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For those watching the Presidential election, things have been looking very bad for Kamala lately, with national polls tightening, and Trump ahead in several key states. Although it remains too close to call, Trump's odds have shot up to 57% according to Polymarket.
Harris's 1.4% lead in national polls is cold comfort given that, at a similar point in the election, Biden was up by 9.4% and Clinton was up by 6.7%.
Democratics are panicking about Trump's support in the black community, which has traditionally voted 90/10 in favor of Democrats. While Trump will still lose the black vote by large margins, his style is more appealing to black voters (especially men) then previous Republican candidates like Mitt Romney. Democrats have responded by trying to shame black voters. Recently, Barack Obama was even unearthed to chastise black men for not wanting to vote for Harris.
Enter the latest vote-buying scheme, which I think is the most naked attempt to buy votes I've ever seen in recent US politics, even more than college debt forgiveness.
https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1845993766441644386
Harris-Walz have proposed a 20k forgiveable loan for up to 1 million Black (capital B) entrepreneurs to start a business. The fact that the loan is forgiveable means that this is essentially a gift to any grifter who wants to take advantage. But most importantly, it's explicit racial discrimination against the 86% of the country who isn't black.
Personally, I think this appeal is likely to backfire as most swing voters are sick of handouts to people who aren't them.
Will Trump counter with some asinine scheme of his own? Probably.
Okay wait, am I reading this right? Is 1 million times $20,000 actually TWENTY BILLION?
Good Lord, well I guess if you're going to give a naked bribe don't go small. But still. That is an INSANE amount of money to just casually throw out to a small part of the populace...
I had the same thought at first, but if you read carefully, the language implies that these "loans" will be available to others. Which others, it doesn't say--all entrepreneurs? Racial minorities? Women? Who knows? But it is a sneaky bit of rhetoric--"we will be giving $20 billion to black men and others!" allows her to make the same claim to several groups separately while only actually committing a single pile of $20 billion.
Not that it's a small amount of money even then. This is why cases like Citizens United were always straining at gnats and swallowing camels. When it comes to buying votes, no corporation in the world can outspend the U.S. government.
What do you mean by this? What camels did it swallow?
https://biblehub.com/matthew/23-24.htm
Semicommon idiom. Jews have religious laws against bug eating, and so they were very fastidious about straining out bugs from drinking water. Jesus was contrasting this focus on very small things while letting a big thing (i.e. a hyperbolic camel) get through.
In this case, corporate money allowed by CU is the gnat, while federal spending is the camel.
How did CU allow for increased federal spending on elections? I thought it only barred the government from restricting private organizations from exercising free speech.
In the 30 days preceding a primary and 60 days preceding an election, specifically. Citizens United was an incredibly narrow decision that had really very little effect.
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