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EA looked at American politics and decided the cheap, low hanging fruit to easily have large effects with small amounts of money was..........
Giving hard-left organizations millions to make an indie film about racism and millions more to the richest liberal slush fund in the world to write one paragraph.
My half-assed review of OPP can be found in the comments here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/vdwwso/a_critical_review_of_open_philanthropys_bet_on/
It sounds like you are skeptical of the efficacy of magic beans? Yeah, in that case, it looks like just the worst combination of some form of quokka-ness with enough of a veneer of "trust me, I've done the utilitarian math, and it says that Democrats are surprisingly underfunded!" High-minded principles got suckered by a grift (well, to the extent that principles were involved at all beyond providing a fig leaf, which is worth questioning).
That said, as a practical matter, EA looks especially vulnerable to grifting exactly because its focus on big-picture analysis tends to dismiss individual failures. On the principles side, EA is an attempt to speedrun morality, which to me raises more red flags than a Chinese military parade.
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The irony here is that EA in general was extremely allergic to politics for over a decade. To the point where there were multiple lectures and serious discussions about avoiding political alignment.
Not everyone in EA wanted SBF to start meddling in politics, in fact I'd argue a majority didn't. And a majority right now certainly agree that political meddling is a bad idea.
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EA is not a hivemind. I don't recall GiveWell endorsing politicians, for example.
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