One thousand billionaire families wield more influence over American politics than millions of voters.
This needs to be fixed–and there is a solution!
Since the dawn of humanity, those with great power or wealth have used their assets to mold society to their advantage, creating a cycle that allows them to accumulate yet more power and wealth.
This was also true at the dawn of America. Our founding fathers, white, Christian men, a disproportionate number of whom were extremely wealthy, created the template for the United States. Although our Constitution was a model of innovative democracy for its time, it was fundamentally flawed; it protected the interests of the wealthiest, creating a self-reinforcing flawed system.
These design flaws, which were obvious to many of the founders, were viewed as a prerequisite to creating a nation. Women were disenfranchised, African Americans were treated as property, and Native Americans were granted no rights. Indeed, it was the explicit intention of George Washington and others that the new nation expand westward by forcibly seizing lands from Native nations, repeatedly violating America’s own treaties.
While time has allowed us to fix some of these flaws, many remain and adversely impact our democracy.
There are currently about 1,000 American families with net assets exceeding one billion dollars. This extreme wealth enables a tiny minority of the population to exert outsize influence on our political system.
Having such immense wealth enables billionaires to spend tens of million, hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars on local, state, and national campaigns, disproportionately influencing election results, and resulting in no adverse impact on their lifestyle or net worth.
In the 2024 Presidential election, the total amount of money spent on each candidate’s presidential campaign, including party spending, PACs and dark money, did not exceed $5 billion. The families whose wealth exceeds $100 billion each have the capacity to entirely fund a presidential campaign without materially diminishing their fortunes.
As national politicians spend 4 hours a day fund raising, it defies credibility to believe that a billionaire benefactor will not have a massive influence on the politicians they fund.
Recent reporting by The New York Times added credence to these deductions:
“300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated … 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees… an amount roughly equal to what 100,000 typical political donors gave, combined”
“even in places where voters have handily approved new campaign finance rules, wealthy donors have found ways to circumvent the limits without breaking any laws.”
If we want to understand whether America still functions as a democracy of We the People, we need to look deeper. I’ve written three essays that explore this crisis.
Why are we no longer a democracy?
How do we transform America into a democracy?
Hayward Zwerling
Founder of Retirees for Democracy
2 March 2026
Addendum 3/9/26: added quote from NYT
Additional methods for transforming America into a truly “constitutional republic”—a democracy composed of elected representatives:
- The Corporate Death Penalty: Personhood Must Carry a Capital Consequence
- Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%
- Unbridled Capitalism and Our Health, Wealth, Education, Democracy, Planet, and Our Future
- Handcuff Our Rogue Supreme Court
- A Rational Revision of Capitalism
- Governors Must Prioritize Health Above the Supreme Court’s Unhealthful Edicts
- Our Illegitimate, Illogical, and UnAmerican Supreme Court
- 8,300 House of Representatives Will Help Fix America’s Democracy
- United We Fall, Divided We (One of Us) Stand
