Campaign Funds

Donald Trump has a knack for laying bare the truths of capitalism, its institutional framework and the modus operandi of its managers. Adherents of democratic orthodoxy in capitalist countries — from naive anti-populists to broad sectors of the so-called progressive left — seem surprised by Trump’s announcement that he would pay $5,000 for each vote cast for Republican candidates in order to secure a majority in Congress. As if this were not the norm in Western “democracies.”

Among recent publications on the relationship between money and elections is “Dinero bajo la mesa: Financiamiento y gasto ilegal de las campañas políticas en México” (“Money Under the Table: Financing and Illegal Spending of Political Campaigns in Mexico”) by María Amparo Casar and Juan Carlos Ugalde.* The book examines illegal campaign financing and spending in Mexico, including the use of public and private funds derived from corruption. Earlier, Lorenzo Córdova and Ciro Murayama addressed the subject in “Elecciones, dinero y corrupción: Pemexgate y Amigos de Fox” (“Elections, Money and Corruption: Pemexgate and Friends of Fox”). Another earlier work is “Dinero y contienda político-electoral: Reto de la democracia” (“Money and Political-Electoral Competition: The Challenge of Democracy”), published by Daniel Zovatto** in a joint edition by the Fondo de Cultura Económica and the Federal Electoral Institute.

These essays have focused only on Latin America, specifically on Mexico. They highlight progress in three areas: equity, with parties having more resources with which to compete; transparency, with better methods of registering voters and counting ballots; and autonomy, with the bodies responsible for organizing and overseeing elections no longer depending on the government as they once did.

But it has not occurred to them — as methodology requires — to compare the role of money with its role in the original model. The literature is extensive, but at the time, episodes involving Carlos Hank González, Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo and Enrique Peña Nieto — including the Odebrecht case involving Emilio Lozoya — were widely publicized, making this practice evident.

What is strange is that, in their review of the literature, these authors regard the role of money in electoral processes as anomalous. It is as if the model copied from the United States did not originate in the nexus between money and elections. That model is built on contributions to parties and candidates from the country’s major corporations and from their individual owners, with Elon Musk now at the forefront. In election campaigns, everything costs money: media coverage, advertising across various platforms, mass-market ads, polling, transportation and travel expenses.

Even within Morena (Mexico’s National Regeneration Movement), which aims to democratize politics, it was never clear where the money Adán Augusto López and others squandered during their pre-campaigns came from. There are now also payments made to individuals such as Fernando Cerimedo and other operatives who shape voter preferences by manipulating algorithms and using other technological tools to influence election outcomes in favor of particular candidates, as occurred in Colombia.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president imprisoned for drug trafficking and later pardoned by Trump as part of an effort to attack leftist governments in Latin America, spoke of nothing but money in audio recordings circulated worldwide: funds Javier Milei would provide and funds that would come from Israel.

One would have to be naive to believe that the so-called “democracy” of the U.S. electoral model is an anomaly rather than a systemic logic arising from its very nature. This is clearly understood by those with privileged information and by those who have money to devote to the electoral game. As Nick Land writes in “The Dark Enlightenment,” “Since winning elections is overwhelmingly a matter of vote buying, and society’s informational organs (education and media) are no more resistant to bribery than the electorate, a thrifty politician is simply an incompetent politician, and the democratic variant of Darwinism quickly eliminates such misfits from the gene pool.”

Hernán “El Grillo” Sada, a colorful figure from the Garza Sada dynasty, says what politicians on the right, the left and everywhere in between leave unsaid. He has never held a job; his life story consists of going in and out of rehabilitation clinics, using cocaine, drinking tequila and collecting things. Nor has he ever taken part in civic or political life. But now he has gotten it into his head to run for governor of Nuevo León through Morena, or so he says. In one of his frequent interviews, he was asked how he intended to enter the race despite having no qualifications to do so. His answer was blunt: “With money,” he said. He and his family have more than enough.

The truths Professor Trump teaches us deserve serious academic consideration in schools and departments of political science, as well as in programs in international relations, journalism and communication studies (everything is so scientific in the 21st century — perhaps even more so than under 19th-century positivism). These truths, like so many other things, should not surprise those who ought to understand their causes and effects, including those responsible for leading political parties, nominating candidates and governing.

*Editor’s note: The original article misidentifies Luis Carlos Ugalde as Juan Carlos Ugalde.

**Editor’s note: “Dinero y contienda político-electoral: Reto de la democracia” was edited by Manuel Carrillo, Alonso Lujambio, Carlos Navarro and Daniel Zovatto.