Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Every election year, we get to participate in that grand American tradition of pretending that our government belongs to us. We get campaign ads, yard signs, endless promises, and politicians assuring us that they understand the struggles of ordinary Americans. Then we look at the people actually running for office and start asking a rather uncomfortable question: When did government service become the preferred retirement hobby of billionaires and the playground of the obscenely wealthy?

Seriously, what happened to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Did we misplace that somewhere between the founding of the republic and the latest billionaire deciding that having more money than God wasn’t quite enough?

With the midterm elections approaching, I’ve been thinking about the growing number of multimillionaires and billionaires who seem determined to get their hands on the levers of government. Elon Musk has demonstrated that extraordinary wealth can buy extraordinary access to political power. Vivek Ramaswamy has pursued political office. Donald Trump, himself a wealthy businessman long before entering the White House, has turned the presidency into something that often feels less like public service and more like a personal brand extension.

And it makes me wonder: Is this about ego, power, money, or some combination of all three?

Perhaps the answer is that some people simply cannot imagine a world in which they aren’t in charge. They have accumulated fortunes, acquired businesses, purchased properties, and surrounded themselves with people who say yes to everything they suggest. Eventually, perhaps, they look at the government and think, Well, I’ve conquered the business world. Why shouldn’t I run the country, too?

Because apparently having a private jet, multiple mansions, and enough money to purchase a small nation isn’t sufficient. Now they want the job that comes with the nuclear codes and the ability to influence the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, this isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. The wealthy have been influencing American politics since the country’s earliest days. The Gilded Age gave us industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie, the Mellons, and Henry Ford, men whose business empires generated enormous fortunes and whose influence extended far beyond their factories and financial institutions. Their legacies were complicated, and some eventually engaged in philanthropy, but we shouldn’t confuse charitable donations with a fundamental commitment to economic equality.

A person can donate millions to a library and still preside over a business model that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few.

And let’s be honest: philanthropy can be a wonderful thing, but it isn’t a substitute for a functioning government. We shouldn’t have to hope that a billionaire wakes up feeling generous before ordinary people can access education, healthcare, safe working conditions, or a reasonable opportunity to get ahead.

That’s what taxes and public institutions are supposed to help accomplish. It’s the idea that we contribute to a common society and that society, through its elected representatives, works for the common good.

Imagine that.

The real question isn’t whether wealthy people should be allowed to run for office. Of course they should. The Constitution doesn’t require candidates to have a certain bank balance, and being wealthy doesn’t automatically make someone corrupt or incapable of serving the public.

But wealth doesn’t automatically make someone qualified to govern, either.

Being able to build a company is not the same thing as understanding how to run a government. A business exists, in large part, to generate returns for its owners and shareholders. A government is supposed to serve the public, including the people who cannot afford lobbyists, political donations, or a private meeting with the president.

Those are fundamentally different responsibilities.

In business, a CEO might decide to close a factory because it improves the bottom line. In government, that same decision might mean an entire community loses its economic foundation. A business owner might consider healthcare a cost to be reduced. A public servant should recognize that access to healthcare affects the well-being, productivity, and dignity of the people they’re supposed to represent.

The problem begins when politicians treat the country like a corporation, citizens like employees who can be dismissed, and public resources like assets waiting to be acquired by the right people.

And if the people making those decisions have spent their lives surrounded by extraordinary privilege, do they even understand what ordinary Americans are dealing with?

Do they know what it’s like to choose between paying the electric bill and buying groceries? To worry about the cost of a prescription? To work full-time and still wonder whether the next unexpected expense will send the household budget into a tailspin?

Maybe some do. But having once struggled doesn’t guarantee that someone remembers what struggling feels like after decades of wealth and influence.

And that’s precisely why representative government matters. We need people who understand the experiences of the population, not just the concerns of wealthy donors and corporate executives.

Which brings me to another uncomfortable question: Why does getting into government seem to have become such an effective way to protect or expand personal wealth?

History offers plenty of examples of people using public office to reward allies, protect business interests, secure favorable policies, and enrich themselves. We have laws intended to prevent corruption, but laws are only as effective as the people willing to enforce them. When political loyalty becomes more important than accountability, those safeguards start looking less like guardrails and more like decorative suggestions.

Wealthy individuals also have advantages that ordinary candidates simply don’t possess. They can finance campaigns, attract media attention, hire armies of consultants, and gain access to people who shape public policy. Their wealth can give them a louder voice before a single vote is cast.

And once they acquire political power, the potential conflicts of interest multiply.

Who benefits from a tax policy that favors the wealthiest households? Who benefits when environmental regulations are weakened? Who benefits when public contracts are awarded to politically connected businesses? Who benefits when labor protections are reduced while corporate profits climb?

It certainly isn’t always the person working two jobs to make rent.

Perhaps this is where the distinction between public servants and servants of the wealthy becomes painfully clear. A public servant is supposed to use the authority entrusted to them to protect the public interest. A servant of money uses that authority to protect the interests of those who possess it.

And sometimes, inconveniently, those two interests are in direct conflict.

I once heard the sentiment attributed to Harry Truman that if you want to know whether a politician is corrupt, look at whether they use public office to enrich themselves. I wouldn’t confidently assign that exact wording to Truman without a reliable source, but the underlying principle is sound: public office should never be a private revenue stream.

The point isn’t that every wealthy politician is corrupt. The point is that a system that allows enormous wealth to purchase disproportionate political influence creates a corruption risk, even when nobody is caught breaking the law.

Sometimes corruption isn’t a suitcase full of cash exchanged in a dark parking garage. Sometimes it’s a perfectly legal arrangement in which the people writing the rules are also the people best positioned to profit from them.

How convenient.

And what makes this especially frustrating is that the people who need government protection the most are often the people with the least influence over it. Workers, veterans, retirees, people with disabilities, struggling families, and small business owners don’t generally have lobbyists waiting outside congressional offices. They don’t have billions to spend on campaign contributions or the ability to threaten an elected official with withdrawing a fortune from the next election.

They have a vote.

One vote.

And every two years, politicians remind them how important that vote is. They tell us that our voices matter, that our participation is essential, and that democracy depends on us.

Then, after the election, we watch to see whose phone calls get returned.

Is it the teacher worried about classroom funding? The veteran waiting for assistance? The family struggling with healthcare costs? Or the billionaire who can threaten to move an investment, finance a primary challenger, or make life politically uncomfortable for anyone who refuses to cooperate?

We know the answer often enough to understand why public trust has eroded.

A government that consistently responds more quickly to wealth than to need eventually stops looking like a representative democracy and starts looking like an exclusive club. The members may have different political affiliations, but the people outside the club keep getting the same message: your concerns are important, right up until they conflict with somebody else’s money.

So what do we do about it?

We demand transparency. We strengthen conflict-of-interest rules. We enforce restrictions on self-dealing and insider trading. We reduce the outsized influence of corporate money in elections. We protect independent oversight, support competitive elections, and insist that elected officials answer questions from their constituents rather than simply appearing at carefully staged campaign events.

Most importantly, we stop confusing wealth with wisdom, celebrity with leadership, and business success with public-service qualifications.

Government isn’t supposed to be a prize awarded to whoever has accumulated the most money. It isn’t a trophy for someone whose ego requires another challenge. And it certainly isn’t supposed to be a mechanism for turning political influence into an even larger personal fortune.

The United States was founded on the radical idea that legitimate political authority comes from the people. Not from a king. Not from a hereditary aristocracy. Not from a handful of industrialists or technology executives who happen to possess more wealth than entire nations.

The people.

That principle doesn’t guarantee good government. It never has. But it establishes who government is supposed to serve and where its authority comes from.

Which brings us back to the question in the title: What happened to a government of the people?

Perhaps nothing happened to the idea itself. Perhaps we simply became complacent about defending it. We allowed money to acquire more influence, treated political fundraising as an unavoidable feature of democracy, and grew accustomed to candidates who seemed more interested in winning power than explaining how they intended to use it responsibly.

We began accepting the idea that government was something wealthy people could purchase their way into, rather than something ordinary citizens could participate in and hold accountable.

And now we find ourselves wondering why so many politicians appear to serve the people who finance their campaigns rather than the people who cast the ballots.

Well, there’s a surprise.

Here’s the thing: Public office is supposed to be a public trust, not a private investment. The salary is compensation for doing the job. The authority is entrusted to you by the people. The power belongs to the office, not the individual occupying it.

You aren’t elected to become richer, more famous, or more powerful. You’re elected to do a job on behalf of the people who hired you.

And yes, that’s what an election is. We are the employers. They are the employees. We pay their salaries, provide their offices, and entrust them with authority to make decisions that affect our lives.

Maybe it’s time we started acting like it.

As the midterms approach, we should be asking candidates a few simple questions. Whose interests will you represent? Who will benefit from your policies? What conflicts of interest will you have to manage? And when the interests of your wealthy donors conflict with the needs of your constituents, whose side will you take?

Don’t just ask what they promise to do. Ask who stands to profit when they do it.

Because if we continue electing people who see government as an opportunity to serve themselves, we shouldn’t be terribly surprised when that’s exactly what they do.

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people cannot survive indefinitely as a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.

At some point, we have to decide whether we want representatives who understand that public service is a responsibility—or politicians who believe the public exists to serve them.

And if the answer is the former, then perhaps we should start reminding our elected officials of a rather basic principle they seem to have forgotten.

We didn’t elect them to own the government. We elected them to work for us.

It’s time they remembered who the boss is.