Why the American Political System is Broken – Part I

Money.  It is a disease that has infected almost every politician.  It is a cancer that has metastasized throughout the entire system.  Money.  It has created a system that is increasingly undemocratic and unrepresentative.  Let’s take the most obvious symptom of dollar disease – if you are rich, you can, legally buy your way into office.  The case in point, Donald Trump.  On the one hand Trump is objectively repulsive.  On the other hand, his repulsiveness struck a chord with many Americans.  And in the middle of his repulsive charisma is the $66 million dollars of his own money he spent to be elected (he claims it was $100mil).  Trump wholly lacked experience and qualifications to hold the office, but $66 million helped overcome that failing.  To be fair, it is not only Republicans but Democrats too.  Governor J.B. Pritzker won his seat in Illinois after spending $171.5 million of his own money.  Frankly, Gov. Pritzker was among the least qualified and least experienced of the democratic primary candidates.  Yet, here we are. I am sure if I spent just a few minutes with Google I could find more examples (off the top of my head - Rick Scott, Bruce Rauner and Mike Bloomberg). 

Of course, there is a defense to the ultra-wealthy in government and self -funded campaigns.  One could argue, that when a candidate is not reliant on campaign contributions, they are not beholden or captured by donors.  Sure, I’ll buy that.  But I’ll never be convinced that an elected billionaires aren’t coming into office with their own entrenched personal interests. 

More to the point, if the norm is to contribute millions to your own campaign, then the barriers-to-entry to run for office become too high.  Public servants, academics, or anyone that falls short of millionaire status is blocked from access, no matter how qualified. To be a representative government, elected office must be within theoretical reach of anyone.  Who understands the middle class better than the middle class?  Who understands what it means to struggle than someone who has struggled? How in touch with the plight of the working poor, or the concerns of the middle class is a billionaire that is the child of billionaires?  What do the cost of groceries mean to you if you have never grocery shopped.

The good news is the solution is not that complicated.  Cap the amount an individual can donate to their own campaign.  This cap would need to apply to the candidate’s family and any businesses they own as well.  That would be a small step but potentially effective step in lowering the barriers-to-entry.

Billionaires in politics is only one symptom of the disease.  Another symptom is the astronomical amount spent on political campaigns.  The Trump campaign raised nearly $800 million.  President Biden’s campaign raised over a billion dollars.  The real problem, though, is not presidential campaigns, it is local races.  Congressional candidates in the 2020 election cycle raised $3.9 billion.  State level candidates raised approximately $1.7 billion.  Millions of dollars could be raised and spent in a single Congressional District.  My guess is that if the data were examined there would be a correlation between how much a candidate raised and spent and whether they won their seat.  Candidates shouldn’t be able to buy their way in.  It is undemocratic. A candidate should be able to win based on their ideas, qualifications and experience.  Those factors are certainly secondary today.

 One obvious remedy is public campaign financing (this is much more complicated that it sounds, but that is another discussion).  Candidates receive their campaign funds from government coffers.  This, quite obviously, evens the playing field.  The ability to self-fund is no longer an advantage.  Imagine a system where the candidates had to duke it out over ideas and policies…. Weird right?

Another solution is campaign financing caps – A campaign can raise and spend a $100k (the number is an arbitrary choice).  This eliminates the embedded advantages held by the ultra-wealthy.  Yet another option, is to prohibit corporate donations and better control individual contributions.  Establish rules that make every campaign a small donor grassroots campaign. However, these solutions only work if dark money, and Super PACs are also addressed.  Those issues are even more difficult and require better minds than mine to sort out.  But to preserve democracy, dark money and Super PACs must be controlled or eliminated.

There are so many aspects of money in politics that warrant discussion, but I am tired of writing this blog.  The bottom line is that our political system has been hijacked by the wealthy and by corporate interests.  The good news is that the solutions are not really that complicated.  The bad news – the people who can enact those changes are the same ones who benefit most from the status quo.

I started this essay with the idea that there would be a Part II.  I cannot remember what that was now.