Mort Zuckerman makes some good points in his USNews commentary, but misses the boat with his comments on money in politics.

Money is a tool.  The problem occurs when the government is everywhere, then politics is everywhere.    When politics is everywhere, the fight for political power becomes crucial.  With no limits on their power, politicians in Washington become power-hungry.  The Founders understood this which was why the created a government of limited, enumerated powers.  Once the concept of enumerated powers was lost, freedom began down the long road of decline.

When politics and government are everywhere instead of individuals making their own decisions based in their freedom to do so, the freedom of the individual is lost.  Every election becomes about someone wanting to control someone else.  Every election will be more polarized than the last because many people do not want someone else making their decisions for them.  Polarization is good when one side wants to control and the other side wants freedom.  Compromise with your destroyers still results in you being destroyed, just slower than out-right surrender.

In short, MONEY is NOT the great corrupter of “American democracy,” but merely a symptom.  The great corrupter of the American constitutional republic is government ignoring its Constitutional bounds which allows power-hungry politicians the opening they need to take as much power as they can.