By Randy Alonso Falcon on October 26, 2024
AI generated image
“Democracy” is for sale. It has been from the very moment capital turned it into a façade to adorn its might. Nowhere, though, has political buying and selling gone as far as in the modern mecca of capitalism, the United States.
And it is no longer just bought, it is auctioned. Billionaire Elon Musk has just added a new brushstroke of savviness to the U.S. electoral market by offering registered voters in key states the chance to participate in a $1 million a day sweepstakes, if they would sign his pro-Trump Super Pac petitions “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms.”
The super-rich are no longer hiding who is pulling the strings. Trump, Musk and others of that clan no longer put up with intermediaries. They know their power and want to exercise it unambiguously.
In fact, the owner of Teslas and the social network X, these days mocked the puppet role of the politicians in charge: “Biden is not in charge. Kamala is not in charge. They just replaced the Biden puppet with the Kamala puppet. You can tell if the teleprompter breaks, they start spinning. There are a lot of puppeteers. I’d love to see the combination of puppet masters and Epstein’s client list,” he wrote on his microbloggin account.
But as the U.S. election draws nearer and polls continue to show a close race, the money needed to ramp up the campaign to sell the candidates to voters becomes even more important.
Neither the $75 million that Musk has given to Trump’s campaign in the last weeks, nor the $95 million from conservative tycoon Miriam Adelson, nor the $50 million of the parcel delivery businessman Richard Uihlein (according to the documents filed before the Federal Electoral Commission for the three months ending September 30), have been able to cut the financial disadvantage that the former president has with respect to the Democratic presidential candidate’s coffers.
As shown by data from the Open Secrets site, which tracks campaign finance, the Kamala Harris campaign has accumulated more than 1360 million dollars (pushed by funds from Soros, Hoffman, Bloomberg and other oligarchs) while the Trump campaign has managed to raise about 980 million, despite the digital racket it has organized to sell sneakers, hats, digital assets and everything else that comes its way.
An article in The New York Times says Trump is frustrated by the distance between him and Harris in fundraising and vented his anger at a recent meeting with billionaire GOP donors like Paul Singer, Joe and Todd Ricketts and Betsy De Vos. He even called the Democratic nominee “retarded” and Jews who support her “fools.”
This did not prevent an antipode of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, from announcing that he is donating $50 million to support Kamala Harris.
The pulse between these two technological titans is also between the digital platforms, which are doing their October. More than 619 million dollars in ads have been invested in Google and Meta alone.
Who gives more, seems to be the cry of the moment in U.S. politics. In no other country does so much money flow into an election. It’s the pinnacle of political corruption and the largest marketplace for “democracy”. In 2020, presidential, congressional and gubernatorial election campaigns are estimated to spend more than $14 billion (more than the gross domestic product of several African countries). For this electoral cycle, expenditures of more than 15.9 billion dollars are projected, an outrage!
Who has the real power, those who put their names on the ballot, or those who pay for their expensive seats?
Money and politics in the United States.
There are no longer any limits on election financing, hence the sums poured into the political business are already more than double what they were as recently as 2016. Since 2010, the Supreme Court (the other wing of power with lifetime seats) ruled that limiting electoral donations was a form of censorship and therefore illegal. Nothing can stop billionaires in a system designed to suit them.
To this end, Super PACs emerged, a qualitative and unlimitedly superior phase to the traditional Political Action Committees. Although direct donations from individuals to candidates cannot exceed $6600 in this 2024 campaign (the figure is adjusted every two years for inflation), these influential groups, although they cannot make specific contributions to candidates, can raise unlimited money for electoral propaganda on their behalf. The same dog with a different collar.
In fact, PACs and Super PACs contribute almost 60% of campaign expenditures in the current electoral contest.
A 2015 New York Times report found that at the time, 158 families, along with the companies they own or control, accounted for nearly half of the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign. “They are mostly older, white, wealthy men in a nation being transformed by young people, women, and African-American and Latino voters. In a huge country, they reside in an archipelago of exclusive neighborhoods in just a handful of cities.”, as the New York Daily described this elite group.
The influence of money in politics goes far beyond campaign contributions. Political figures who support the interests of the wealthy receive significant financial rewards and personal benefits. Pro-plutocrat politicians quickly find lucrative positions in the private sector, media jobs or well-paid seats on think tanks.
“Money is the biggest determinant of influence and political success. Money determines which candidates will be in a position to run effective campaigns and influence which candidates will win elected office. Money also determines the parameters of public debate: what issues will be on the table, in what framework they will appear, and how legislation will be designed. Money allows wealthy and powerful interest groups to influence elections and dominate the legislative process.”
-Marty Jezer, “Money in Elections,” Washington Times article, 2005.
The brutal impact of money on the exercise of politics worries even average citizens in that country. A Pew Researche Center study of Americans’ views of the political system, unveiled in October 2023, shows that “large segments of the public believe that political campaigns are too expensive, that elected officials are too sensitive to donors and special interests, and that members of Congress are unable or unwilling to separate their financial interests from their work as public servants.”
The survey data shows that:
Some buy, others sell out to the highest bidder. The system is made to reproduce itself at the convenience of the powerful. The rest does not play a role, although it gives color. The United States is less and less a representative and electoral democracy and more and more a plutocracy.
Noam Chomsky has dissected with surgical precision the workings of American “democracy”: “In our society, the real power in the political system resides in the private economy: that’s where decisions are made about what is produced, what is consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls resources, and so on. And as long as that remains the case, changes within the political system can make little difference….”
Asking Artificial Intelligence
We dared to do this exercise to see what the AI would tell us.
Submitted by you:
What social problems in the U.S. can $15 billion address?
Copilot answers:
With $15 billion, several social problems in the United States could be addressed. Here are some of the most pressing ones:
Child Poverty: Child poverty affects millions of children in the United States. Welfare programs, such as child tax credits, could significantly reduce child poverty.
Opioid crisis: The opioid epidemic, especially fentanyl, has caused more than 100,000 deaths annually. Investing in treatment and prevention programs could save many lives.
Gun violence: Gun violence is a public health crisis. Additional funds could be directed to gun control and violence prevention programs.
Health Access: Improving access to health care, especially for low-income communities, could reduce health disparities and improve the quality of life for many people.
Education: Investing in public education, especially in disadvantaged areas, could improve economic opportunity and reduce inequality in the long term.
Affordable housing: Lack of affordable housing is a growing problem. Funds for affordable housing construction and rental assistance programs could help many families find stable housing.
These are just a few examples, but each of these problems requires significant investment and a comprehensive approach to make lasting change.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English