Why Small Dollar Donors Have Such Outsize Influence on Our Politics

We end up with more extreme candidates, for starters.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene talks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol on May 25, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)

There’s an approach to political questions that the conservative in me rebels against. Let’s call it the “you can’t have too much of a good thing” fallacy. 

Virtually every popular idea in American life has cheerleaders for this fallacy. You’ve surely heard someone say something like: “The only cure to the problems with free speech is more speech.” Or: “You can never have too much inclusion or diversity.” 

Broadly speaking, I take the opposing point of view on nearly all such claims. This doesn’t mean I oppose free speech or diversity any more than I oppose cheesecake or scotch. Rather, I subscribe to the view that life, and especially politics, is full of trade-offs. All medicines or poisons are determined by the dose. 

Nowhere does this longstanding view earn me more grief than when the subject of democracy comes up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of democracy. I just don’t think it’s the answer to every problem any more than hammers are the right tool for every DIY project.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Christophe

    "Election expert Richard Pildes" rode the wave of small donors when he worked on both Obama campaigns. I wonder if he reflected on that or if it's only a problem for Democracy™ now that Republicans do it.

    I agree with all your points but unfortunately harping on about this comes across as just hating 80% of the party base.

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  2. Perrymiles

    Agree. The inmates are taking over.

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  3. Tom Johnson

    “the primary system as we know it today”

    You’ve hit on the real problem. The primary system needs to be reimagined.

    Alaska’s adoption of nonpartisan primaries had a distinctly moderating influence last year, allowing Lisa Murkowski to fend of a MAGA challenger while twice thwarting Sarah Palin.

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    Kimbaukusfitzgibbon

    Jonah, As I almost always do from reading or listening to your work, I learned something by reading this. This time though it came from reading the abstract to a link that you provided. From https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3611180

    “The 2018 elections dramatically demonstrated the new power of small donors. Building on this transformation, the focus of reform efforts are now programs that match small donations ($200 or less) with public funds, which typically provide $6 in public funds for every $1 in small donations. Indeed, the first bill introduced in the new Democratically controlled House proposes to create a 6:1 small-dollar matching program for national elections. In addition, the Democratic Party required candidates for the 2020 presidential election to demonstrate a certain level of success with small donors as one of only two factors that determined eligibility to be on the “main debate” stage for the first several debates.”

    And “ Small-donor based public financing is touted as enhancing participation in democracy; improving the equality of campaign financing; and providing a countervailing force against the role of large donors or special-interest money. But little attention has been paid so far, particularly in the legal literature, to the effect of small donors on what is one of the most troubling aspects of American democracy today: the intense polarization of the political parties. In fact, an extensive empirical literature demonstrates that small donors tend to prefer candidates from the ideological extremes of the major parties. Thus, while small-donor matching programs serve certain democratic values, they might also contribute to making American democracy more polarized and more dysfunctional.”

    This information helped me understand your argument because of the proposed or enacted legislation supporting small donors. Which if I hadn’t read, I would have written a dopey comment about.

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    Barry Alexander

    There's an unspoken belief at the foundation of our constitutional system: that pure, Athenian-style democracy is a bad thing. That the masses, as such, cannot be trusted. The Founding Fathers designed the system with this in mind. They just made a bad call on who was to be gated through to the "room where it happens." And changing times changed where the elites might come from. I think they were basically correct. And I say that as one who will never, and could never, be among that elite. Put the masses in charge, and you get the mess we have today, just as ancient Athens eventually came to grief when populist orators convinced the voters that war with Sparta was a good idea.
    The key is devising a system that lets all who are qualified take part in that elite discussion, and also minds the needs and wants of the non-elite (who, after all, are the people who actually keep society going "on the ground"). That is not an easy task. The Fathers decided that the best qualification was "white, property-owning male." That became more and more insufficient over time. We saw the injustice and eventually the war that arose from this. Now, it's gone too far in the other direction, but I'm not seeing an easy way to correct that.

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    Njh2005

    Perhaps we take up a collection to send a copy of Yuval Levin’s book, A Time to Build (https://www.aei.org/research-products/book/a-time-to-build-from-family-and-community-to-congress-and-the-campus-how-recommitting-to-our-institutions-can-revive-the-american-dream/) to GOP state and county chairs and every member of the RNC.

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    Martin Hernandez

    Chef’s kiss Jonah, no need to defend your position to those idiots. As an Ohio resident, Mr Vance can expect to hear from me about his theatrics, time for the boss to tell the employee to get off his phone and get work.

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  8. Scianti7

    You make a good case. What is to be done? I'm very tired of the political buzz words being "fight" & "war". Maybe it is because I was raised by peace activists. Maybe it's because I've been involved in different groups with very different political perspectives. Maybe it's because I believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment & our founding--or all of the above plus.

    I can't wait till the political buzzwords are "problem-solving", "finding solutions", "reasonable", & "compromise." I'm not sure what it will take for this change to occur, however I have hope & faith that eventually it will. I am sure that losing hope & faith that we can change might seal our fate.

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  9. Johnsondm03

    Some of us predicted this when the McCain-Feingold bill was signed into law, but no one wanted to listen to us back in 2002. It was more important to get "soft money" out of politics.

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    1. Scianti7

      Aren't PACs soft money? Or is it just dark money? I think PACs have not helped our politics either.

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    Mattjabour

    You might as well say what's unsaid here. The average American cannot be trusted to elect their own president. I don't know if I'd say this myself, but every Republican who rails against direct democracy seems to be tilting towards this particular windmill.

    I'm certainly more in agreement with this point today than I was pre-Trump, if that helps, but let's not prevaricate about the bush on this. If you feel this way, then say so.

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    1. Scianti7

      I got the impression that he was talking about the highly volatile political passion people, not the average American.

      "Most Americans don’t vote in primaries, religiously watch cable news, or make small donations. But the tiny slice of Americans who do all three have captured the primary process, and because most candidates worry more about primary challenges than general election ones, this sliver has outsize influence over politics generally. "

      The average American probably (hopefully) isn't swept up in the anger fear grift. They have better things to do. The ones who are seem to be finding their identity & sense of belonging in their anger/fear politics, which is dangerous.

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      1. Slowdave1

        ...and those are the ones who make small donations. And the current system overemphasizes their input, driving radicalism and polarization and disencentivizing compromise.

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