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Opinion: NYT Op-Ed Wrongly Says Small-Dollar Political Donations Are the Real Problem [1]

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Date: 2023-10-22  

Thomas B. Edsall, an American journalist and academic, wrote an outlandish opinion piece in the New York Times that claims small-dollar donations to political candidates are the real problem, not big money in politics.

His piece was titled “Small Donors Are a Big Problem,” but The New Times later changed the title to “For $200, a Person Can Fuel the Decline of Our Major Parties.”

Edsall starts off the piece by writing:

“One of the most important developments driving political polarization over the past two decades is the growth in small-dollar contributions. Increasing the share of campaign pledges from modest donors has long been a goal of campaign-finance reformers, but it turns out that small donors hold far more ideologically extreme views than those of the average voter.”

Edsall cites no polling or data, he simply asserts that small donors are more ideologically extreme. But how does he even define extreme?

Sure, many of the small donors on the right of the political spectrum, donating to Trump, for instance, have extreme views. They support things like tax cuts for the wealthy and illegally overturning elections, both of which are very unpopular with the general public.

But on the left of the political spectrum, what views are extreme exactly? Campaign finance reform? Universal healthcare? Universal childcare? Tuition-free college? Higher marginal tax rates for the rich? Criminal justice reform?

In the case of campaign finance reform, the Pew Research Center writes: “There is widespread — and bipartisan — agreement that people who make large political donations should not have more political influence than others, but Americans largely don’t see that as a description of the country today.”

Pew goes on to report that 77% of the public said “there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and organizations” can spend on political campaigns. While 65% of the public said that new campaign finance laws could be effective in reducing the role of money in politics.

In terms of universal healthcare, the Pew Research Center also reports that “63% of U.S. adults say the government has the responsibility to provide healthcare coverage for all.”

A Reuters survey found that 70% of Americans support Medicare for all. That includes 85% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans.

In terms of universal childcare, data from the Center for American Progress and its partners at the public opinion polling firm GBAO found that 61% of Americans support “universal free child care from birth to age 5.”

With regard to tuition-free college, the Pew Research Center reports that “Among all U.S. adults, 63% favor making tuition at public colleges free.”

In terms of raising the top marginal tax rates for wealthy Americans, Hill-HarrisX found that 59% of Americans support raising the top marginal tax rate to 70%.

Lastly, in terms of criminal justice reform, Bensenson Strategy Group found that “8 in 10 likely voters support criminal justice reform, including 74% of Republicans, 80% of independents, and 85% of Democrats, and two-thirds of voters (66%) believe the criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul or major reform.”

None of those policy goals are extreme when you look at their popularity within the American public. They are only extreme when you compare them to Washington, which is predominantly dominated by pro-corporate politicians who cannot support those very popular policy goals because they would lose the support of the corporations and wealthy individuals that fund their campaigns.

The crux of Edsall’s argument is that small-dollar donations go to specific politicians, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY.), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH.), and former President Trump.

Notice a theme? They all brand themselves as anti-establishment politicians, although I would not count on any type of major campaign finance reform, or any major reform at all for that matter — from Republicans.

Ana Kasparian, a journalist, political scientist, media host, and producer of the progressive news and commentary show, The Young Turks, had an explanation for why small donors tend to donate to anti-establishment politicians.

Kasparian said in a recent segment, “So could it be that the small-dollar donors are reacting to the legalized bribery by corporate America, looking for politicians who are anti-establishment and who reject that corporate money?”

She then goes on to say that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and even Gaetz are all on the record rejecting corporate money.

Cenk Uygur, lawyer, media host, and CEO of The Young Turks added that another reason why small-dollar donors have chosen those candidates is because there is no need to donate money to establishment candidates, given large donors overwhelmingly already support them.

“The establishment candidates are already getting millions of dollars in bribes from corporations like Pfizer, ExxonMobil, and JP Morgan & Chase. Why would you give your hard-earned money to some corporate ghoul? Who is already getting millions from the top bankers in the country, that would be a highly irrational thing to do,” Uygur said.

Cenk Uygur (left) | Ana Kasparian (right)

Edsall goes on to write:

“[Economist Laurent] Bouton and his colleagues found that the total number of individual donations grew from 5.2 million in 2006 to 195.0 million in 2020. Over the same period, the average size of contributions fell from $292.10 to $59.70.”

According to Edsall and his sources — this is a very bad thing, although it is unclear why. If anything, it sounds like a great thing.

That means about 190 million new people are engaging in American politics.

Apparently, Edsall thinks that it would be better if wealthy Americans and corporations were the only ones to donate to political campaigns. He does not want ordinary Americans to have any influence on the government.

Studies show that what policies Americans prefer have no correlation to what policies Congress adopts. But there is a high correlation between what policies wealthy Americans and special interest groups prefer and what Congress adopts. Coincidence? It seems Edsall thinks it would be best if those regular folks stop trying to make sure someone represents them.

Another deceptive element in the piece is that Edsall starts talking about big donors that give to dark money groups, such as super PACs, and then he conflates that with the small-dollar donors as if they are the same thing.

Edsall goes on to write:

“Political parties have been steadily losing the power to shape the election process to super PACs, independent expenditure organizations and individual donors. This shift has proved, in turn, to be a major factor in driving polarization, as the newly ascendant sources of campaign contributions push politicians to extremes on the left and on the right.”

Edsall seems to believe that mega-wealthy and corporate donors are better for parties in terms of polarization than small-dollar donors. He seems to not understand that wealthy individuals and corporate donors give the American people politicians who only tend to represent corporate interests — not the average American.

Edsall writes:

“Michael J. Barber, a political scientist at Brigham Young, argued in a 2016 paper…that ‘higher individual contributions lead to the selection of more polarized legislators, while higher limits on contributions from political action committees (PACs) lead to the selection of more moderate legislators.’”

The problem again with this is that Edsall never considers that the centrist or corporate politicians are not moderate. They are basically economically conservative and socially liberal. As shown earlier with the polling data, the majority of American people are not economically conservative.

So in reality, the “moderate legislators” Edsall is referring to are much more extreme and further to the right of the political spectrum when compared to the views of the average American.

The core of his argument is ludicrous on its face. The 2020 election alone had more than $1 billion in “dark money” spending at the federal level. “Dark money” is with regard to spending that is meant to influence political outcomes where the source of the money is not disclosed. So the American public has no idea who donated and how much they spent. But according to Edsall, the real issue here is that a small-dollar donor donated $70.

There was one aspect of this article that the author was right about. He notes that curiously the Republican politicians are more economically conservative than their voters.

That should not be shocking whatsoever. According to polling data, when asked about specific policies, most conservatives are pretty progressive.

Many Republican voters largely agree with Democratic voters on their preferred economic policies, such as increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans or implementing stricter Wall Street regulations.

Edsall also noted that the studies surprisingly found that Democratic politicians take part in culture wars more than Democratic voters prefer.

This should also not be shocking. The reason for that is that many of the Democrats have the same corporate donors as the Republicans, so rather than fighting the Republicans on their conservative economic policy — they fight them on culture war nonsense.

Do not get things mixed up, both parties are not the same. Although large portions of both parties seem to be influenced by wealthy individuals and corporate donors — only one party has the goal of stopping all progress or incremental change, and only one party has become pro-authoritarian and anti-democratic — that is the Republican party.

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