In US politics, follow the money ... if you can find it

Permit me to set the scene. We are in the dimly lit cocktail lounge in the basement of an upmarket hotel in New York. Our cast, seated facing each other at a table, comprises a city grande dame in the prime of life and a gazillionaire who made his money in industry: Although, physically, his best days are behind him, he is well preserved in a way that only great wealth can bring.

After two hours of animated conversation, they are getting on like a house on fire. Eventually the wealthy man makes his move. “If I offered you $1 million, would you sleep with me?” he asks. The woman hesitates, but only briefly. “Yes, I believe I would,” she replies. But the man isn’t finished. “Would you sleep with me if I offered you $1?” he asks. The woman is aghast, then affronted. “What sort of woman do you think I am?” she says. The man replies: “Madam, we have already established what sort of woman you are. Now, we are merely haggling over the price.”

I mention this because I have developed a curiosity about whether the virtue of politicians may be similarly negotiable. And this curiosity has arisen because I am currently being deluged with emails, every day, from former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris asking me to make a financial donation toward the latter’s presidential election campaign. Obviously the emails are misdirected: I am an obscure Scottish journalist in the Middle East, not a swing voter in Wisconsin. Although, given Harris’ inability to send an email to the correct address, if she does become president, I hope she is never required to launch a nuclear weapon.

Anyway, I considered sending $15 (the minimum donation; there is no maximum) just to see what it would buy me. For example, if Harris were to reach the White House, could I demand a return on my $15 investment in the form of official US recognition of a Palestinian state? On reflection, probably not, I feel. But what if my donation were not $15, but rather $150 million? Like the gazillionaire in the cocktail lounge, what could I ask for then?

We already have a clue to the influence of money on US politics. When Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate in this year’s election, we were told that “donors” were unhappy about his chances and the negative effect his declining cognitive abilities were having on the rest of the Democratic ticket in key congressional seats. “Donors,” we were informed, would prefer another candidate for the White House. And when Biden finally succumbed to this pressure from “donors” and stepped aside, the instant reaction from the Democratic party was not to point out that his replacement was a young, vibrant, energetic woman of mixed black and Indian heritage and, therefore, with a connection to many voters that Biden could not match: Instead it was to boast that “donors” had contributed an unprecedented $231 million to the Democratic campaign within 24 hours of Harris becoming the candidate.

A criticism often leveled at Trump is that he is a transactional politician

Ross Anderson

On the other side of the aisle, a criticism often leveled at Donald Trump is that, if he can be accurately described as a politician at all, he is a transactional one: that he reduces complex, subtle and nuanced issues to their lowest common denominator, with one buyer and one seller, one winner and one loser; that, like Oscar Wilde’s cynic, he knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

In this, Trump is, in fact, quintessentially American. Older cultures and societies, rightly or wrongly, make judgments about people and objects by long-established metrics such as accent, class, history, and intrinsic quality. The US has not been around long enough for such criteria to become universally recognized, so needs another benchmark — and money is as useful as any. Thus, an American man does not wear an exquisitely tailored suit, he wears a $10,000 suit; he does not drive a precision-engineered car, he drives a $200,000 automobile.

It is, therefore, no surprise that money should play such a prominent role in US politics. The surprise, perhaps, in a country otherwise so open and transparent, is that the role of money is so murky and opaque.

In theory, this should not be so. Election campaign finance is regulated and monitored by the Federal Election Commission, and there are strict federal laws on disclosure of the name, address, occupation and employer of anyone who donates more than $200 in one election cycle. However, thanks to remarkable work over the past four decades by the investigative news outlet OpenSecrets (motto: Following the Money in Politics), we now know that in practice these laws have more holes than a tennis racket.

The principal loophole relates to what is known as “dark money,” raised by nonprofit organizations and shell companies that choose not to reveal their sources of funding because they are under no legal obligation to do so. They are permitted by law to raise unlimited sums from companies and individuals, and to spend unlimited sums in any way they wish — including political campaigns. The voting public has no information about which campaigns or candidates have benefited, or how much money has been raised and spent. OpenSecrets has calculated that more than $1 billion in “dark money” was spent at the 2020 election.

“Money doesn’t talk, it swears,” Bob Dylan once sang. The next time it does so may well be on Jan. 20, 2025, at the West Front of the US Capitol in Washington, when the next president takes the oath.

• Ross Anderson is associate editor of Arab News