For the left, the Koch brothers were the big billionaire bugbears. For the right, George Soros is the main money monster. While they have received most of the attention, there are other billionaires in politics. Somewhat ironically, the Democratic race included multiple billionaires…at least for a while. Their failures provide a context in which to discuss the influence of money on politics.
Most recently Mike Bloomberg bought his way into the race, spending $500 million to buy ads and create an organization. On the face of it, Bloomberg seems to have wasted that money—he recently dropped out.
This result might lead some to conclude that claims about the power of money in politics are exaggerated. If money had great power, Bloomberg should have been able to buy the nomination. On the one hand, it is true that money is not a sufficient condition to cinch the nomination or win an election. Bloomberg seemed to have some momentum and success until his past underwent scrutiny under the eyes of today and Elizabeth Warren scored a critical hit on him during the debate. As such, it is true that one cannot simply buy a nomination for president. Otherwise Bloomberg would be the nominee.
On the other hand, a billionaire who talks seriously about running for office gets instant media attention. One who decides to run seems to automatically be taken somewhat seriously as a candidate. Compare, if you will, what happens when a billionaire declares versus what would happen if you or I made a similar declaration (assuming you are not a billionaire). Billionaires can also use their vast fortunes to purchase considerable advantages. Returning to Mike Bloomberg, he instantly became a viable candidate and he was able to buy an organization and a significant degree of success—despite jumping in the race late. Only someone with $500 million to spend could have done this—and only an extremely rich person has that much money of their own to spend as they please. True, Bloomberg did fail—but he bought his way into the race and bought an impressive level of success. He was in a position to fail because of his money and if he did not have all those past issues (or the times were different), if he did not get crushed by Warren and if he was more charismatic, then he might have secured the nomination over a failing Biden. As such, the lesson to take away from Bloomberg is not that money cannot buy the nomination, but that money can buy one a long way towards that nomination. If Bloomberg did not have that $500 million to spend, he would have not gotten nearly as far—so money seems to be a powerful factor in politics, thus giving billionaires a vast advantage over everyone else.
It could even be argued that Bloomberg will get a return on his investment. While he failed as a candidate, his main goal was to defeat Bernie Sanders and his efforts seem to have paid off—Biden has currently stopped floundering and has started winning. While it is not certain that Bloomberg was a factor here, he certainly spent lavishly trying to beat Bernie and it seems to have paid off. Bloomberg is rather concerned about what Sanders would do as president—and it would clearly not be to serve the interests of billionaires like Bloomberg.
While Bloomberg and Steyer have left the race, they still have vast sums they can spend—presumably to help Biden beat Bernie and then Trump. This raises the usual moral and practical concerns about the influence of money on politics. While I certainly support freedom of expression, this right is not an unlimited right. Just as a person does not have the right to scream their view over the voices of everyone else because they happen to be the loudest, a person does not have the right to drown out the voices of everyone else because they happen to be the richest. As such, I agree with limits on political spending for the same reason I agree on putting limits (in relevant contexts) on people screaming loudly over other people to drown out their voices. The competition should be between the content of the views, not a battle over who is the loudest or who can buy the most expression.
There is also the obvious concern that Bloomberg, Steyers and their fellows can subvert and corrupt the democratic process with their money—while they cannot simply buy the results they wish, they can influence the powerful of the party to shape how the nomination process unfolds and they can shape the policy of the party. While I would obviously not forbid any Democrat from having a role in this process, the threat presented by billionaires is clear. To use an analogy, they might not be able to buy the captain’s chair but they can certainly exert disproportional influence on who sits there and what course the ship will take.
I was pleased and relieved to see that Bloomberg could not simply buy his way into the race, even given the huge spend.
Related, I came across a story that seems to be in several places, though probably not the ones you read. A member of the New York Times Editorial Board repeated a tweet on air saying that with the money Bloomberg spent, he could have given everone in America a million dollars. Here’s the video:
https://twitter.com/MichaelSalfino/status/1235790054984990721
I can’t resist noting that that clip explains so much about the current NYT, the quality of its fact-checking, and the intellectual calibre of its top minds.
Beyond the easy snark, though, I think there are lessons. It’s not about being “bad at math”. I’ve made equally boneheaded mistakes with arithmetic, dropping decimal places, forgetting unti conversions, flipping signs, and so on. Anybody can make those sort of mistakes, especially when talking on the fly. But she was not talking on the fly. They had the tweet on a slide ready to show, which means she must have come to the interview with the deliberate intent of making the point. The host had seen it before as well. They must have discussed it beforehand. Making a slip in arithmetic is one thing, but this Editorial Board Member clearly does not have a habit of sanity-checking her facts.
One of the necessary habits of effective thinking is to check your steps against reality, at least to an approximation, Fermi problems, like “How many piano-tuners are there in New York?” are a structured way of doing that, but that level is not required. Thinking that Bloomberg could give a million dollars to everyone in the US is on the order of thinking that a bag of groceries weighs about as much as an elephant.
No matter how bad you are at math, common-sense would immediately throw up a big red flag. Unfortunately, for too many people, not just members of the NYT Editorial Board, this level of common sense is something that died with their parents. Or grandparents. I see it most in Leftists, but maybe I’m just not looking hard enough in other places.
The second lesson I see is the thoughtless repeating of some factoid or story that supports The Cause, or reflects badly on The Enemy. This is not stupidity or lack of ability to think, but a deliberate abdication of responsibility for what one says.
Anyway, getting back to your further thoughts on the Bloomberg situation, I agree that money has far too much influence on US politics. It’s bad enough in Europe, but you guys go very big with it.
The interesting question would be how exactly to find a principled line between people volunteering and donating and supporting, and people pouring enough money in to swamp an election. I’d like to see an essay on that. I might go looking for one …
Nice post, CT. I’ve always loved Fermi problems.
Here is a question. Do you really believe that more democracy is always better? Do you think a better decision is made if the percentage of people who vote is higher?
I wouldn’t think of higher voting turnout as “more democracy”. And what does “better” mean in this context? I am reminded of:
“President Bartlet: I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends – apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends’ mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don’t vote, do they?”
In a one-party or two-party system, I’m not sure that the voter turnout makes a lot of difference in principle – in such systems, most of the important decisions are made in the selection of candidates.
It is worth noting that he was able to buy his way into the race; but he was unable to buy the win. It can be seen as analogous to being able to buy your way into competing in the Olympics but being unable to buy the win.
Mmmm … that’s a matter of degree, isn’t it? Anyone can turn up at their local county clerk, or wherever, pay the fee, and be technically in the race.
What was different about Bloomberg is that the Democratic Party establishment waived the requirements for appearing at the debate, which I thought was very bad of them, and I’m surprised that didn’t get more attention, That was buying his way into the party machine, if you like.
Of course, letting Bloomberg in meant letting him hang himself with the shortest piece of political rope ever, so it didn’t really turn out to be much of a favour, but I suppose from his point of view it was better than wasting even more money before he got booted,.
and I’m surprised that didn’t get more attention
Seriously? Who would have been in a position to give it more attention?
Also, did you see where Bernie Bros were doing Bernie work while employed by Bloomberg? Heh.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/hilarious-bloomberg-staffers-brag-about-stealing-from-the-campaign-and-aiding-sanders-on-the-side/
Just an update on that lack of perspective evidenced by the MYT Editoial Board member. Shw wrote an OpEd which the Times actually put in their online site, if you can believe that, ascribing the criticism of that incident to racism. “My people have been through worse than a Twitter mob.” I’m not kidding.
Then she Tweeted a link to the OpEd, The resulting trail of destuction was epic.
She has deleted the tweet now, which is a pity, and the NYT have memory-holed the OpEd.
I’m wondering – does this explain more things about leftist proposals like the Green New Deal? Do the people involved in those discussions simply have no ability to work problems? Elizabeth Warren struck me as too bright to make that kind of mistake, (and of course Andrew Yang wouldn’t! neither would Bloomgerg himself) but I can believe some others simply and genuinely have no concept of the basic scale of what they are saying.
Elizabeth Warren struck me as too bright to make that kind of mistake,
Do you mean the Elizabeth Warren who had a DNA test done and announced to the world that her status as 1/1024th Native American totally proved who she was and that she thus deserved the advantages that she took based on minority, especially Native American minority, status? THAT Elizabeth Warren? No. Surely you mean some other Elizabeth Warren.
lol