Are Political Donations Worthless?

     If you were going to try to optimize your donations in a bang-for-buck fashion in order to have a positive impact on the world, how much would do donate to politicians? From an Effective Altruist point of view, political donations are likely worthless. The amount of money in American politics is staggering, and the number of voices online and in-person shouting over each other is staggering. Anyone who has argued about politics in an online forum can attest to the difficulty of changing another's mind on any issue. This comes down more to ideology than anything. Also, voting for the presidential election is generally worthless, due to the electoral college but also due to the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people. You should still do it, civic duty and all, but we all know the odds. Even if you contribute the average American salary or a hundred times that to most political campaigns, you are not going to move the needle. In a solid blue or a solid red state, this is even more likely so. Additionally, the system is winner-takes all. If you donate to cancer research, maybe you have an impact. If you donate an additional thousand dollars to a candidate, and they lose, where is the impact? Given all these considerations, should we give up on politics? What if you love a certain politician or hate another? What if you are pretty certain that a certain presidential candidate would contribute extremely negatively to the nation or the future of the human race?

    It is a well known fact that local politics play a much larger role in American life than national politics. Sure, we love to argue about national issues, but the local stuff is what affects your day to day. How are the roads? How is the crime? How well run is the school district your kids go to? These local races have much less money involved, and a single vote count exponentially more than in the national election, so getting involved at the local level (or donating) could have a larger impact on your life. But is it in any way comparable to funding de-worming medication or malaria nets? No, probably not. Still, everyone has to have their own "asset allocation" when it comes to donations, and if some slice (let's say 20%) has to go to politicians that you like to make you feel good and continue to donate to effective causes, all the better. Personally, I would never give a cent to a political candidate. I am pretty politically passionate, but I simply believe there are better uses for my money. However, I do believe that advocacy is severely underrated. Calling your congressmen, writing your local representative, starting petitions, etc., are all massively more impactful than voting in any election. This is somewhat backed by intuition but also real-world anecdotes. I've found that my ability to aggressively send emails and call phone numbers to be pretty politically persuasive, especially at the local level. Making your voice heard through your vote isn't easy, so you might as well shout.