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Comment by hayst4ck | Hacker News Reader

I'm on your side, but that's not a good argument. Nancy Pelosi openly stated she has a right to be financially entangled with the companies she regulates. At least 60% of the democratic party is firmly pro-oligarch, too. Just like 2 or 3 republicans get to performatively dissent on unpopular votes, Democrat resistance is largely performative, too. Those economic winners and losers are also campaign donors. Citizen's United, the ruling that made America structurally a plutocracy, happened under Obama.

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> Citizen's United

Your comment is exactly why we are in the situation we are in now.

A ruling under an activist conservative supreme court that Obama opposed. One of Hillary's main credentials for a supreme court pick was that they'd vote to overturn Citizens United. It was a 5-4 court and Scalia had died. Citizens United decided 5-4. But America or at least the electoral college picked trump instead. So we got corruption pretending to be free speech and abortion bans instead.

> But America or at least the electoral college picked trump instead.

Democrats could have picked a better candidate to fight Trump but they didn't.

I don't see how this undermines the argument. That's all bad too. It's consistent with the argument, not contradicting it.

It's an argument against the conclusion.

When everyone is yelling "don't let side Y do Z because that will allow W."

This is why. It's a logical fallacy until you're talking to a person who's argument didn't ever change.

Fair enough. But it is not hard to find people who think corruption is bad regardless of who is doing it.

Citizen's United [..] happened under Obama

I'm sorry, but WTF? What the hell did Obama have to do with that ruling, other than serving as a convenient scapegoat in your story? It was a Supreme Court ruling, and last I checked there was still a separation of powers between the Judicial and Executive. Obama publicly called it a devastating outcome.

The decision was completely partisan 5-4 with 5 Republican appointees voting in the majority, 4 Democrats in the minority. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205

Obama appointed 1 of the 4 Democrats who voted in the minority, his only appointee up to that point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_Supreme_Court_can...

So he literally did all he could, subject to the constitution, to prevent this ruling. The logic of mentioning Citizen's United here is like people complaining that abortion rights were taken away during Biden's term. In other words, there is no logic other than a crude misdirect.

So, if he were to want the decision, but also wanted appearances, he could oppose it verbally knowing he could do nothing to impact the outcome anyway.

Not to say that actually happened. Just pointing it out.

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