"In 2010, the year of the Citizens United decision, all of America’s billionaires together spent a mere $31 million on elections: There were still substantial limits on dark money in American politics.
That number jumped to $231 million in the 2012 and 2014 elections, and over $600 million for both 2016 and 2018.
The dark money blowout came in 2020, when Trump was running for re-election and there was a very real chance the billionaires could seize complete control of our federal government.
They spent a total of $2,362,000,000 in that election, with $1.2 billion of it going to elect conventional politicians who would then be beholden to their patrons.
While Thomas Jefferson was still the US envoy to France and living in Paris, just after the Constitution had been written but a year before it would be ratified, John Adams wrote him on December 6, 1778 arguing that Jefferson’s fear of a strongman president wasn’t as big a concern as Adams’ fear of rich people corrupting American politics:
“You are afraid of the one — I, of the few. We agree perfectly that the many should have a full fair and perfect Representation. — You are Apprehensive of Monarchy; I, of Aristocracy.”
Today, if Trump is reelected, we will have both."
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