There are many things that scare Americans on a daily basis. These include failure, clowns, heights, snakes, the IRS, final exams, and an extremely unstable U.S. President. However, there is a more terrifying force that is inescapable and seems to be unstoppable: dark money. It's as disgusting and threatening to this nation as the politicians that use it.
Dark money involves political spending with the purpose of influencing the decision of voters during an election. The common term for it is bribe and comprises of organizations getting unlimited donations from individuals, big corporations, and even unions. These funds are spent by political non-profits also known as a super PAC and it is causing economic ruin in this nation. Current members of the Trump Administration and former staffers are very familiar with them.
Many Americans and businesses across the nation are being negatively affected by dark money. According to a report, there was an incident where $35,000 (more than either candidate running) was spent to alter the results of the Republican primary in the state of Kentucky. This nonprofit spent money on ads to help increase support for Republican candidate Daniel Cameron. In my opinion, these advertisements are shameful. The commercials are displaying Cameron as someone that will protect Trump's sick agenda and they even show Donald Trump himself in many of them.
It seems the circus of clowns that make up Trump's administration is covering up the identities of those who are donating all of this dark money to corrupt organizations. According to the Huffington Post, the IRS and Treasury Department are being sued by New York and New Jersey for concealing people that are guilty of providing "dark money" to political tax-exempt organizations. The pressure from this lawsuit was put on Steve Mnuchin (the mole rat Treasury Secretary who got $300 million from Wall Street) when he refused to release Trump's tax returns.
All this greed brought upon from the selfish millionaires has resulted in the downfall of small businesses, as well.
This nation involves itself in competition every day, and in the process ended up creating its toughest competitor of all: China. We are complaining and panicking because many American jobs are outsourced to countries like China. America essentially built a monster and now people are whining because it is out of control. Walmart, one of the largest and greediest corporations in the world, is able to sell merchandise at such low prices because all of their inventory is made overseas.
The millionaires and billionaires in America (those who are involved in government that are not philanthropists) are the ones that are turning the American Dream into a nightmare. They are considered a risk to the world. These individuals believe they can get away with breaking laws because they have more green paper with deceased presidents and other government officials on them.
American culture does not just have a temporary sickness when it comes to providing dark money to corporations, allowing evil CEOs to get attention in the media, and having corporate executives scam customers. It's become a pandemic that needs to be dealt with soon before it is too late; after all, the biggest schemer in history was Bernie Madoff. Although he was jailed for his crimes, other con men are currently getting away with ripping people off today.
If American greed is not taken seriously, more people will continue to lose money, dignity, freedom, and hope for a future where money, power, and status do not cause people to become devoid of respect, humility, trust, common sense, and humanity.