@eed3si9n small dollar donations bring a kind of populism, but i think it’s definitionally distinct from plutocracy, which refers to government by the very wealthy. a few years ago i was hopeful that small-dollar populism might be a net plus, but experience has diminished my optimism’, small dollars go disproportionately to and incentivize circus-like arousal of public passions. ad hoc self-selection of “voters” (ie donors) and reasonable forms of representation are in serious tension. 1/

@eed3si9n i’m very grateful that small dollar donations made Bernie a real contender, but again pessimistically, i think the days when a candidate as sober and serious as he is would win the small-dollar race have passed, it was an artifact of professional politics not yet having optimized itself for small dollars. now Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene will win that contest. i still probably prefer the effect of small dollars on the D side to the prior and mostly continuing 2/

@eed3si9n situation in which D insiders basically locked out the broad public. so my views remain somewhat mixed. but fundamentally, small dollar donations are like box-office receipts, they reflect a kind of enthusiasm of mostly upper middle class people unusually invested in the dramas of politics. i think they encourage comic book heroes and villians (which is which just depends on your side). 3/

@eed3si9n regardless of all of this (there are lots of nuances! i might be overly cynical!), “plutocracy” in the sense of big-dollar donors is what is behind the takeover of the judiciary, the well-organized and execute project to gerrymander and suppress, etc. there is big money for small government led by the most plutocracy-sympathetic politicians possible, and it’s done fabulous work, on its own terms. 4/

@eed3si9n maybe small-donor populism is a net virtue as a check on this, maybe its circus incentives make it a net harm. but regardless of all that, plutocracy as people mostly understand the term, rule by the influence of the very wealthy, is pretty clearly incompatible with any reasonable version of democracy. and i don’t think it possible to untether great personal wealth from outsize public influence. ergo… (thank you for sbt!) /fin