Any student of history (as rare as those seem to be these days) knows that the United States of America was founded by an oligarchy and largely ruled by the same for nearly 250 years.
Over the intervening years numerous pieces of legislation have attempted to reign in the influence of corporations, unions and wealthy individuals with largely mixed results due, in part, to lax enforcement. But successive US Supreme Court decisions have largely taken any teeth out of those efforts.
Following the 2010 Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission decision, wealthy citizens are, in effect, allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns through what are called PACs or Super PACs, aka political action committees. Worse yet, those contributors can shield the identity of who is trying to influence from the electorate—using so-called “dark money.”
The result has been an utterly amazing amount of lucre flowing into campaigns and the numbers show little to no sign of abating. In 1990, the average successful US House of Representatives hopeful spent $407,600 on their campaigns, by 2024 that number escalated to a whopping $3 million. While the Senate crew saw their average for winning candidates pony up a mind-bending over $28.5 in 2024.
In 2020, the tally for federal election campaigns almost scaled a $14 billion mountain of cash—a number higher than that of many countries’ entire gross national product.
When it comes to running for office in the US it helps to be rich, but better still, it helps to have rich friends. Tesla owner and former staunch Trump supporter Elon Musk, at various moments the richest man in the world, spent over $290 billion on the 2024 election. That’s ‘b,’ as in billions—if one were to count continuously to a billion, it would take over 30 years, and, of course, it would take a team as one person could not continuously count for that long as humans need to sleep and eat.
The result of this unfettered political largesse can be seen in the current state of the state in that country and the corruption it engenders is utterly predictable. The founders of the United States of America would have been scandalized at anyone spending a millionth of that amount to get elected. In fact, the US founding fathers specifically designed their system of checks and balances to prevent any one “faction” from being able to dominate all the levers of power in their new country. No kings indeed.
They did not count on the aggregation of wealth currently in play. The corruption that unlimited money in political contributions has brought about has enabled the super wealthy to rule the roost in American politics to an extent far beyond the ken of even such forward thinkers as Benjiman Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Small wonder that the average American has little use or faith in their government. Theirs is a government that is no longer of the people, let alone for the people—and no, all men are no longer created equal in the land that was once the bastion of freedom and Western democracy. The Donald’s Big Beautiful Bill stands testament to that. Service cuts for the poor, disenfranchisement for the disposed and the loss of rights for the commons citizen while accompanied by obscene tax cuts for the wealthy and a full-on assault on the freedom of the press and the very first amendment to the US Constitution.
In the not-so-distant past, it was the wealthy of America who paid the piper when it came to financing the government, no more.
The decision to limit political contributions in Canada has not ended political corruption or the influence of big money, be it union, corporate of individual, but it has moved most political corruption into darkened hotel rooms and brown envelopes stuffed with cash and/or wedding gifts.
Our nation may be in need of political reform—but increasing the influence of money in election campaigns should never, ever be contemplated. The fall of the United States of America into its current state of political and social turmoil should stand as a cautionary tale to be heeded, not emulated.
