How billionaires are buying the government and silencing the voices of reason

The campaign contributions of billionaires has grown dramatically from .6% of the total in the year 2000 to 19% in 2024 as reported by the New York Times on Monday.

For every dollar donated by billionaires to a Democratic candidate or committee, five dollars are spent on the Republican side. They are buying deregulation and favored tax status among other things, from a government that is as corrupt and venal as many of them are.

In substack today, Paul Krugman writes about why the uber-wealthy are funding an administration, so rife with abject incompetence that it has plunged the country into an expensive, unpopular, and risky war.

Krugman gives two reasons.

(1) Competent allies weren’t available. “…to actually take over the U.S. government requires more than money - it requires politicians who are utterly corrupt.” The Trump administration fully meets that requirement.

(2) The vast wealth of billionaires “…has made many unconcerned with the little people’s lives - and deeply unpatriotic.” Money insulates them from the expensive impact of the war which affects 99% of Americans.

And that is just one-half of the story. Using their immense resources, billionaires are in the process of subverting both conventional and social media. Elon Musk bought Twitter, Larry Ellison and his son have taken over CBS News and are on the verge of buying CNN as well. Jeff Bezos gutted The Washington Post. All to muzzle the voices raised in opposition to what they are doing.

Krugman concludes, “This is a billionaire’s war, waged at everyone else’s expense.”

https://substack.com/home/post/p-190710154