As the 2016 presidential election cycle unfurls, campaign spending receives more and more attention as a hot-button issue. Republican frontrunning candidate, Donald Trump, recently made headlines by boldly declaring that by donating money to various politicians, he enables himself to receive favors later. Trump acknowledges that this is significant, and quite demonstrative of dysfunction in American politics.

“I will tell you that our system is broken,” Trump said during the most recent Republican debate. “I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”

When Donald Trump sounds truly insightful, the situation is obviously dire.

News media moves at an incredible speed. People receive their news instantly and in small and easily digestible pieces. Americans are exceptionally loyal to their parties, regardless of the candidates they put forward. Often, U.S. citizens and voters get wrapped up in partisan arguments over which candidate is more qualified to hold a political office. There are huge gaps between public understanding of campaign spending, and what occurs behind closed doors. From where the money comes from to where it ends up, the process is largely a mystery to the American public, and that is not an accident. In our fast-paced, advertisement-laden world, it is hard to pick out what is and is not being sold, including political agendas.

Simply put, we live in a world that has normalized buying the government. Over the past few decades, Americans have been bombarded with political ads for every election, which often spread misinformation and lies and rely on scare tactics to convince voters. In recent years, spending on campaign ads specifically has gone through the roof. These ads come from special interest groups and can be paid for anonymously. Donors have the ability to protect their identities, no matter how much money they contribute to the political agendas of their choice. When rich Americans back political candidates to the tune of millions of dollars, it is hard to argue against the fact that those candidates will be swayed towards the issues that are important to their deep-pocketed donors.

As a society, we have enabled this by our lack of collective attention towards this issue. Few citizens of the United States understand that there is a large loophole in the campaign finance system that allows contributions to and for candidates; though there is a limit on “hard money,” a term used to refer to the amount of money an individual can give directly to a campaign, there is no limit on “soft money,” or the amount of money one can give to a political action committee (PACs) or a 501c(4) group, (a tax exempt non-profit organization supposedly built to promote and support causes of social welfare). When millionaires and billionaires are able to gift millions to candidates by way of PACs and special interest groups, their “free speech” is valued more than that of the common American, who speaks only with their vote, or a minor donation directly to the candidate of their choice. When the votes of the common people are valued less than donations, it becomes clear that our democracy is not working the way it is supposed to.  The other side argues that by limiting contributions to these groups, their own free speech is limited. They claim they should be allowed to direct their money wherever they want it to go: according to them, it is discriminatory and unfair to silence ‘’free speech’’ in the form of money.

Many questions need to be directed to the people who run these behind-the-scenes organizations, and to those who contribute exorbitant amounts of money to them. Firstly, where does democracy go when votes are not valued equally? What happens to democracy when wealth dominates the political system? The message sent to candidates is clear: chase the money. Win. Do what you are told by those who finance your campaigns. We are creating a political climate which is covertly controlled by the rich. Voting should be the way Americans express their voices politically. Voting should be considered the most important thing an American citizen can do, as opposed to donating money. People should speak with their votes and not their wallets. The fact that 158 families are putting up nearly half the money donated in the early attempts to secure the presidential election is atrocious, and policy surrounding campaign donation and spending must change in order to make the process truly democratic.