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MONEY & POWER GRAB - As progressives in the United States and around the world assessed the dire implications of Donald Trump's victory and prepared to fight his coming administration, the advocacy group Justice Democrats said Wednesday that the Republican's win is a devastating indictment of a political system "bought and paid for by billionaires and corporations" committed only to accruing more wealth and power for themselves.
"These monied interests are on the frontlines of destroying our democracy, taking away the power of voters through their unprecedented spending in elections—while those in power refuse to stand up and fight back," Alexandra Rojas, the executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement, condemning the leadership of both major parties as servants of corporate power.
"It's time to end the era of career politicians and the corrupt campaign finance laws that keep them in power," Rojas added.
The 2024 contest was the most expensive in U.S. history, according to the watchdog organization OpenSecrets, which noted in an Election Day blog postthat outside spending in the race reached a record-shattering $4.5 billion. More than half of that spending, OpenSecrets observed, came from "groups that do not fully disclose the source of their funding."
Such dark money groups have proliferated widely since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which—along with other rulings and congressional inaction—allowed torrents of untraceable cash to flood the nation's political system, warping and undermining the electoral process.
"It's Citizens United's world, we're just living in it," researcher Becca Lewis wrote Wednesday morning.
"As long as our party has cozied up with corporate CEOs, right-wing billionaires, and big money super PACs, everyday people in this country have seen Democrats' populist platitudes as hypocrisy at best, and outright deceitful at worst."
As OpenSecrets' Tuesday analysis made clear, both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris—and their parties—benefited from massive sums of dark money and super PAC cash, as well as donations from billionaire families.
"Super PACs aligned with each major party's leaders in the House and Senate have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from dark money groups funded by anonymous donors during the 2024 cycle," the watchdog reported. "During the 2024 election cycle, the four main nonprofits aligned with Republicans and Democrats in Congress churned about $250 million from anonymous donors to allied super PACs. Senate Democrats' flagship dark money group, Majority Forward, accounted for over $113.2 million of that, more than any prior election."
Despite that massive influx of cash, Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate after the GOP flipped seats in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia—underscoring Justice Democrats' call for a "new era" of Democrats "not beholden to corporations and billionaires."
Rojas acknowledged Wednesday that "there are no easy answers for where we as a country and movement go from here" following such a decisive win for Trump and his far-right Republican Party, which has no interest in reforming the federal campaign finance system.
"But what is clear to us is that politically courageous leaders at the federal level are needed now more than ever," she said, warning that the Democratic Party is "rapidly losing its legitimacy amongst the everyday people and marginalized communities continuously used as stepping stones to win elections."
"For as long as our party has cozied up with corporate CEOs, right-wing billionaires, and big money super PACs," Rojas added, "everyday people in this country have seen Democrats' populist platitudes as hypocrisy at best, and outright deceitful at worst."
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, argued Wednesday that the Democratic Party "needs institutional reform, a return to the principles of economic justice, and a commitment to prioritizing the needs of the working class and young voters."
"We can no longer afford to be held hostage by the donor class," said Geevarghese.
(Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams where this article was first published.)
