Marty Levine
October 28, 2026
Being very rich allows you to live differently from the rest of us.
My life, as easy as it is, does not afford me the power to reshape the world that great wealth seems to confer. What I cannot do, because I am not wealthy enough, is use my wealth to insulate myself from the rules and regulations of our civil society, nor can I buy influence in the political and economic processes of our city, states and nation.
But the Mega-wealthy, the “billionaire class”, can.
Local officials in Chicago’s 43rd Ward have accused 94-year-old electronics billionaire Barre Seid of creating a “public health hazard” by hiring goons to “place nuts, seeds and other foods” around his home and nearby Lincoln Park, according to a city document reported by Axios. Seid’s delegated recreational feeding of local wildlife, according to the city, has attracted “flocks of pigeons, whose droppings have in turn attracted a significant rat infestation” in the three years that the billionaire has been funding this dubious animal welfare program.
Timmy Knudsen, the alderperson representing the 43rd Ward on Chicago’s city council, told reporters that Seid has not only ignored fines, tickets, and other warnings to call off his contracted nut-and-seed-disseminating subordinates but has defiantly scaled up operations. Both residents and news crews have photographed these men walking around the park with large, army green shoulder bags loaded with fancy trail mix for the local wildlife.
For a billionaire, the rules that most of us must follow are irrelevant because the fines and legal hassles that violating them will bring are not even annoyances.
Mr. Seid’s behavior is perhaps a humorous indicator of a much larger problem. When society allows people to amass huge fortunes and the ability to use those fortunes with no control, it is making them a separate and unequal class, one free to do whatever they want to do.
Not so humorously, Mr. Seid, like many very wealthy people, uses his wealth to build the political force that has spawned what we now know as MAGA. Four years ago, I told this story.
…Barre Seid who donated almost $2 billion to establish, a described by the NY Times, to form a new political force “The organization, Marble Freedom Trust, was formed in 2020 and was funded by a gift of more than $1.6 billion — an extraordinary windfall that resulted from a single donor’s contribution of 100 percent of a company’s shares before the company was sold, leaving Marble with the proceeds of the sale, The New York Times reported last year.”
Here’s how the NY Times described what Seid’s generosity allowed in just one election cycle when this“ deep-pocketed nonprofit organization founded by the conservative activist Leonard A. Leo gave away $182.7 million in a year’s time, a new tax filing shows, demonstrating how aggressively it has worked behind the scenes to prop up other groups and causes on the right.
The 2026 election has put a spotlight on how severe this problem has become. On October 7th, Americans for Tax Fairness Fund published data about the political spending by billionaires in the current 2026 election cycle.
Just a few weeks later, on October 27th , when the The Brennan Center wrote about political donations by the richest of the rich, we learned how much money can be spent in a very short time. They reported that just 40 donors grew this pot of political influence buying by another $.8 billion!!
Megadonors are flooding this year’s midterm election with record amounts of money, spending billions of dollars to influence which party controls Congress next year. This election cycle, just 40 of the biggest donors gave $2.5 billion through mid-October, a record high for this point in the midterms since the Supreme Court decided Citizens United in 2010.
The sheer scale of money involved is one of several ways the profile of the top 40 donors has changed relative to past midterms. Here are four key trends evident from comparing this midterm cycle to previous ones:
Vastly more money.
A dramatic shift toward Republicans and special interests.
Out with labor, in with crypto.
More secrecy than ever.
It is very naïve to think that these donations are being given for motives other than self-interest. Just as Mr. Seid can flaunt his desire to feed pigeons, mega-donors are interested in protecting their wealth and power. And unlike you or me who can give modest donations they have the wealth to powerfully protect what they see as their self-interest. To imagine that Elon Musk, who has donated more than $400 million this election cycle, is not doing so to protect his business interests and to support his political philosophy is foolish. They are no different from us. They choose to give money to people who they think will do what they think is best.
Donations of this size are very different from the much smaller gifts that any of us are able to make. In our current political environment, a big donor will have a very different seat at the table than a small giver or someone who is just a constituent. We are paying a dear price for this reality.
This can only change when we are ready to challenge our own sense of privilege and drive money out of the political process. We need to reject the Supreme Court’s rulings that money and speech are the same. We need to defend a democracy that does not make a rich person’s vote much more powerful than anyone else’s. This is not an easy battle, but one we need to fight.
