[coldtea]

>A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office.

Having a preferred candidate you give money to is already bribery - whatever the law says. You fund your favorite pony to get the power. They then scratch your back or lend a sympathetic ear.

[Nevermark]

Simply spending money to get someone you like elected isn’t bribery.

To the degree great inequality leads to this being decisive in elections, it is a corrupting influence, but the term for it is still not “bribery”.

But when a presidential candidate tells oil companies they should donate because he is going to help them, that’s solid bribery.

When companies pay to “settle” ridiculous accusations, or “donate” to a president’s causes, while their mergers or other business legal issues depend on an openly pay-for-play president’s goodwill, that’s solid bribery.

The country’s policies, discipline, reputation and competence (economic, diplomatic and political) are being sold off for a tiny fraction of what their future adjusted value is worth.

[yencabulator]

In actual functioning democracies political donations are capped severely.

Say, a single donor can contribute a maximum of €6,000 per parliament candidate per election.

Yes, that's a real limit.

[tripzilch]

> Simply spending money to get someone you like elected isn’t bribery.

Alright then what should it be called, because it's also not democracy.

[jfengel]

I agree, but coding that up in law turns out to be tricky. Americans are reluctant to pass laws about how you can spend your money, especially if that money is being spent to express your opinion.

We used to have some limits on it, but now it's trivial to bypass those limits because the Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment isn't limited (except for all of those other limits.)