Billionaires and democratic processes.

I think billionaires should not interfere with democratic processes.

As you can see now in America in the Democratic primaries, most candidates receive funds from billionaires. Of course, everyone is free to support their candidate, but questions arise.

Let us start by the question if a potential president can still be neutral if his campaign is paid by CEO’s and other big shots? What if Elon Musk for example is your donor and you must decide if electric car owners get tax benefits?

Secondly, doesn’t this system lead to a meritocracy instead of a democracy? Consequently, and here there is no real risk of getting things wrong, there’s a big chance in this system that the next president will try keep his donors satisfied. So, who will have the real power?

And most importantly, these donations are only the individual donations. There are big lobbying groups (Super PACS) who will start to promote the candidate that support their views. Those are mostly sponsored by big and wealthy companies. Their main goal is to keep their profits high. Although that’s an honorable goal it may interfere with the needs of a society.

To wrap it up, I really think the funding of presidential candidates needs to be reviewed, so money (of the aspirant president himself or from donations) isn’t the most important tool anymore in a modern democracy. America should evolve to a more European system of political funding.

Article on which I based this opinion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/03/02/biden-no-longer-competing-with-buttigieg-now-has-most-billionaire-donors-by-far/#782dd2046e83