Tiffany Muller and John Sarbanes
10/23/22
(New York Times) “Online Fund-Raising Is Dragging Us to Hell,” by Tim Miller (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 8), unfairly blames grass-roots fund-raising for radicalizing our politics. Evidence shows that increases in small-dollar donations, when paired with a well-managed publicly financed matching program, strengthen opportunities for candidates who choose rational discourse over shock jock messaging. These systems encourage average citizens to enter the political town square and force politicians to be more responsive to a broad electorate. While some prominent candidates on the ideological wings of the party draw significant support from small donors, small donations typically flow based on the competitiveness of races, not candidate ideology. In 2018 and 2020, among candidates who raised the most small-dollar donations, 68 percent of donations were in competitive races, while candidates in less competitive races involving more ideologically partisan candidates, such as Republicans in the Freedom Caucus, drew significantly less support. To the extent that there’s polarization among grass-roots donors, it’s driven by the same causes that have radicalized American politics for years: a flood of dark money, the outsized influence of megadonors and corporate interests, and partisan gerrymandering. If we want to exit Mr. Miller’s proverbial road to hell, those are the threats we must tackle.