Further than that, we can’t have democracy unless all contributions to politicians/ candidates are reported and published in real time.

Without that we can’t know if a person deserves to hold a position, or even if they are eligible.

Knowing about the donations helps, but some have suggested we forego the idea of donations in the first place. It’s hard to see how it could be called a democracy when some people can donate millions to prop up a candidate. We can all watch and say “yep, they got a big donation”, but they’re still going to out find a candidate who represents the people against the moneyed interests. Perhaps not in all cases but the donations really slew the system.

I agree.

I think the idea is that being able to track the flow of monies is supposed to lead to changes that nudge us in the direction of political donation reform.