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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

Congress cares about votes more than payoff from Boeing. So long as voters don't care about how many Boeing kills congress wants the Boeing payoff. As soon as congress thinks voters care about Boeing congress will turn on Boeing.

Do you care about "Elevance Health" - they larger than Boeing according to the fortune 500 list (20 vs 52 in 2024) - but I hadn't even heard of them until I looked up the list just now. I have no clue what the company is up to (health informs my guess, but it is a guess). Companies like them can continue to do whatever and voters won't care.

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Congress will do the usual: accept Boeing's money and overlook the issue on one hand, and pretend to the public that they're doing otherwise on the other.

Unfortunately, Americans and the peoples of many democratic countries have given up on verifying if their elected officials are actually doing what they say they are, so taking a ~~bribe~~ campaign contribution and lying about it is a medium-high gain and low risk activity.

As a bonus, you can then use those contributions to market yourself and your lies to the same voters even harder!

But voters care about a multitude of issues. People care much more about things like abortion, immigration, healthcare, gun rights (or control), and yet none of those are seeing any movement or chance of causing meaningful threat to their voter base.

It'll take much much worse than a couple more crashes for the Boeing issue to eclipse all those things to become an issue people actually change their voting over.

Acute current events affect people differently.

If a plane full of Americans falls out of the sky and kills everyone on board, and it turns out to be because of negligence at Boeing, and it happens close to an election, that will definitely be used against any incumbent politician who could be portrayed as responsible.

Politicians want to avoid a scenario like that. But it does require several things to line up for that scenario to unfold, so they have no incentive to care beyond what is necessary to prevent it.

Movement takes time. Those against abortion have been active for decades. Likewise those against gun control.

those may not be your side of the issue but it is clear a lot of voters care and are voting opposite of you.

>Those against abortion have been active for decades.

Like 240 decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

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