PJH Studios

Tag: democracy

  • Billionaires funding elections at extraordinary rates

    Due to the Citizens United decision, we know that money is speech. We’ve also known for a while that the extremely wealthy are funding elections to an extraordinary degree and reaping the benefits.

    The extraordinary spending in Montana is part of a new era of political power for the rapidly growing number of billionaires minted over the past eight years. The Times analysis found that 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees.

    Five presidential elections ago, before the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that lifted many remaining campaign finance restrictions, the share of billionaire spending was almost zero — 0.3 percent, to be precise.

  • Competitive authoritarianism

    Competitive authoritarianism will transform political life in the United States. As Trump’s early flurry of dubiously constitutional executive orders made clear, the cost of public opposition will rise considerably: Democratic Party donors may be targeted by the IRS; businesses that fund civil rights groups may face heightened tax and legal scrutiny or find their ventures stymied by regulators. Critical media outlets will likely confront costly defamation suits or other legal actions as well as retaliatory policies against their parent companies. Americans will still be able to oppose the government, but opposition will be harder and riskier, leading many elites and citizens to decide that the fight is not worth it. A failure to resist, however, could pave the way for authoritarian entrenchment—with grave and enduring consequences for global democracy.

    In Foreign Affairs, The Path to American Authoritarianism