It could be a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent.

Republicans have waged a decades-long battle to blow up the campaign-finance laws that rein in big-money spending. Now, they are making a play that could end in their biggest victory since the Citizens United ruling in 2010.

The GOP is growing increasingly optimistic about their prospects in a little-noticed lawsuit that would allow official party committees and candidates to coordinate freely by removing current spending restrictions. If successful, it would represent a seismic shift in how tens of millions of campaign dollars are spent and upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising.

An eventual victory in the lawsuit, filed last November by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, would eliminate the need for House and Senate campaign committees of any party to set up separate operations to make so-called independent expenditures to boost candidates with TV ads.

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
    15·
    1 year ago

    OK, but:

    upend a well-established political ecosystem for TV advertising

    boost candidates with TV ads

    Even my Boomer parents are going streaming-only now; political consultants still love TV ads because they make lots of money off of them, and the need to spend lots of money on TV also powers the small-dollar fundraising / “can you rush me $17 RIGHT NOW” machine from which all sorts of awful people likewise take a generous cut, but how much of an impact is this actually likely to have?

    • wrath-sedan@kbin.social
      13·
      1 year ago

      The article note that actual voters probably won’t see much of a difference. The main effect is an even more direct big donor to candidate money pipeline that will mean they’ll have even more influence than they already do.

      Plus precedent of course, I imagine it’s usually easier to chip away at campaign finance regulations when you can cite other cases as evidence, but I’m no lawyer.

      • Ertebolle@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        Sure, but isn’t big donor influence largely due to how much their money can swing elections? If TV ads fade in importance and you can saturate your audience with cheaper targeted internet ones, rich guys are reduced to regular old bribery and you can only go on so many junkets a year.

        • wrath-sedan@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          That’s probably a trend but according to this (sorry dumb paywalled stats site but the relevant bit is in the free overview) as of now Broadcast TV is still the largest political ad market.

          • Ertebolle@kbin.social
            2·
            1 year ago

            That’s actually kind of my point - they’re spending the money on something that gets less effective every year, and it’s not clear if there’s any other expense that’ll replace it. And most politicians hate fundraising, so if they can mount an equally effective campaign with less money I expect an awful lot of them will do so.

  • MedicatedMaybe@lemmy.world
    14·
    1 year ago

    The USA’s days as a “democratic republic” are numbered. The only thing we can do is slow down the decent a little bit. Don’t fool yourself that this country isn’t on a fast track to christofascism. Its game man. Not only are we dealing with it from within we also have china and Russia foaming at the mouth with how successful their propaganda has been. 40 percent of this country is cheering it on and can’t wait to become the spitting image of Russia.

    Things are going to get a lot worse and I think it will happen faster than you think. Look how fast Florida took… It was a swing state not long ago. Now it’s one of the testing spots for how fascism will work in this country.

    If you aren’t a white Christian male you better figure out how to pretend to be one. Or at the very least get out of red states while you can if you can.

    Because it doesn’t seem like anybody in this country is willing to really fight against it. Off to the next thing I’m outraged about for a week and then moving on.

    The new world order is coming and it’s going to suck even worse.

    Vote like your life depends on it because it just might.

      • MedicatedMaybe@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        Not sure how a duck would help but I can’t imagine it would hurt. Now if you’re talking about growing a dick you can either do that in your garden or pick one up at your local grocery store. The fun thing about growing your own dick is you can grow it to whatever size fits your needs. Just insert it into your manliest pants and they’ll be none the wiser.

        Also make sure you wear like a really gaudy gold cross necklace. Then you just want to go around town stating really ignorant things that you believe in that are very easily disproven. You really want to trick them you may have to indulge in their racist, homophobic, transphobic, or really any kind of derogatory talk will work.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    TV ads

    Does anyone watch TV ads anymore? I haven’t watched a single TV ad since the NFL season ended in February. Even then I always mute.

    • Adalast@lemmy.world
      7·
      1 year ago

      What you talkin’ bout? I get political “TV” ads on my YouTube all the time. Same on all streaming services. Hell, I have even seen them on games when I am being forced to watch them for whatever abusive advertising game I decided to stupidly try this week.

      I am pretty sure that the law does not distinguish.

      • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        What you talkin’ bout?

        I pay to remove ads on streaming services, including Youtube. If a streaming service does not have an ad-free option, I don’t use it.

        • Adalast@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          I have done the same, but that has been getting quite expensive to do and my pay has not matched inflation even remotely.