A Coffer You Can’t Refuse
I feel sorry for billionaires. Each election season, I donate to a handful of Democratic campaigns. From that moment, my phone number is passed around like a hat, criss-crossing the country, and I start getting text messages requesting contributions from candidates and causes from every nook and cranny of America. I spend much of my day hopelessly typing STOP to end the incoming messages. The first three words that are suggested in my iPhone messaging app’s predictive text are I, The, and Stop. I can’t imagine what it’s like for billionaires, who currently play an outsized and outlandish role in funding American elections. For their sakes, I hope there’s a threshold one can reach that gets one’s phone number removed from the donor list. You’re probably thinking that big money from big donors is nothing new in American politics. And you’re right. But the scope has changed dramatically. “In 2000, the country’s wealthiest 100 people donated about a quarter of 1 percent of the total cost of federal elections, according to a Post analysis of data from OpenSecrets. By 2024, they covered about 7.5 percent, even as the cost of such elections soared. In other words, roughly 1 in every 13 dollars spent in last year’s national elections was donated by a handful of the country’s richest people.” We’ve become a plutocracy in which elections basically boil down to our billionaires vs your billionaires. WaPo (Gift Article): How billionaires took over American politics. Last year, New York City billionaire John Catsimatidis donated millions to the Trump campaign. “‘If you’re a billionaire, you want to stay a billionaire,’ said Catsimatidis, whose net worth is estimated at $4.5 billion. It’s not just about his own wealth, he said, adding, ‘I worry about America and the way of life we have.'” Oh, please. STOP.
