@eed3si9n small dollar donations bring a kind of populism, but i think it’s definitionally distinct from plutocracy, which refers to government by the very wealthy. a few years ago i was hopeful that small-dollar populism might be a net plus, but experience has diminished my optimism’, small dollars go disproportionately to and incentivize circus-like arousal of public passions. ad hoc self-selection of “voters” (ie donors) and reasonable forms of representation are in serious tension. 1/

@eed3si9n i’m very grateful that small dollar donations made Bernie a real contender, but again pessimistically, i think the days when a candidate as sober and serious as he is would win the small-dollar race have passed, it was an artifact of professional politics not yet having optimized itself for small dollars. now Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene will win that contest. i still probably prefer the effect of small dollars on the D side to the prior and mostly continuing 2/

@eed3si9n situation in which D insiders basically locked out the broad public. so my views remain somewhat mixed. but fundamentally, small dollar donations are like box-office receipts, they reflect a kind of enthusiasm of mostly upper middle class people unusually invested in the dramas of politics. i think they encourage comic book heroes and villians (which is which just depends on your side). 3/

@eed3si9n regardless of all of this (there are lots of nuances! i might be overly cynical!), “plutocracy” in the sense of big-dollar donors is what is behind the takeover of the judiciary, the well-organized and execute project to gerrymander and suppress, etc. there is big money for small government led by the most plutocracy-sympathetic politicians possible, and it’s done fabulous work, on its own terms. 4/