r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/PaperTrailProject • 6d ago
US Politics Do you think making political money easier to trace actually changes how people understand politics?
I’ve been been discovering how hard it is for a normal person to actually follow political money in the US.
The information technically exists (i.e. FEC filings, federal contracts, lobbying disclosures, congressional committees, USAspending, etc.) but it’s scattered across a bunch of different government databases and usually takes some effort to figure out how the pieces connect.
I’m a college student and I’ve been working on a project called The Paper Trail Project (holy cornball ik) that tries to put some of those connections in one place. So instead of just seeing that a company has federal contracts, you can also look at its affiliated PAC, lobbying activity, politicians receiving contributions, agencies giving it contracts, and eventually revolving-door connections and the related legislation.
Working on it has made me wonder whether lack of information is really the problem, though.
For people who follow politics pretty closely: do you think making these relationships much easier to see would meaningfully change how people understand political power? Or do most people already basically know that corporations, lobbying, campaign finance, and government contracting are interconnected and just interpret those relationships differently depending on their politics?
I’m also curious what information you personally would want to see if you were looking into a company or politician. Campaign contributions? Lobbying? Federal contracts? Revolving-door employment? Committee assignments? Something else?
I’m not trying to argue that every contribution or contract is inherently corrupt. I’m more interested in whether making the underlying relationships easier to investigate is actually useful.
I’ve been building the site for a couple months now, and I’m at the point where I’m trying to figure out what information is actually valuable to people rather than just adding more data because I can.
I can put the project in the comments if anyone is interested, but I’m mostly interested in the question.
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u/ale23arg 6d ago
I honestly think it wouldn't make a difference....
People that care find out.... If we can learn one thing about what has been going on with politics over the last 6 to 10 years is that some people just don't care to find the truth about things....
Look at Jordan Klepper bits on rallies. Specifically during Trump's first term and the thing about the Ukraine phone call... They kept arguing that it was a perfect phone call because he said so and they never even bothered to read the 2 page transcript......
The same thing goes for everything else. They were chanting to lock Hilary Clinton up due to the thing with bengazi and the emails yet there was no evidence....
They kept talking about litter boxes in classrooms again no evidence...
People are eating cats and dogs.... no evidence...
Even with everything that is going out they still say we would be worse off with Kamala.... You can show the evidence all you want, their mind has been made up for them at birth.....
Look at how they went after Hunter Biden and they are looking the other way at Trump's kids dealings.... You know things are wrong when a Republican senator is the one asking for an investigation into the the Republican's president's son dealings and still nothing happens...
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u/PaperTrailProject 6d ago
Very true. I wish you were wrong, but I do think this is a serious problem in this country. I was hoping to maybe get those people who are trying to involve themselves in politics, but don't really know where to start. Also, I think it could help show just how corrupt everything is. There are a decent amount of people I've showed the website, too, that have been surprised at the data. However, I am skeptical like you that it is actually going to change minds.
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u/ale23arg 5d ago
But that's the crazy thing about Jordan kleppers videos... he is going to rallys....
I like to read and get informed about the issues and the candidates. I spend a big chunk of my time looking things up... there is no way in would actually go to a rally... these are people that woke up and said I'm gonna support this guy, I'm gonna spend time and money to go see what he had to say and to support this guy who i don't even know what he is about.....
Those guys should want to be informed yet when asked if they read a 2 page transcript published by the Whitehouse... they haven't... i understand if you grab a random guy off the streets but these guys dedicated their day and can't be bothered to read a 2 page thing.... it's worse than that....
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u/Lolomelon 6d ago
Respectfully, this is one of those things where it helps to know how the data is being used now and by whom. It seems like the professional users would be better sources for justification than random Redditors.
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u/PaperTrailProject 6d ago
Yeah, but I was hoping to maybe make one of the website's main purposes presenting this scattered information in an accessible way to the average voter, rather than it being primarily for professionals or something. You're right, though. I do want to find a way to pitch it to those kinds of users, too.
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u/Substantial_Car4040 6d ago
I think it would help a little, and every bit counts. So keep going!
Every inch we can get might be the only way until we can get politicians to hold themselves accountable by passing a Constitutional amendment that gets money out of elections and politics.
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u/PaperTrailProject 5d ago
I'm glad you think so! I think I'm gonna keep pursuing this, because anything that convinces people to get money out of politics is worth it I think, no matter how marginal the effects.
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u/Ed_Ward_Z 6d ago
Understand this database of government subsidies to wealthy corporations: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals
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u/BitterFuture 6d ago
No, that information being easily available would not move the needle.
How many voters actually do any kind of research at all before voting? Check Ballotopedia's traffic. It's not literally nonexistent, but...
Availability of information helps in a general sense, sure - but motivating people to want it helps a lot more. How do you manage that? Hell if I know. Figure it out and you'll probably snag a Nobel.
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u/PaperTrailProject 5d ago
Good point! I'm familiar with Ballotpedia, and I don't know why it's not more popular for the people who aren't involved in politics outside of voting. And I'll let you know if I figure it out lol
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u/d4rkwing 6d ago
If you could trace everything down to actual individual’s names that might be useful.
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u/PaperTrailProject 5d ago
Yes, I do that! This is obviously in the early stages, but part of the database is tracking politicians, naturally, but also people who have worked for the federal government, then who go into lobbying. I call it the Revolving Door. If you're interested, here is the link to that page: https://www.papertrailproject.org/people
If there is anything you think I should add, or like types of people, let me know! I'm always looking for improvements:)
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u/I405CA 6d ago
Empirical work exists showing that most people support a party because they believe it contains people similar to them, not because they have gauged that its policy positions are closest to their own. Specifying what features of one’s identity determine voter preferences will become an increasingly important topic in political science.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5120865/pdf/nihms819492.pdf
Politics in the US are largely a reflection of peer group behavior. Very few people have a nuanced understanding of politics.
Providing them with more information won't get them there.
At least some of this financial information is available on Open Secrets. It's a good source, but it hasn't impacted how voters view elections.
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u/PaperTrailProject 5d ago
Very interesting! I'm not surprised, but I'm hoping this will change one day soon.
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u/I405CA 5d ago
It won't change.
Learn about social identity theory and its cousin "follow the leader." Humans look for peer groups to validate their viewpoints and look to their peers and leaders who they trust when forming opinions about topics that are not high priority to them.
That doesn't mean that you can't do what you are doing. Just don't expect it to move the masses.
You may want to target journalists and podcasters, then go promote yourself as the head of the project. Get some advisors on your board so that you have some credibility with the media.
In other words, get your ducks in a row, do thorough work, tell a good story, and turn it into a business or think tank.
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u/BigNorseWolf 5d ago
I think it makes it harder to argue you're a grass roots organization if you're being funded by corporation.
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u/PaperTrailProject 5d ago
True! I mainly track the organizations doing that funding, and to what committees/politicans that money goes to. I think that this new wave of grassroots candidates is a huge step in the right direction, but I think a lot of people don't get yet why it's so important that you don't take money from corporations - that's hopefully where this can help!
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u/Splenda 5d ago
Look what happened to the climate conversation after the Citizens United decision. Before, we had Republican leaders from George HW Bush to John McCain demanding climate action. After, the gush of oil nd gas industry dark money into the Republican Party made it taboo to mention there.
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u/Sarmq 5d ago
For people who follow politics pretty closely: do you think making these relationships much easier to see would meaningfully change how people understand political power?
I think you're ignoring how trust works in politics. To a first approximation, nobody is going to actually scour through a giant document and aggregate, they're going to just wait and see what people they trust on the subject say. This is sort of like climate change. Regardless of if you believe in climate change, roughly zero percent of the wider population has actually gone and read an actual scientific paper. It gets digested through various institutions until people get a very distorted and probably not super accurate at all version of the topic from someone they trust. Then they parrot arguments about it that they hear from other people who believe what they do.
Assuming there's some semi-sketchy money going to each political coalition, I'd expect each one to selectively note the ones going to their opponents and present that to their followers and their followers to believe it. They'll probably all be right, but if there's enough sketchy money, you end up with the same situation that cable news has. There are enough headlines that you can report whatever you want and never have to lie (except by omission). People later pick the news source they want for cultural reasons or to validate what they already believe instead of the other way around.
God I'm getting cynical in my age...
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u/UnfoldedHeart 3d ago
I think more data is always useful to have; there are definitely going to be interested people. But I also doubt that many people are walking around with some naive and idealized view of politics. We all know that there are connections in politics.
What matters more is what those connections are. If someone believes that any given corporation, union, non-profit, group, etc is on "their side", then these connections are seen charitably as team support. When it happens on the other side of the table, it is presumptively corruption. But the concept of the connection itself isn't the problem - it's about who is connecting. If you said "this union supports this politician", then lots of Democrats would see this as a sign of positive alignment while a lot of Republicans would be horrified and call it corruption. Vice versa if you replace "this union" with like... Elon Musk or whatever. Either way, it's not about the very fact that a connection exists there, but about who is doing the connection.
Nevertheless, there's a good argument to be made here; it just requires more legwork. A lot of the advocacy in this area seems to be spreading awareness of these connections, which is kind of flat because we're all already aware that this stuff goes on. A better argument is to proactively demonstrate a quid pro quo, but that's a lot harder.
It's generally true that in "ingroup/outgroup" dynamics, people will often assume the best intentions of their group while assuming the worst intentions for the opposite group. So the advocacy here is overcoming the assumption. I think that there are a lot of normal people, who are definitionally not on Reddit or X, that could actually be convinced of a problem on their side of the political line if the throughline is definitive enough to overcome the assumption. But I'm making it sound easier than it is, because this is a very hard thing to demonstrate to the point where very qualified people often don't try. Sometimes people do try, but in a hamfisted way that's actually counter-productive (highly selective presentation of facts, lots of assumptions, etc.)
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