The article proposes that 100k is big money, but hundreds of millions of dollars were raised and spent in the recent NC Senate Race. Also, donations from Salem Media, a right wing radio outlet, surely were unrelated to lobbying around streaming.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/north-carolina-sena...

Qatar can buy the votes of individual congressmen for only a couple thousand. 100k can buy a lot more.

Source from Center for International Policy:

https://static.wixstatic.com/ugd/3ba8a1_eae58acd2c11459894d8...

If you are sketched out by the direct link you can also find it by scrolling down on this page:

https://www.internationalpolicy.org/program/Foreign-Influenc...

These companies aren’t spending this money for no reason.

Sometimes they put money towards a candidate that already thinks the way they want. It's not always a bribe.

Not saying it’s a bribe. It can simply get and focus the senator’s attention.

(In fact, I’d be shocked if it met the legal definition of bribe — why do it illegally when it’s so easy to do in a legal way?)

Sure, the candidate may say things they like but since when do politicians do everything they say? They are going to prioritize whatever has the most money behind it.

Correction: "It's really impossible to overstate it."

This is an example of an amazing gap in brains' verbal reasoning apparatus, well attested in many languages. Often, even when the error is carefully explained, people cannot see it. It depends on a level of reasoning oddly inaccessible to many.