Its a systemic failure: Individual donors do have a right to choose who (and who not) to spend money on.

The very, very, very simple act of mandating free party political broadcasts, as in the UK, could potentially wipe out the whole thing at a stroke. In fact the three simple steps that could entirely save US democracy might be:

- Unpaid party political broadcasts at election times

- AIPAC registers under FARA

- Ruling that corporations are not people.

Done. Except.. not one of the above has ever come remotely close to being achieved or, if you think about it, can be achieved by elected officials (somewhat ironically a dictator would have a better shot .. so to speak).

Plutocrats have checks and balances too: The cheques you know about, and the balances are the carefully balanced and continuously rebalanced two cheeks.