To stop corruption and rescue democracy, we must take money out of politics

Last October, two-thirds of Americans said the erosion of democracy over the next decade was the nation's most pressing threat. It took just a few days into his second presidency for Donald Trump to set off a mudslide.

Earlier this month, Brookings suggested there are seven "pillars of democracy" in America, and that three are under acute stress because of Trump. One is the fight against corruption.

In more normal times, the federal government contains several guardrails against corruption. The Justice Department is one. The Inspectors General charged with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the executive branch are another. And the Constitution assigns both Congress and the judiciary to prevent presidential abuses.

Trump is working to deactivate all of them so his abuses will be unchallenged.

In his first week, Trump attempted to fire more than a dozen Inspectors General. He then began tearing down the theoretical firewall that separates the Justice Department's law enforcement from presidential influence.

Trump has effectively neutered Congress for a decade by threatening to primary Republicans who oppose him. Now, Elon Musk is his enforcer, promising to pour millions of dollars into the war chests of primary opponents facing any Republican in Congress who does not back the president's agenda. By failing to protect and fulfill their constitutional responsibilities, Republicans are violating their oaths to support and defend the Constitution.

In short, Trump is attempting to replace our democratic Republic with a plutocratic dictatorship that looks a lot like Vladimir Putin's.

How has this happened? One answer is the corrupting influence of money in politics. We can trace it back to 1976, when the Supreme Court began opening the floodgates for wealthy corporations and individuals to fund political campaigns.

In three landmark rulings, the court said that corporations are people and campaign donations are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. "Every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money," the justices reasoned, and a corporation's freedom to express political views is as important as an individual's freedom to do the same.

The result was inevitable. Corporate campaign spending skyrocketed. Companies flush with cash and rich individuals were allowed to drown out the voices of grassroots voters and public-interest organizations.

Successful election campaigns today depend as much on competitive war chests as competitive ideas. Even though social media provides virtually free megaphones, candidates make promises to big donors. We may not know what deals Trump has made behind closed doors, but he was caught promising oil company CEOs last year that he would remove federal barriers to petroleum production if they gave him $1 billion.

"Outside spending" hit a record $4.5 billion in last year's federal elections, with more than half coming from groups that do not fully disclose their contributions. Political action committees linked to the oil and gas industry contributed over $24 million to congressional candidates in the 2023-2024 election cycle. Almost all of it — nearly $20 million — went to Republicans. Trump appears to reciprocate with his "energy dominance" policy, which promotes fossil fuels while undermining renewable energy.

Trump's appointments, which included 16 billionaires at last count, raise questions about whether wealthy Americans are buying influence in his administration. CNN reported in December that nearly three dozen of Trump's appointees, including several billionaires, donated to his campaign or outside groups supporting his election.

They are entering an environment where the president has set a very low bar on ethics.

For example, Trump refused in 2017 to place his extensive business holdings in a blind trust, as has been standard practice. In 2021, an investigation led by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee found that Trump violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which forbids presidents from accepting gifts from foreign officials and governments. Democrats documented that he took at least $7.8 million from 20 or more foreign governments. They charged that foreign governments "sought and often obtained favorable treatment from the Trump Administration while spending money at just four of Mr. Trump's properties over a two-year period."

The failure to hold Trump accountable has created a permission structure for other high-ranking officials.

In 2023, news organizations uncovered ethical lapses by three Supreme Court justices going back to 2020. The court itself has created a permission structure for corruption. It ruled last year that state and local officials can accept gifts and gratuities for performing services so long as the gifts are given after the service is completed. Yet an apparent bribe is an apparent bribe, regardless of when it's delivered.

Now, Trump has given the keys of the kingdom to the world's richest man (and his biggest campaign donor). Elon Musk spent more than $290 million in 2024 to elect Trump and other Republican candidates in the last election. The New York Times says Musk's shake-up of federal agencies has slowed or stalled more than 32 investigations, complaints and enforcement actions against six of Musk's companies. (The Times acknowledged that none of the cases have been dropped so far, and there's no evidence Musk intervened directly in any of them.)

In addition to inviting corruption, money in politics subverts our representative democracy by forcing elected officials to serve two masters: their constituents and their donors. The interests of those two constituencies don't always coincide. In the meantime, fundraising competes for attention with the nation's business and constituent needs, particularly in the House of Representatives, whose members face reelection every two years and spend much of their time raising funds.

It's uncertain how much the American public pays attention to corruption, but the international community notices. Last fall, Transparency International released its annual index of the world's least corrupt nations. The United States placed 28th among nations, four spots lower than in 2023 and an embarrassment for the world's oldest democracy.

Joe Biden was not joking when he warned, "An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom." The oligarchy is so emboldened that it's not even hiding the takeover anymore.

William S. Becker is co-editor of and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” and contributor to Democracy in a Hotter Time, named by the journal Nature as one of 2023’s five best science books. He previously served as a senior official in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a nonpartisan climate policy think tank unaffiliated with the White House.

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