But in fact the candidate who pretends to be the alternative is supported by the very same vested interests that the voters hate. Wall Street and healthcare CEOs spent big on Trump.
This is a great achievement of the American media environment: people vote for the status quo fully believing they’re voting against it. And somebody ending up in a prison in El Salvador is the sacrificial lamb that is needed to make this equation work.
“Big pharma” spent nothing on Bernie Sanders because healthcare execs hate him and he doesn’t take money from corporate PACs. Individual, low level employees donated to him for the same reason they donate to any other politician. This has been widely known and understood since the baseless false equivalency was raised months ago and that you still repeat it just demonstrates the depths of the bad faith.
"Corporations themselves cannot donate directly to federal candidates, but they can make donations through corporate PACs. The owners of companies and their employees also can make individual donations. For donations that exceed $200, campaigns are generally required to ask for information about the industry in which the contributor works, and they are required to disclose that information if provided.
In the 2019-20 Congressional funding cycle, Sanders received more money from people employed in the field classified by OpenSecrets as "pharmaceuticals/health products" ($1.4 million) than any other member of Congress. He also received roughly $400,000 from people employed in "pharmaceutical manufacturing."
This does not mean he received nearly $2 million from "the pharmaceutical industry," — it means the money was from people employed, in any capacity, in that field."
So pharmaceutical companies cannot donate money directly to candidates, so they fact check it as false, saying it was the employees donating the money and not Pfizer directly, but acknowledging he did receive $1,400,000 from people that work in pharmaceuticals/health products, and $400,000 from people working in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Are we to presume that there is no strings attached when Bernie Sanders is receiving the money? Or are we supposed to offer the benefit of the doubt you wouldn't offer to a Republican politician who said that he didn't receive 1.4 million dollars from the NRA, but employees of the NRA, and a further $400,000 from people in Firearm Manufacturing
This would be like saying the gun rights activists are only doing what the NRA tells them. Does the NRA have employees in the same numbers as the entire pharmaceutical+ industry? In your hypothetical though, in those numbers, it would be weird to think all the donors were paid intermediaries for the lobbyists and CEOs. I have trouble believing that the people invested in the industry and supporting sanders were paid intermediaries as well. That is fairly conspiratorial barring evidence otherwise.
This is a great achievement of the American media environment: people vote for the status quo fully believing they’re voting against it. And somebody ending up in a prison in El Salvador is the sacrificial lamb that is needed to make this equation work.