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  • The History of Corruption in the Federal Government
  • Richard L. McCormick (bio)
Jay Cost. A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption. New York: Encounter Books, 2015. 393pp. Notes and index. $27.99.

Among the many surprises of the 2016 presidential election campaign is the amount of attention several prominent candidates have given to the classic problem of political corruption. Although they seldom define corruption or pause to employ the term with precision, the candidates have expressed aversion to practices and behavior that have always been synonymous with corruption—that is, with the seizure of governmental authority by selfish interests at the expense of the general welfare. Americans who are paying attention to the presidential contest this year have heard a great deal about the influence of large campaign contributions over elections and public policy, about corporate lobbyists who connive to get what they want from government officials, about the revolving door between public office and lucrative private employment, and about the domination, through all these means and more, that moneyed individuals and groups exert over government.

Senator Bernie Sanders based his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on hostility to corrupt wealthy interests, and he gained passionate support from unexpectedly numerous voters. Jolted by Sanders’ popularity in caucuses and primary elections, Democrat Hillary Clinton now assails “the flood of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political system, and drowning out the voices of too many everyday Americans.”1 Before securing the Republican nomination, billionaire Donald Trump bragged that he was funding his own campaign “so I don’t owe anything to lobbyists and special interests.”2 Even as the candidates vented their opposition to corruption, however, wealthy people and organizations were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the election results at every level of government. In return for their money, the donors who pick winners will expect to be attentively consulted about public policy by those whom they helped elect. It is reasonable to anticipate that well-heeled individuals and groups will help shape the resolution of many, if not most, of [End Page 357] the issues the candidates are now debating. All that said, it is still heartening to hear presidential contenders decry the corruption afflicting U.S. politics.

Whoever wins this election will soon learn, if she or he does not already know, how difficult it is to make headway against corruption. Although public-opinion polls show that three out of four Americans believe political corruption is widespread and that most people think special interest groups have far too much sway over government, there is currently no political movement or organization with a realistic prospect of breaking the grip of such interests on public life.3 For the past four decades, and especially since the Citizens United decision of 2010, the Supreme Court has protected, on First Amendment grounds, the giving and spending of nearly unlimited political dollars. Even if the Court were to reverse its rulings on campaign finance, moneyed influencers and their furtive lobbyists would still wield hefty levers within the hidden, workaday machinery of policy-making. Hopeful candidates may denounce this state of affairs, but those who are elected will soon come up against the hard realities of wealth’s power over government.

How did these unfortunate circumstances arise, so obviously at odds with the republican ideals of U.S. government and with two centuries of the democratic spirit? There is no shortage of answers. Few historical subjects have received more attention than the interconnections between wealth and political power and the enduring struggle to sever, or at least weaken, those connections. In virtually every epoch of U.S. political history, “moneyed interests” or “plutocrats” or “power elites” have sought, often successfully, to dominate government, and have usually found themselves excoriated for doing so.4 Most historians of this subject have emanated, roughly speaking, from somewhere on the left side of the political spectrum. They have appraised with critical eyes the wealthy groups seeking to control government and have portrayed with sympathy the enemies of those interests. Now, from a seemingly unlikely quarter on the other side of the political ledger, comes a...

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