Billionaires, money and the U.S. democracy deficit
“Modern American politics comes down to hoping that your billionaires spend more than their billionaires.”
— Dave Pell
I recommend Dave Pell’s daily newsletter, NextDraft, which I’ve been receiving in my inbox for years, currently via Substack. With the cheeky self-description of “managing editor, internet,” Pell rounds up a ton of news stories, from the important to the esoteric, and layers them with great writing and “oh, I wish I thought of that one!” wordplay for his headlines. NextDraft is next level, I tell ya.
The observation above came from a newsletter last week about the sordid influence that very, very rich people are having on American politics. Here’s how he described the anticipation for this week’s midterm elections:
On one hand, you have remarkably negative Trump poll numbers and a groundswell movement for change. On the other hand, you’ve got Elon Musk. And that other hand has a deep pocket.
Musk’s jaw-dropping donations to Republican races have certainly caught attention if not raised flags. As the New York Times put it just this morning (gift link included for you), Elon Musk Tests What Nearly Half a Billion Dollars Can Buy in the Midterms. The story’s subhead lays out the stakes: “Never before has a single ultrawealthy person who was not running for office spent this much during a single election cycle.”
The Republicans, as Pell noted, are not the only ones getting attention from the, um, OK, ultrawealthy. Mike Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat billionaire who tried to run for president in 2020, made last-minute donations worth almost US $85 million to shore up Democratic midterm campaigns in the House.
This updated analysis shows how hundreds of millions of dollars in donations are going to the American parties … the majority of it, not that surprisingly, to the Republicans.
There’s always a bit of handwringing on the Canadian side of the border about money and politics. We’re definitely touchier about it here, largely because the rules have been very different for years, and indeed have tightened in more recent election cycles. Elections Canada sets spending limits that are but a fraction of what a single billionaire has been pumping into PACs and ad-spending campaigns south of the border. Canada also has guardrails on so-called third parties, i.e., groups or organizations that want to lobby or cast influence.
I can’t imagine that the solution to America’s democracy deficit is to have even more billionaires spending even more money. Maybe they cancel each other out, but I doubt that; to the contrary, those donations imply ever-more expectations of what they get for their money.
Read dozens of other quotes that I have posted to my blog.