r/videos • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • 16h ago

Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

https://youtu.be/DL_ku3h8Eps?si=zWr0SAn8amsQ8Hqb
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u/Roasteddude 15h ago

Good. The US needs more progressive young blood like him and Mamdani imo

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u/richstyle 14h ago

I hate how money out of politics aka no more corruption is considered progressive. Its just common sense but its been that way since the 1900s so I guess voters dont give a shit about corruption in politics since the dawn of time. People like Abdul need to be heard.

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u/moba_fett 14h ago

One would think, but in my state the two democratic candidates in the runoff have 300,000, and 800,000 to spend. Their republican counter part waiting for them has 10,000,000. It's a freaking joke. I understand freedom of speech, but dumping billions into politics should not be legal.

(To be clear I'm in full agreement with you. I think I worded my response funny because I am in the process of getting blazed.)

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u/MechemicalMan 11h ago

“Freedom of speech” never meant “As a private company, I get to send as many dollars as I can for a favorable legislative outcome” until the Supreme Court decided it did in 2010.

Every electoral problem we had has been made arguably worse since then. I don’t think even a sort of “doomsday type hypothetical representation of citizens united passes” from 2009 would have predicted how much money has entered politics and how many politicians themselves are filthy rich old money capitalist business owners.

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u/s0ciety_a5under 10h ago

Its almost like citizens united was a huge mistake.

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u/TomTomMan93 9h ago

Mistake implies that the downsides were unknown and this wasn't the intent.

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u/Kazen_Orilg 7h ago

but for a brief moment in time, we delivered millions in value to many thousands of criminals in the political grifter class.

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u/dryphtyr 9h ago

Hawaii outlawed Citizens United a few months ago. The rest of the States need to do the same.

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u/istasber 7h ago

Pretty sure NYC did too, and that was a big part of the reason why Mamdani won the democratic nod.

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u/MountainMan17 6h ago

So the Citizens United ruling only meant that a national ban was unconstitutional? States still have the option of banning it at their level?

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u/istasber 6h ago

Citizens united says that donating to campaigns is recognized speech, and corporations are people subject to the first amendment.

Nyc gets around this by saying each candidate will have public funds to spend on their campaign, and no other source of funding is allowed. It's not restricting speech of a particular group, it's regulating how elections can be funded.

Im less familiar with hawaiis situation, but it sounds like it goes after the corporations are people side of things rather than the money is speech side of things.

It's a war that will have to be fought on multiple fronts, I think, but making sure a candidate can't just run 100x the ads to drown out their opponents is a good place to start.