You’d start by attending $10,000 plate dinners, and shaking hands with candidates and expressing views. Hire a few $60k a year idealists for a think tank to publish papers. Pick 1-2 issues and hammer them. Pay lobbyists to set up meeting and propose/write legislation and amendments.
As some of your (hopefully idealistic) candidates win, you ask them to help drive your issues through. Get them to make concessions to other people’s proposals for support on theirs, helped by your lobbyists. Use your think tank to drove issues and provide talking points and legislation.
That’s the traditional view. A better approach might be to create a 501c3 and run positive message ads that give you a warm feeling about america in general, say nothing of substance, and include a candidate you like’s name sometimes. Then another pac showing pictures of the candidate you don’t like and chanting “hate hate hate” behind them. Play to your audience.
My first move is to think about safety and longevity. I'm going to need a private island as a base of operations. Caution also dictates having a few backup homes, so my enemies never really know where I am. Beyond that, I need to spread my message, so I'm going to need a private plane. Something modest and a few years old is fine. This is a charitable effort. It isn't about me. And in the name of charity and effectiveness, let's go ahead and add a boat on there, too. Now, to really clear our heads before we get going and make sure we're enacting the right policies, we're going to want to bring in some girls...
Nuke the entire landmass. Enjoy not having to worry about what stupid shit the US political dumpster fire will regurgitate and manipulate this week. Be loved by almost every country on the planet for doing it. Gals and guys alike will be tripping over each other to suck you. Police stop being penis-waving fucks and start obeying the law, NK shits themselves and rejoins SK, Putin has a heart attack, and everyone starts buying electric cars because you threaten to do it again if not. World peace out of sheer terror. Rainbows and unicorns spawn randomly. And as a gargantuan meteor is about to crash into earth and kill all remaining sentient life, you are deemed the one true god.
Hello fbi, late today aren’t you?
(just let me know before you do this, I have some things I need to pack first)
I think the best thing you could do with that amount of money would be to start a community organizing non-profit. Things like registering voters, tenant advocacy, helping people gain access to benefits, etc. etc. Basically, just organizing and connecting people to the system.
If you’re restricting things to just electoral politics, though, I’d say focus on close elections at the state level. A half billion dollars isn’t much in the context of a modern presidential election but it’s an absurd amount for state legislature elections. You’re probably not going to turn Mississippi blue or Massachusetts red (or whatever your goal is) but control of a swingy state like Virginia usually comes down to a handful of close elections. You could probably make a meaningful difference in 20 states just with get out the vote funding.
Fund an antifascist center in the top 200 cities in the country (one per state minimum)? Run a study on how to overthrow capitalism and mail a game plan for a general strike to every single American? Start a land bank for a large area that completely collapses western land ownership laws?
Don’t bother. Enrich the lives of those around you. Feed homeless. Help friends start small businesses. Fix single mother’s cars. Ensure your own stability first, though.
I really like the idea of testing alternative business and corporate structures and definitely not developing a model library for medical devices to print.
Y’know, I don’t think that’s enough to make any significant change. It takes more than money - it takes generations. Nothing will change until things get so bad that the comfortable (I assume they’re comfortable if they’re not engaged) majority get involved at all levels. I’m not pessimistic…
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