Elected national politicians are paid to represent their constituents to ensure that any American can afford to serve. If there was no payment, only the wealthy would be able to serve as only they have the wealth to support themselves without working a full time job.
So, obviously paying elected politicians is a good thing for democracy as it means that poor people can compete with wealthy people.
But is that really true?
Despite some loose attempts at controlling electoral spending, the guardrails are easily sidestepped. Meaning that the wealthiest can throw more money at an election than the other side and have a good chance of winning just because of their bigger budget.
We may like to think we’re far too smart to be influenced by advertising, but we’re clearly fooling ourselves. Why else would political campaigns throw so much money at advertising?
And they have at least two good reasons to. Two aspects of human behavior.
Consistency is key
We hate being inconsistent. Changing our mind is an admission that we were wrong and we hate having to admit being wrong. Especially in front of others, but even to ourselves. So if a political candidate can get us to back them in front of others, unless they do something crazy stupid, we’ll stick with our first choice. Doing anything else flags to others that we made a mistake.
Political campaigns know they need to get in early and big with advertising. It’s a race to get voters making a choice and a commitment as early as possible. They know most people will stick to their choice once they make it.
Next time a friend defends a politician that you think is a poor choice, understand that they’re not defending the politician. Your friend is defending their personal choice, and they care shed-loads more about that than any politician.
Of course, the ads don’t stop until the voting starts and a second aspect of human nature is key here.
Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt
Research shows that just seeing banner ads can make people choose the advertised product when given a choice. And that happens even when they don’t recall seeing any ads for the product.
It’s the same for political candidates who still need to leverage familiarity throughout the campaign to keep the voters’ original choices front of mind. There’s a little more to it, too. Pre-election polls always show undecided voters right up to the last moment. Making one politician’s name more familiar could be enough to get the vote of undecided voters when they have to make their choice. With these voters, politicians and the wealthy who fund them know that they don’t need to win the arguments, they just need to outspend the opposition.
And all this makes it near, but not quite, impossible for independents with little funding to compete on just the arguments and their policies.
Clearly, it should be no surprise that the US is run by politicians who ensure that the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of all wealth, while the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 67.4% of the wealth.
So, if the wealthy can effectively buy voters by paying for advertising, are US elections unfair?
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