Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (pictured above) is currently spending millions of dollars to fund his own presidential campaign. With no limit on how much he can spend on campaigning, Bloomberg and other billionaires like him can essentially buy their political power, making political elections more about wealth and less about the candidates themselves (Gage Skidmore/wikimedia).
Michael Bloomberg is a lot of things; ex-New York City mayor, a friend of the elite and, the newest feather in his cap, current candidate for the Democratic ticket in the 2020 presidential election. His political record is dicey, between his championing of racist policies such as “stop and frisk” during his time as mayor, off-hand transphobia—he was recently quoted calling a trans woman “a man in a dress” by The New York Post—and muddied history with minority groups across the United States.
In America, however, a terrible track record doesn’t stop you from running for president. No, the thing that stands in your way is finances. Lucky for him, and unlucky for the rest of us, Mike Bloomberg has no worries about funding his campaign.
The age-old question in American politics, “How much does someone have to spend to buy the election?” just might be answered this cycle. According to Business Insider, Bloomberg’s net worth is more than $60 billion. Yes, I said billion, with a “B.” That kind of money can go a long way into funding advertisements, loyal campaign staff and in the end, maybe even the presidency.
The precedent this is setting, whether Bloomberg wins or not, is an incredibly dangerous one. Tom Steyer, the other billionaire running this cycle, isn’t spending nearly as much as Bloomberg—who has already dropped more than $320 million in TV advertisements alone, according to FiveThirtyEight.
What does this mean for the rest of the political hopefuls?
Well, they better begin breaking crowd-funding records, because that’s looking like the only way non-billionaires will compete. Bloomberg’s exposure due to his advertisement campaign has already resulted in rapid rising in the polls despite missing the first two primaries, according to CNN. His spending and, more worrisome, its effectiveness are pulling back the curtain on money in politics to reveal a stagnant, biased mess that services only the extremely wealthy.
Let’s reminisce about simpler times: the 2016 election year. Both parties spent a total of $2.4 billion on the primaries, campaigns, election nights and everything in between, according to the Washington Post. That’s nearly a billion dollars less than Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax would pull from Bloomberg’s personal finances over the course of a year.
That almost incomprehensible amount of wealth boggles my mind. Apologizers might say it’s all for a good cause, and after all, over the years he’s pledged millions of dollars (which, let’s keep in mind, is minuscule compared to his total net worth) to efforts such as women in politics, ending gun violence and other positive causes. That’s not the issue.
The problem lies in his hoarding of wealth and the autonomy with which one man can make decisions that will make or break an entire democratic system. This sort of wealth-wielding in an election cycle contributes to the growing American autocracy. Rampant spending only rackets up the already enormous cost of American elections, money that could be going somewhere more useful, where it could make a difference in someone’s life, rather than Bloomberg’s habit of spending a million dollars per day on Facebook ads.
If the trend of billionaires running for office privately funded with unlimited personal resources continues, American democracy will be in even more trouble than we thought.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if a billionaire donates tiny amounts of his or her wealth to “good causes” or if they are running on policies you like: the unchecked wealth hoarding and spending on an election is as good as killing democracy. Billionaires aren’t here to be America’s generous benefactor. Rather, America is here to ensure all Americans have an equal chance and say in who their leader is, and Bloomberg’s billionaire status and spending is working in direct opposition to that.
Maria Pawlak is an English major freshman who needs to do her assigned reading.