Bernie Sanders, who decried the US political system as corrupted by big money donors, was asked whether that meant the politicians were corrupt. He seemed a little caught off guard; perhaps he was thinking "yes" but realized that he really couldn't say that on national television.
His answer should have been, I think, a firm 'no'. They are simply doing what they must to survive in the system of campaign finance rules. It's the system, not the people in it, that is flawed. They are no more to blame than CEOs pursuing a profit - that's their job - even if that means doming something we don't like but which saves the company money and which we haven’t legislated against. It's the role of government to set the rules of the game and regulate the incentives in order to get the outcomes we collectively want.
Of course that's harder to do when those we are asking to change the rules are the beneficiaries of the current system. But at least we need to be clear about the problem and then we can examine what that leads to; perhaps then we might elect representatives whose mandate is changing the rulers of the game.
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