Make noise about it.

If you believe this is wrong, that is.

I don’t know, it’s not this prevalent everywhere so it is possible.

It wasn’t this prevalent here either until recently.

The Supreme Court has decided that Congress isn’t allowed to regulate this kind of behavior. The Court has also chipped away at bribery statutes, narrowing them significantly.

Unfortunately, without a constitutional amendment, new justices on the Supreme Court, or a revolution, there’s not a lot that can be done. I support an amendment, but with the current court it’s… we have a long way to go.

Or the “honest and honerable” politicians stop accepting donations they know are evil.

Ah never mind, we all know they can’t help it.

There are honest and honorable politicians that don’t take such money.

They often lose to the politicians that do take the donations. Because they don’t have the money necessary to compete in the election.

So, there’s a survivorship bias. Elected politicians are much more likely to be taking those donations. That’s why the system is so problematic. It drives out honest and honorable politicians, and rewards corrupt ones, which further reinforces the idea that all politicians are corrupt. They’re not, but under this system most elected politicians are.

Money matter in campaign. Politicians accepting these have massive advantage over those who don't- so they end up more winning.

In my opinion, this is the voters fault. Read up on the candidates, talk to other voters, if the candidate's ad is all fluff and no substance, don't vote for them. STOP believing non-journalistic cable TV channels who only profit from eyeballs and not the facts.

Advertising is very effective. There's no point in blaming people for it, especially since they are the victims in this scenario.

"Victims", really?!?

Yes, people being fooled into electing corrupt government officials are victims. What's your objection? If I lie to you and steal from you, are you not a victim?

your expectations of voters are unrealistic. not everyone has the time or the education to sift through all that and effectively parse it's meaning. Madison avenue figured this out a long time ago and it's been downhill ever since

Yes, it is possible to amend the US Constitution to carve out an explicit exception in the 1st Amendment for political donations. So far Congress hasn't made a serious effort to do so.

I'm not really familiar with the US constitution, but doesn't the 1st Amendment only protect speech, petition and assembly? Is there some part I'm missing or did a court classify campaign donations as speech?

Ah thanks, that's what I was missing. Such a mindboggling decision.

If you actually read the decision, there's nothing mind boggling about it. It is consistent with the US Constitution, and with Supreme Court precedents. The result of that decision has been terrible, but we can only reliably fix it through the defined constitutional amendment process.

Band together with other citizens and demand an end of this! Also since we're at it corporations aren't persons. The founders of the US were very vocal about giving power to the people, the laws were never intended to grant personhood to legal entities for the purpose of enabling unlimited political lobbying by their wealthy owners.

What kind of organization should citizens be allowed to create to promote a political position, if not a corporation?

If by citizens you mean citizens with a fuckload of money.

One with limited spending power appears to be the gist, to everyone but the Supreme Court

A political party, surely.

(Also, despite that I am not much of a fan of the UK political system, I do like that it has extremely low limits on election spending).

A new political party would itself be a corporation (because if not, who owns its assets?) Running single-issue minor party candidates is also useless unless your issue is important enough to convince a majority of voters to abandon one of the big two parties that have run everything for our lifetimes.

The non-profit kind for starters.

Citizens United is a 501(c)4 nonprofit. I think a lot of Super PACs are, but it doesn't seem to alleviate anyone's concerns.

Banding how exactly in a way that would have sufficient impact to change this? It's not trivial to start a massive political movement. I gotta pay my mortgage, etc.

There is a significant effort put in by the FBI and others to arrest people who do that.

Maybe I’m dense, but what difference does it make whether it was SBF or FTX making the donations? Why implicate Citizens United?

It‘s more fun!

Yes, Citizens United articulated a system where "money for access/attention" is the dominant paradigm of American democracy.