In the run-up to the first Republican presidential debate, a flurry of news stories about the candidates offered glimpses of oligarchy in action. Consider:
- Jeb Bush’s largest Super PAC has already raised $103 million, most of it collected before he even officially declared that he was running for president. (That may explain the exclamation point in his “Jeb!” logo.)
- At least 20 individuals wrote checks to Bush’s Super PAC for $1 million or more, and an estimated 236 checks were received for $100,000 or more.
- Roughly a third of the more than $380 million already raised for the 2016 election comes from less than 60 donations, according to the Associated Press.
- For the first time in more than a century, most of the funding for a presidential election is being donated in amounts of six figures or more from corporations and wealthy individuals.
- It took Ted Cruz three months to raise $10 million, according to the same AP account. He then more than doubled the size of his coffers by collecting $11 million with a single check from a hedge funder.
- Donald Trump says he’s financing his own campaign – despite the fact that Trump-led corporations have filed for bankruptcy four times.