P.G. Smith Author

It’s finally indisputable. Government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy is officially here.

The president and vice president are both billionaires. Half their advisors are billionaires. All nine Supreme Court Justices are millionaires; six of the nine are multi-millionaires. And at least 48% of Congress are millionaires. Yes, the wealthy are well represented. I haven’t researched the state legislatures, but it would be surprising if the results were much different, given how much it now costs to run for office.

The presidential candidates alone spent 5.5 billion dollars and congressional races took another 10.4 billion. And where does all this money come from? According to Open Secrets (a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics) 68% of Trump’s money came from large donors and 56% of Harris’s did. So, both sides take a lot of money from rich people.

Tomorrow (1/21/25) marks the 15-year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v FEC case that reversed two centuries of campaign finance restrictions that were intended to prevent this kind of influence or at least slow it down. The Court declared that spending on political campaigns could not be limited as long as it was independent and disclosed.

The rationale for this decision was that as long as the money spent was not coordinated with the campaign (an ad or endorsement by a PAC, for example), and publicly disclosed, it could not influence the election. Even at the time this reasoning seemed either grossly disingenuous or incredibly naive. Fifteen years of experience have shown it to be completely wrong.

The result is clear and present today. PACs and super PACs have proliferated. Currently, more than 78% of super PAC money comes from 100 donors, who are pretty well hidden within super PAC structures that make it hard to trace the source. Thus, Dark Money went from less than $5 million in 2006 to more than $300 million in 2014. In the top ten most competitive Senate races that year 71% of funding came from dark money–wealthy donors hidden in PACs.

In 2024 the result is even more outrageous. 44% of Trump’s support came from ten donors. Elon Musk alone spent more than $250 million and took over the organization of Trump’s campaign. (Not exactly independent so why wasn’t it illegal?) Crypto-currency giants spent $90 million; big oil about the same.

What do you suppose they expect to get for that kind of investment? Mainly, three things: tax cuts, deregulation, and government contracts. Trump has already promised all three and the GOP platform backs him up all the way (not to mention Project 2025.)

And where do the American people fit into all this? We get to be the suckers who pay the bill. We have to give Trump credit for one thing. He does a lot of his deals (and infractions) right out in the open.

As a final point of irony, the man who made his mark vilifying minorities will be inaugurated on Martin Luther King day.