Much has been written in recent decades about the growing influence of money on politics and elections in the United States, including titles such as “The Best Congress Money Can Buy” and “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” But has Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, whose campaign had a huge funding advantage, undermined that narrative?
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville warned of the threat that big money poses to the U.S. system of governance in his book Democracy in America. Wary of the influence of oligarchs and plutocrats, Tocqueville wrote: “The surface of American society is (…) covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.”
Today, it is the billionaire class leveraging its financial resources to influence elections and policymaking, consolidating more power at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary citizens, further widening America’s wealth inequality and weakening Americans’ trust in national institutions. The floodgates were opened by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), in which the Supreme Court reversed campaign-finance restrictions, enabling corporations and other outside groups to “spend unlimited amounts” on elections. The money being channeled into campaigns has since soared, with super PACs (political action committees) raising nearly $4.3 billion this year, up from $89 million in 2010.
