns DO influence votes, which is why they are undertaken.

Isn't that what campaigns are supposed to do? Influence voting?

Yes, but WHO is supposed to be doing the influencing? The candidate or Putin?

Anyone who feels that they have an interest in the outcome.

Oh, so you think it's okay for Putin to spend millions, if not billions of Russian money influencing the outcome of US elections do you?

The issue isn't whether I like it or not, it's not wanting my freedoms to be jeopardized by weak politicians who think they could stop it.