It wasn’t this prevalent here either until recently.

The Supreme Court has decided that Congress isn’t allowed to regulate this kind of behavior. The Court has also chipped away at bribery statutes, narrowing them significantly.

Unfortunately, without a constitutional amendment, new justices on the Supreme Court, or a revolution, there’s not a lot that can be done. I support an amendment, but with the current court it’s… we have a long way to go.

Or the “honest and honerable” politicians stop accepting donations they know are evil.

Ah never mind, we all know they can’t help it.

There are honest and honorable politicians that don’t take such money.

They often lose to the politicians that do take the donations. Because they don’t have the money necessary to compete in the election.

So, there’s a survivorship bias. Elected politicians are much more likely to be taking those donations. That’s why the system is so problematic. It drives out honest and honorable politicians, and rewards corrupt ones, which further reinforces the idea that all politicians are corrupt. They’re not, but under this system most elected politicians are.

Money matter in campaign. Politicians accepting these have massive advantage over those who don't- so they end up more winning.

In my opinion, this is the voters fault. Read up on the candidates, talk to other voters, if the candidate's ad is all fluff and no substance, don't vote for them. STOP believing non-journalistic cable TV channels who only profit from eyeballs and not the facts.

Advertising is very effective. There's no point in blaming people for it, especially since they are the victims in this scenario.

"Victims", really?!?

Yes, people being fooled into electing corrupt government officials are victims. What's your objection? If I lie to you and steal from you, are you not a victim?

your expectations of voters are unrealistic. not everyone has the time or the education to sift through all that and effectively parse it's meaning. Madison avenue figured this out a long time ago and it's been downhill ever since

Yes, it is possible to amend the US Constitution to carve out an explicit exception in the 1st Amendment for political donations. So far Congress hasn't made a serious effort to do so.

I'm not really familiar with the US constitution, but doesn't the 1st Amendment only protect speech, petition and assembly? Is there some part I'm missing or did a court classify campaign donations as speech?

Ah thanks, that's what I was missing. Such a mindboggling decision.

If you actually read the decision, there's nothing mind boggling about it. It is consistent with the US Constitution, and with Supreme Court precedents. The result of that decision has been terrible, but we can only reliably fix it through the defined constitutional amendment process.