Episode description

A special episode for election day! As you are waiting in endless lines to cast your ballot or obsessively refreshing your browser waiting for the results, tune in to The Ladies Who Crunch as they dig into the money behind the candidates. What is the history of campaign election financing in the United States? How does it compare to other democratic countries? Does the candidate with the most money always win? Or does the flood of big campaign donations just indicate who people think is most likely to win (and therefore who they want to curry favor with)?  Do mega-donors represent a threat to representational democracy? How can "micro-donors" make small donations have the most impact possible? What exactly do candidates spend their money on and does it really impact the outcome of the election? 

Added bonus! Damien and LB discuss cross-border perspectives of how the democratic process in Canada and the US are different but similar and get into the classic debate of punks and anarchists everywhere: should we vote at all (spoiler alert: you absolutely should vote in this election if you can). 

Extra mini-previews of topics discussed to help search engines find us: The history and present of campaign financing in the US (in particular the presidential campaigns), political donations and tax credits, dark money, PACs, Super PACs, the efficacy (or irrelevance) of advertising in political campaigns, partisan electoral districts (gerrymandering), how American democracy works (primaries, the electoral college, etc), how Canadian elections work (parliamentary democracy), distrust of big government (federalism), Qanon and other conspiracy theories, feeling disempowered by billionaire donors, the temptation to not vote or engage in "voter boycotts", partisan gridlock, and choosing between the lesser of two evils (i.e. the two-party system). 

The Ladies Who Crunch are Hadassah Damien and Laura Boo. More information about us and this podcast can be found at ladieswhocrunch.club.

Special thanks to our researchers Ariel Federow and Handy Levine.