Comment by xp84

> Businesses lobbying for their interests is exactly what they should be doing and exactly what everyone should expect them to do. Elected officials and the democratic process are supposed to be the check and fix.

That would be nice. I fear the modern system, with Citizens United, SuperPACs etc. seems to have been the final nail in the coffin of that concept though. Especially with the FPTP system preventing third parties. Someone in one of the two parties will win, they're both in the thrall of lobbyists, and even if there was one not taking that money (I think that's becoming more and more rare) the money firehose makes a substantial difference in elections. Hard to see how "we" can do a lot about this. I hate it, but I don't see it changing. And it seems like astroturfing will be easier in future elections than ever before - Now a few million dollars from a billionaire or even from foreign adversaries will be able to generate 'overwhelming groundswells' of completely synthetic public opinion on platforms like TikTok. To me, the result will be an acceleration of the tilt toward buying elections vs. convincing people of your ideas organically.