Donate Money, Get an Endorsement of Your Business

Well Trump did it while still President (the Goya incident) and Norm, who is apparently on a VP shortlist, is doing it while Governor.

The primary issue is that it reverses how government is supposed to work. It is supposed to be that Government works for the interest of its people. So passing something like a policy that only benefits you by possibly getting you more votes is kind of what a politician in such a system is supposed to do. In contrast, endorsing specific businesses in competitive markets creates the impression that a business is supposed to donate to the politician in order to succeed (and will be, in a competitive environment, treated unequally for not doing so). It is a common feature of authoritarian countries.

More concretely, it is an obvious form of outright corruption, when Trump is shilling for products to gain political donations and will then likely change laws to benefit the company for no reason but money. Promising a vote for a law is what is supposed to happen in a functioning government. Promising money for a law is corruption.

 

Another update: the largest institutional "investor" in the SPAC to get Trump money for a social media platform losing members and not making any money (in fact, losing about 13x its revenue)? Jeff Yass (through his Susquehanna International Group). Again, not only did Trump recently reverse his position on TikTok, he also has been promoting the brand.