The rule, exactly. Before an election each citizen chooses: to vote — or to take a payment and not vote in that election. The payment is a percentage of the median income, set by referendum; there is no fixed sum. One ballot is one vote, with no multiplier in the count; the vote is amplified only in that each ballot's share grows as others step out. The budget pays under law; a candidate never pays. Only a referendum of all citizens — simple majority, no quorum — introduces, changes or repeals the rule.
The protocol has been introduced nowhere and no pilot has been run: shares, turnout and outcome figures in the chapters are estimates, and the protocol promises nobody an election victory. If a chapter says otherwise, Exact Answers and the Charter are correct. For a candidate: ten questions and ten steps. For a citizen, a mayor, a finance officer, a donor, a journalist, a scholar, a lawyer: answers by role. Everything in force in one file: llms-full.txt.
15. Honest Politicians as Key Beneficiaries of AB-EXIT: Empirically Confirmed Structural Pressure and How It Is Overcome¶
Chapter: 03 File version: v1 Date: 2026-06-11 Source: v6.53 §93
93.1. Purpose of the section¶
Section 91.3 records six categories of interest balanced by AB-EXIT. The sixth — honest politicians — deserves a separate, extended analysis, because it structurally changes the positioning of the whole project.
Before this section AB-EXIT was presented as a reform against the influence of "bad politicians" (populists, manipulators, spin dictators). That is true, but not the whole truth. The whole truth: AB-EXIT is a reform for honest politicians, giving them a structural opportunity to win without having to simplify their programme to the level of populist rhetoric.
This is a qualitative shift in positioning. Not "a reform against the political class" but "a reform for that class of politicians who want genuinely to serve society but face structural pressure that empirically lowers their chances of winning".
An additional structural observation — AB-EXIT addresses the voter as an adult. The modern electoral system structurally requires politicians to treat voters as children — to simplify, to hide complexity, to manipulate emotions instead of arguing, to promise the undeliverable. That demeaning attitude is built into the very structure of the system. AB-EXIT is the first mass political proposal that treats the voter as an adult capable of rational choice on the basis of real data. This aspect of the concept is developed separately in subsections 93.9 and 93.10.
A methodological note. The original version of this section (version 6.50) contained the categorical formulation "an honest politician is forced either to lie or to lose", presented as a structural fact without empirical testing. After the concept's author asked for the scientific basis of the thesis, it was checked against peer-reviewed research. The results showed that the main line of thought is empirically confirmed (Janezic & Gallego, PNAS 2020), but that categorical formulations need softening to probabilistic ones. This section reflects the result of that check. It illustrates a general methodological principle: strong claims must rest on empirical research, not on intuitive generalisation.
93.2. Two fundamentally different categories of politician, and the empirical confirmation¶
Any serious analysis of politics must admit that politicians are not homogeneous. There are at least two fundamentally different categories — more precisely, a spectrum between them:
Category 1 — politicians who use democratic procedures for personal power and enrichment. Their instruments: mobilising the apathetic, manipulating emotions, populist rhetoric, promises to "take and redistribute", simple answers to complex questions.
Category 2 — politicians who sincerely want to help their country and people. They want to apply complex structural solutions: fiscal discipline, long-term planning, infrastructure investment, educational reform, economic innovation.
Empirical confirmation that the structural pressure exists:
The thesis of structural pressure in modern campaigns is confirmed by peer-reviewed research.
The main empirical confirmation is the study by Janezic and Gallego, published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) in 2020. On a sample of 816 elected politicians in Spain the authors used behavioural games to measure preferences for truthfulness and found: "politicians who prefer to tell the truth have lower re-election rates, suggesting that honesty may not pay in politics". This is the first scientific empirical confirmation that structural pressure against honesty exists in modern democracies.
Further studies show the mechanisms of that pressure:
— A 2023 study in the Journal of Economic Behavior showed that "promises that are too generous to be credible in transparent institutions become credible in an opaque environment. Competition leads to more generous promises in opaque institutions than in transparent ones". That is, in modern opaque campaigns candidates are structurally pushed towards exaggeration.
— A 2021 study in Political Behavior established a truth bias among voters: "people are more inclined to judge statements as true than as false, even in a political context where voters might be expected to be more sceptical". This means lying works in the short term because voters detect it poorly.
Critical nuances that must be recorded honestly:
The structural pressure is a probabilistic effect, not an absolute inevitability. Honest politicians have lower chances of re-election, but not zero. The categorical "either lie or lose" is a simplification of reality.
There is significant variation among politicians. The PNAS 2020 study explicitly notes: "some have a stable preference for telling the truth even when lying is personally advantageous and unobserved by others". Such politicians exist and win, but less often than their less principled colleagues.
The categorisation "Category 1 / Category 2" is a simplification for analysis; in reality there is a spectrum between the poles. AB-EXIT works for the whole spectrum, not only the extremes.
What this means structurally:
Even the most honest politician in the existing system finds himself in a dilemma: either simplify the programme to a level the apathetic mass can grasp (losing the substance), or lose. This is not a moral criticism of individuals — it is a structural requirement of the system.
It is not a pure "lie or lose" choice. It is structural pressure towards simplification, exaggeration and short-term rhetoric, which lowers the effectiveness of an honest politician's work. And it is empirically confirmed that this pressure lowers the chances of re-election (PNAS 2020).
93.3. Illustrative examples of structural pressure on honest politicians¶
These examples illustrate the mechanism described; they are not proof. The proof is the PNAS 2020 study of 816 politicians. Each individual case may have multiple causes of defeat; their significance is that they agree with the general, empirically recorded pattern.
Andrew Yang in the US. A technocrat with concrete proposals on UBI, AI policy, Wall Street reform. Lost the 2020 primaries. Among the possible causes: the apathetic mass preferred Biden as "an understandable figure". A programme requiring intellectual work lost to mobilisation through familiarity.
Emmanuel Macron in his first presidential term. A technocrat with a programme of reforms for France. Attempted pension reform — a structurally correct long-term decision. Ran into the "yellow vest" protests from a mobilised apathetic layer. The reform stalled.
The reformers of the 1990s in Eastern Europe — Balcerowicz in Poland, Gaidar in Russia. Applied structurally correct solutions through "shock therapy". Politically they lost to populists mobilising the disappointed. Many of them returned to academic work.
Lawrence Summers in the US. A serious economist, former Treasury Secretary, former President of Harvard. Never publicly entered electoral politics. This is the structural self-removal of talent from elected politics — a phenomenon that deserves separate empirical study.
All these cases have multiple explanations. Yang lost also because of a weak campaign, a late start, and failure to stand out from Biden. Macron ran into not only apathetic mobilisation but specific errors in communicating the reform. This is not proof of a mechanism "honest politicians are doomed to lose". These are illustrations of a general pattern empirically confirmed in the work of Janezic and Gallego (2020).
Counter-examples exist too — there are honest politicians who have won. Finnish leaders, Marin, the Scandinavian social democrats. These cases show that the structural pressure is a probabilistic effect, not an absolute barrier.
93.4. What AB-EXIT gives honest politicians, concretely¶
First — a structural opportunity to win through complex programmes. After AB-EXIT what remains at the polling stations are Pragmatists (25–30 %: engineers, accountants, business owners) and Ideologues (10–15 %: citizens with a system of values). Pragmatists vote for "complex and effective", not "quick and simple". Ideologues vote for principles.
This is the ideal electorate for a technocrat-reformer. One can speak in programmatic terms, work with figures, explain long-term consequences. Such an electorate will understand and support that.
Second — liberation from lying in the campaign. In the present system any candidate is structurally forced to simplify, to promise the undeliverable, to play on emotions. An honest politician either lies or loses.
After AB-EXIT one can tell the truth: "We have a fiscal crisis. We need several years of hard discipline. The first two years will be tough. In five years the situation will improve substantially." Pragmatists will understand through the calculations, Ideologues through values. This electorate has no need of populist rhetoric.
Third — the possibility of long-term planning. Today the political horizon is 2–4 years, to the next election. Any project paying off in ten years loses politically to "quick fixes". After AB-EXIT the electorate is structurally oriented to long-term results (section 80.9 on Norway). A politician can propose projects that pay off in a generation.
Fourth — liberation from the paradigm "take and redistribute". Populist politics rests on two emotional messages: "take from the bad" or "give to all the good". That works on the apathetic because it is simple and emotional. Complex solutions — fiscal discipline, infrastructure investment, educational reform, innovation policy — do not work at that emotional level.
After AB-EXIT populist rhetoric loses its audience. Complex solutions gain an electorate. This is a structural revolution in the political economy of campaigns.
Fifth — the possibility of professional debate. Today political debates are a spectacle for the apathetic mass. Complex questions are reduced to slogans. After AB-EXIT the electorate is capable of following real analysis. Debates become professional discussion, not a show.
93.5. Link to section 70 — the portrait of the public carrier¶
Section 70 describes the portrait of the ideal public carrier of AB-EXIT — "burned inside politics", a person with experience who understands that the current system does not let him do the right things.
That is precisely a Category 2 politician. A technocrat-reformer who has discovered the system's structural limits. An expert in government who has seen populist mobilisation block sensible decisions. A business leader considering political participation but understanding the dilemma "lie or lose".
Section 93 gives section 70 its structural grounding. Not "find a politician willing to promote AB-EXIT" but "find a Category 2 politician for whom AB-EXIT is the instrument of his own possible victory". That is a qualitatively different logic.
93.6. Audiences for which this message works¶
Practising technocrats (the Yang, Bloomberg, Cuban type). They see AB-EXIT as an instrument of their own victory. Not "a reform from outside" but "the chance to do what I have long wanted to do".
Experts in government (finance ministers, heads of regulators, central bankers). They see in practice how populist mobilisation blocks sensible decisions. AB-EXIT gives them allies in the electorate they never had.
Business leaders considering political participation (Cuban, Hoffman, Dorsey, Andreessen). They often want to try politics but see that one must either lie or lose. AB-EXIT removes that dilemma.
Reformers in developing countries (today's Moldovan, Ukrainian, Georgian reformers; potential Polish and Baltic ones). They fight populism every day. AB-EXIT gives them a structural mechanism, not only ideas.
Former ministers and chiefs of staff who left politics disillusioned with the system. They often write books about "how it should be". AB-EXIT is not a book but a concrete mechanism for realising what they write about.
93.7. A ready formulation for this audience¶
"AB-EXIT is not a reform against politicians. It is a reform for those politicians who want to apply complex structural solutions instead of the populist rhetoric of 'take and redistribute', but who in the present system face structural pressure that lowers their chances of winning. The Janezic and Gallego study (PNAS 2020) of 816 politicians empirically confirms: honest politicians have lower re-election rates. After AB-EXIT the apathetic, manipulable mass leaves the electoral field. What remains are Pragmatists and Ideologues — an electorate capable of supporting long-term programmes, complex reforms, fiscal discipline. The technocrat-reformer gains the structural possibility of winning without having to simplify the programme to the level of populist rhetoric."
The English version as it stands in the Russian original, for international use:
"AB-EXIT is not a reform against politicians. It is a reform for those politicians who want to apply complex structural solutions instead of populist "take and redistribute" rhetoric, but who face structural pressure that reduces their chances of victory in the current system. The Janezic and Gallego study (PNAS 2020) of 816 politicians empirically confirms: honest politicians have lower reelection rates. After AB-EXIT, the apathetic manipulable mass exits the electoral field. What remains is Pragmatists and Ideologues — an electorate capable of supporting long-term programs, complex reforms, fiscal discipline. A technocrat-reformer gets the structural possibility to win without having to simplify their program to the level of populist rhetoric."
93.8. Structural significance for the project¶
This sixth category of interest changes the whole positioning of AB-EXIT. Before it was made explicit, AB-EXIT was presented as a reform that had to be "pushed against the resistance of the political class". That created the image of an external force attacking the system.
Once the sixth category is made explicit, it becomes clear that AB-EXIT has natural allies inside the political class — Category 2 politicians. That changes the strategy for finding a public carrier (section 70), the strategy for approaching donors with political experience, the strategy for building coalitions.
This is not merely rhetorical reinforcement. It is a structural observation that determines the project's operational work.
Moreover, this category of interest makes AB-EXIT a concept that does not divide the world into "politician-enemies" and "citizen-heroes". It acknowledges that the political class is heterogeneous, and that AB-EXIT works for the part of it that wants genuinely to serve society. That is intellectually honest and strategically right.
93.9. House of Cards as cultural confirmation of the structural pressure¶
Section 93.2 relies on peer-reviewed research (PNAS 2020) for academic confirmation of the thesis of structural pressure to lie in politics. But there is a second, no less important confirmation — a cultural one. It is the mass success of works of fiction that depict politics honestly, through its real mechanisms, without embellishment.
House of Cards (Netflix, 2013–2018). Launched in 2013, won Emmys and Golden Globes, the guiding star of streaming — the show effectively created Netflix as a platform for original content. Before House of Cards, political dramas mostly depicted idealised politicians fighting corrupt colleagues. Beau Willimon and his team consciously rejected sanitised political drama, recognising "the artificiality of previous shows and the public's growing political cynicism and frustration with politicians".
The result of the mass resonance:
— The show landed in Western markets, but also in China, Russia and Iran — authoritarian regimes whose citizens usually know little about American politics. By Spacey's account, in China "Underwood is perceived as someone fighting corruption". That is, the international public identifies not with Underwood as a monster but with those who expose the real mechanisms of power.
— TV Guide wrote in 2018 that "nothing House of Cards could do compares with the madness and fear viewers feel every time they scroll through the news feed". Real politics in 2016–2020 outdid fiction. That is an empirical indicator that the public already structurally knows the truth — the show gave it artistic form.
— Critique Lens 2024: "the show's depiction can significantly affect viewers' trust in real politics, forming a sense of cynicism and scepticism". That is, the show does not merely reflect reality; it amplifies an already existing public cynicism by confirming what viewers suspected.
The structural meaning of this phenomenon for AB-EXIT:
House of Cards confirms that the public around the world structurally knows the truth about the mechanisms of political power — lies in campaigns, lobbying, insider deals, manipulation of voters. That truth simply could not be discussed publicly for a long time — it could only be shown as "fiction".
This is an important empirical observation. When AB-EXIT, in public communication, speaks of structural pressure to lie, of manipulation of the apathetic mass, of the demeaning treatment of voters — it is not discovering America. It is naming what millions of people already know but could not discuss publicly. This resonates with the mass public instantly, because it is a truth waiting for formulation.
Comparable cultural phenomena confirming the same thesis:
— Veep (HBO, 2012–2019). A satire of American politics with a direct depiction of cynical manipulation; won the Emmy six times.
— The Thick of It (BBC, 2005–2012). The British predecessor of Veep, depicting government as a wholly manipulative structure.
— The Boys (Amazon, 2019–2026). Not politics directly, but the same structure — corporate propaganda against reality. A huge international success.
— Succession (HBO, 2018–2023). A depiction of a media corporation as a structure of manipulation; won the Emmy three times for Outstanding Drama Series.
Each of these shows is a mass success. Each is built on depicting the system as structurally corrupt. The public structurally demands such content, because it matches its sense of reality.
93.10. The volume of exposed corruption and the tip-of-the-iceberg thesis¶
Empirical data on corruption in the US for 2024–2026 give a concrete sense of the scale of the systemic pressure AB-EXIT works against.
Lobbying and the revolving door:
— $4.44 billion of federal lobbying in the US in 2024 — a record historical level. More than 13,000 registered lobbyists.
— 866 members of Congress and Capitol staff moved into lobbying in 2025. 125 lobbyists moved into Congress. A 60 % increase in the revolving door compared with 2024.
— 7 in 10 Americans are convinced that lobbying serves enrichment. Confidence in Congress fell 15 % after a series of scandals.
— The effect on regulation: enforcement in the affected sectors falls by about 30 %. That is, after public promises of "tough regulation", the actual application of those regulations is substantially weaker, because in the office the lobbyists get theirs.
Insider trading in Congress:
— The 2020 COVID scandal. Several senators (Burr, Loeffler, Inhofe, Feinstein, Perdue, Hoeven) sold shares before the market crash, using insider information from a closed briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Justice opened an investigation on 30 March 2020. Not one person was charged. All investigations were closed.
— Prediction markets, 2024–2026. One trader made almost $1 million with a 93 % success rate betting on unannounced US/Israeli military operations against Iran, placing bets hours before the strikes in October 2024, June 2025 and February 2026. 38 accounts made $2 million-plus on the strikes of 28 February 2026, having been pre-funded over the preceding week. 50 new accounts bet on a ceasefire on 7 April — some opened minutes before the announcement.
The tip-of-the-iceberg thesis:
These data are only what has been exposed publicly. The real scale of corrupt practice is certainly larger, for two structural reasons:
— Investigation inside the system. When the DOJ investigates Congress, both structures are part of one political system. They share networks, staff through the revolving door, interests. The COVID scandal is a direct example: serious suspicions, an investigation opened, zero charges, all cases closed. This is not "perhaps the FBI is inside the system" — it is an empirically recorded fact.
— Hidden forms of corruption. Many practices do not break the letter of the law but break its spirit. The revolving door (60 % growth in a year) is formally legal. Lobbying at $4.44 billion is formally legal. Insider trading through complex derivatives and prediction markets is a grey zone. Most "corruption" in the modern system is not criminalised; it is institutionalised.
So what is exposed publicly is the small visible part of the iceberg. The unexposed part is an order of magnitude larger, invisible by nature and legally protected.
What this means for AB-EXIT — an appeal to those outside the system:
Section 80 of our document describes AB-EXIT as a reform making the state transparent by corporate standards. But there is a deeper observation: AB-EXIT appeals to those who are structurally outside the system that investigates the system. That is, to voters.
When the system investigates itself, it finds itself not guilty. The COVID scandal is the empirical confirmation. This means that reform will never come from inside the system. A justice minister will not investigate a finance minister. A senator will not accuse a senator. A prosecutor will not pursue the former boss for whom he works now or worked before.
Reform can come only from outside — from citizens, through direct democracy (Route A, section 68) or through mass public pressure on parliament (Route B, section 84). AB-EXIT is structurally built for that path.
And here is the emotional argument that was not used explicitly before: the current system treats voters as children who are better off not knowing the truth. Politicians promise one thing in public and do another in the office. Investigations close without charges. Lobbying is called "advocacy". The revolving door is called "private sector experience". This is a demeaning attitude to citizens.
AB-EXIT treats the voter as an adult for the first time. "Money or a strengthened vote — your choice." Not "we promise you all good things, vote for us". Not "don't worry, we'll decide for you". A direct economic choice by an adult.
An emotional formulation for communication:
"The current system treats you as a child who is best kept in the dark. Politicians promise one thing in public and do another in the office. $4.44 billion of lobbying in 2024. 866 people moved from Congress into lobbying in 2025. Senators who sold shares before the COVID market crash received not a single charge. Those are the exposed cases — the unexposed are certainly more. AB-EXIT is the first political proposal that treats you as an adult. A real economic choice. A transparent formula. You make the decisions, not politicians for you."
This is resonant communication. It works not through political agitation but through recognition of the voter's dignity. It is a qualitatively different register of speaking to the public.