The US system of government is perfectly designed to allow very wealthy people with bad ideas to do enormous amounts of damage. 1/
Take Cordelia Scaife "an indifferent student, an unhappy young bride, a miscast socialite" whose huge investments cultivated the current anti-immigrant ecosystem 2/ nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/…
David Koch leaves an enormous legacy that will be fiercely debate. But there is little doubt that his investments undoubtedly pushed the most powerful country in the world to veto the fight against a climate catastrophe. 3/ earther.gizmodo.com/david-koch-esc…
No-one elected these people, but by virtue of their wealth - and nothing else - the US system granted them enormous influence on who did get elected, and the policy ideas they implemented. Like it or not, their influence matters much more than yours. 4/
What is perhaps most galling is that both fought against even the most basic accountability to their democracy - transparency about their influence. The Koch's funded legal arguments to expand dark money. Scaife hid her role in anti-immigrant policies. 5/
Its not that wealthy elites don't have a disproportionate influence in other democracies, but the legalization of dark money and campaign finance bribery seems uniquely American, and uniquely designed to tilt us towards a plutocracy. 6/
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