In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed new campaign finance restrictions that would have largely eliminated the ability of wealthy people to buy elections. In addition to donor disclosure rules and contribution limits, the new legislation capped so-called “independent expenditures” on behalf of political candidates at $1,000 a year. There were even curbs on what rich people could spend to get themselves elected.While the article delivers a very gentle “maybe letting billionaires have all the power isn’t a great thing” message, it doesn’t hammer down what’s most painfully obvious: after 50+ years of our slowly handing over more & more power to these people, the best idea they’ve had so far is re-electing Donald Trump. That’s it. And while you can think what you want of Trump as president, if you’re being honest you’d have to say that while Trump being re-elected has greatly, GREATLY serviced the bank accounts of those 300 billionaires, for everybody else it’s been ridiculously chaotic at best and & terrifyingly destructive at worst (ICE/DOGE/Iran/tariffs/etc etc).
David Koch, a wealthy industrialist, was enraged. “I have the right to spend whatever I choose to promote what I believe,” he later wrote, adding that the law “makes my blood boil.”
Flash forward to the 2024 presidential campaign. Six of the nation’s wealthiest billionaires spent more than $100 million apiece to help get another billionaire, Donald J. Trump, elected president. Independent expenditures by wealthy outsiders for the first time in history exceeded what the candidates’ own campaign committees spent, a New York Times analysis showed. Mr. Koch’s brother Charles was among 300 billionaires and their families who accounted for 19 percent of all contributions in federal elections.
We’ve given the billionaires all of our money & all of our power and this is what we’ve gotten in return, so shove your “oh this guy just hates billionaires” bullshit up your fucking ass and tell me how this country is better off for ANYBODY who’s not a billionaire or billionaire-adjacent. I’ll be holding my breath. If these guys had shown up & said “you know what with our money & our brilliance that got us that money we’re gonna do XYZ that are gonna make everybody’s lives as fulfilling & comfortable as our own” I’d reconsider my position, but it juuuuuuuuuuust doesn’t seem like that's going to happen anytime soon.
And we can't blame the billionaires themselves - 50 years after David Koch lost his shit Donald Trump screamed at everybody live on tv that people are eating pets in Springfield Ohio because “he saw someone say it on tv” and that, despite having spent 4 years already as President of the United States, he had “concepts of a plan” for healthcare, and 75M+ Americans decided you know what, good enough for me. This is partly because most people are idiots, including myself (although not so much that I’d vote for Trump), and partly because people have spent their lifetimes being told that the billionaires are the ones with all the expertise, they’re billionaires because they’re so brilliant and if we’d only give them the reins & get the hell out of their goddam way they’d save the day and yet, again, so far what they’ve given us is Donald fucking Trump.
In terms billionaires may understand, they have been an incredibly terrible investment for the American people and, therefore, the entire world.
It won’t stop anytime soon – people won’t suddenly stop believing that gee if I just give everything I have to rich people then they’ll make ME rich too; they’ll always believe they’re just one billionaire vote away from being invited into a club they not only will never receive any benefits from, but will be utterly crushed by again & again & again. Great.
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