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Notes -
Premise: A machine in politics is X
Premise: There is not a machine in Pittsburgh
Conclusion: There are no machine politics in the USA
???
Detroit is what I was talking about at least. Detroit had ballot harvesting introduced just before the 2020 election. It is dominated by Democrats, about 95%. It's notoriously crime-ridden and corrupt. Amongst other things, the city recently started awarding marijuana sales licenses, essentially a license to make money. Half of these licenses go to 'social equity' candidates. It's easy to see how they could arrange that these licenses go to trustworthy local leaders who can be relied upon to ensure that plenty of votes arrive.
Or if they didn't do that, they could arrange for other aspects of the vast welfare apparatus to flow through
In the words of Sam Riddle, "The only difference between Detroit and third world nations -- where corruption is concerned -- is goats in the street". He should know - he was found guilty of corruption in Detroit! Rigged elections are part and parcel for third world nations. You have backroom deals where sinecures are distributed and agreements made.
Even if there's internal division as to who should get more or less of the spoils, the interests of Detroit's leaders are surely all to favor higher spending and more social services, as opposed to fiscal or other kinds of conservatism.
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