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People bring this up regularly, but I don't think it's that relevant. Studies regularly show that campaign contributions actually have very low influence on elections.
Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections, not even including the massive amounts of brazen fraud he used to pay himself with the money.
Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed. We have a very powerful high office, and if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president, there's really not many checks against the damage that they can do.
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> if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president
Why do people do this though? Maybe it's inevitable, but I think there was a lot of pent up frustration with the government that led a lot of people to just say "fuck it". Not really excusing it (especially for his second term), but I feel like we're reaping years and years of a dysfunctional and ineffectual congress. Not that that's an especially easy problem to solve either.
I think this also explains a lot of the frustration with SCOTUS. In-theory, SCOTUS is supposed to just interpret and flesh out the policies decided on by congress. In practice, congress doesn't really do anything, and people started depending on SCOTUS's ability and willingness to make far-reaching and impactful decisions. Now a more conservative SCOTUS isn't doing that.
Citizens United affected far more than campaign contributions. Non-campaign political spending (aka "outside spending") has increased nearly eightfold and shows no signs of slowing down.
Can you include references for the studies you mention?
> Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections
I'm not sure where you're getting this information.
> Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed.
No disagreement
Yes, it's possible to win with less money than your opponent, but why would anyone want to take that risk?
The problem with money in politics is not that money guarantees a win, but that the presence of large donations distorts the entire incentive structure of campaigning and governing: Courting big donations means spending time with big donors (who expect access in exchange for their money) and when it comes time to govern, studies have shown that campaign contributions and lobbying are dramatically more influential to what gets proposed and passed than the preferences of the general public.
Focusing on the problems with presidential campaigns re: money in politics is missing the forest for the trees: All politicians have limited time to spend between campaigning and governing, and if they're constantly raising money the governing gets delegated to lobbyists.
(This is why people are always so shocked when politicians who don't accept corporate PAC contributions have drastically different priorities than those who do. Of course they do! They don't have to spend all their time hanging out with corporate lobbyists!)