It can do good work and still be a dark money group though. It's a project funded primarily by mega donors connected to the DNC where the money's destination is not disclosed.
Replies
I know what a dark money group is Spencer "Dark money will destroy our politics" was accurate back in 2010 when Citizens United was new. It's now 2025 & our politics ARE wrecked. If we want to get dark money out of politics, we have to pass laws against it....which means we have to win elections.
sep 1, 2025, 9:29 pm • 35 3 • view
Okay but the problem is, Even someone with the best of intentions who is willing to criticize their own party is going to be less critical when they are receiving money from their party. Even if they say that you can say whatever you want.
sep 1, 2025, 9:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Like, it's pretty unlikely someone is going to take money from someone and go "Thanks for the money! Now here's why I hate you". Even if subconsciously, you become indebted to them and are going to be less willing to criticize them.
sep 1, 2025, 9:37 pm • 2 0 • view
And you know how I know I'm right on this? Because every video I've seen from people in this group, team, whatever has been the same: Extremely defensive, insincere, and frankly sneeringly condescending.
sep 1, 2025, 9:40 pm • 1 0 • view
So what would you like to see? How can progressives fund efforts to reach the public on platforms that are already dominated by the right, talking about issues that are algorithmically handicapped? Is it more about disclosure? Or the funding model?
sep 1, 2025, 10:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Well I'm primarily worried about disclosure, yeah. If they hadn't been so secretive about it, and been so defensive when the expose came out, I wouldn't have nearly as big of an issue with it. I'm still concerned about the potential for soft influence, even subconsciously
sep 1, 2025, 10:08 pm • 1 0 • view
But that's par for the course with electoral politics, I suppose. It just really bothers me how defensive and condescending they were when confronted. And how they lied to defend it, too. It makes it look shady.
sep 1, 2025, 10:08 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm already negatively polarized against the Dem Party in general as a lefty, so maybe I'm not the target for this, but I can't imagine that "Democrats are paying influencers to push the party line" sits well with the public either.
sep 1, 2025, 10:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Ultimately the problem with this is the same as with everything involving the Dems at the national level: they come across as out of touch elites who hate the general public and especially their voter base.
sep 1, 2025, 10:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Disclosure would be great. Chorus didn't do that, they just sort of exist in the background, like most super PAC stuff does. The funding model requires front-to-back transparency. If a single cent is being funneled through a special interest group, that requires disclosure front and center
sep 1, 2025, 10:09 pm • 1 0 • view
This was really obvious stuff before Citizens United. Chorus wouldn't have been able to legally do what it's doing prior to 2010 and it's nuts that people don't see why it's a problem
sep 1, 2025, 10:12 pm • 3 0 • view
It definitely doesn't feel good. I'm genuinely trying to understand what a digital media landscape for the left looks like (pre-overturning CA). Transparency and disclosure, foremost, and on both sides of the arrangement. Per-video grants and not giant creator stipends that buy them out wholesale.
sep 1, 2025, 10:39 pm • 1 0 • view
Part of it is letting people like Sarah just do her thing, right? Like, that's a good thing, not saying it isn't. Bottom line: there is a lot of distrust of money connected to PACs, and for good reason. Politicians, like it or not, are already responsible for how the attention economy operates
sep 1, 2025, 10:45 pm • 1 0 • view
They've failed miserably to rein in the likes of Google, and modern digital media is a clusterfuck of sponsorship arrangements that's barely regulated to begin with. If progressive political funding groups want to earn the trust of media consumers, Chorus sure the fuck isn't how to go about it
sep 1, 2025, 10:49 pm • 2 0 • view
You can't be effective as a modern political party without a messaging apparatus, and expecting the "neutral" media or spontaneous word-of-mouth to fill in for one is one of the main ways Democrats have gotten to this point.
sep 2, 2025, 12:33 am • 4 0 • view
I'm not saying we don't need a messaging apparatus, I'm saying that apparatus shouldn't be funded by dark money super PACs who may or may not lobby Democrat pundits and content creators to say, idk, lay off criticism of Israel. Or idk, not defend trans people.
sep 2, 2025, 12:37 am • 1 0 • view
> need a messaging apparatus To divert the topic: DNC has an apparatus and can use influencers, that's what a party does. The party is not named "progressive", though they are *ska-rewed* without us, so they will have to consider their priorities as will the investors if they expect to gain seats.
sep 2, 2025, 1:08 am • 0 0 • view
Sure if they have pushed people to say things that would be bad. Have they?
sep 2, 2025, 12:46 am • 0 0 • view
Well that's the thing about dark money, we don't know. The contract does say that they need to run their ideas for interviews by Chorus, but like so much of our politics, presumably much is left unsaid with only a nudge and a wink, or explained in a private communication.
sep 2, 2025, 12:50 am • 0 0 • view
But I'm less interested in what Chorus *says* than I am the effect its existence and the money paid to creators has on their own conscious and subconscious positions. Even if Chorus was the most transparent, honest institution ever, it wouldn't change the fact that receiving large amounts
sep 2, 2025, 12:53 am • 0 0 • view
of money will... Change your perspective on the people giving you the money.
sep 2, 2025, 12:53 am • 0 0 • view
So even if you weren't told explicitly not to criticize Democrats, you're still less likely to do so because they're paying you. it's basic human behavior. Don't rock the boat, so to speak.
sep 2, 2025, 12:56 am • 0 0 • view
That part is the claim that I was replying to. The party supporting influencers can subconscious bias them, but the party NOT supporting influencers is undermining its own ability to gain public support.
sep 2, 2025, 12:57 am • 2 0 • view
This is something that can only be stated by a reverse ourobouros where your head is so far up your own ass the very concept of daylight is nothing more than myth and legend.
sep 2, 2025, 1:49 am • 0 0 • view
The implication of your post and several of your replies is that it's not dark money, so I appreciate that Spencer clarified for everyone
sep 1, 2025, 9:38 pm • 6 0 • view
If I were this dense I don’t think I’d admit that publicly, but thank you for outing yourself.
sep 2, 2025, 1:37 am • 4 0 • view
Shut the fuck up dork
sep 2, 2025, 1:33 am • 2 0 • view
sep 2, 2025, 1:34 am • 1 0 • view