And we all know that the most prominent Democrats are very wealthy (if not obscenely wealthy) people, and most of us don’t begrudge them that. But when the Obamas are coming onto my phone to tell me that if Trump wins, it’s because people like me didn’t do enough, that just strikes me as extraordinarily tone deaf.

I think the lost part of it is that more of us should be a lot more begrudging of those big donors.

Several years back I made a personal commitment that I would never donate to a political party again. They both act like they run as “bake sales” and are desperate for every $20 they can get from average voters. It’s an obvious lie because they both have crazy Billionaire donors and they both have Super PACs and other tax dodging, disclosure dodging, fundraising grifts. (It’s an even more obvious lies and grift in the overt ways some small donor fundraisers have directly been spent for politician luxuries rather than whatever it is most donors think the money goes to.)

But the sad, somewhat hidden truth behind the lie is that the big reason they need these small donations from us, the reason they act like a “bake sale”, is to keep us openly complicit in their ongoing corruption. They want us to feel like we should vote with our wallets. They need us to buy in and agree that the rich deserve more votes, because when you vote with your wallet the rich get more votes. They’ve already sold out to those rich donors and Super PACs to set agendas, they want us to agree with $20 and a hope and dream that we did our part that they should be allowed to let the rich drive policies.

I know I feel depressingly cynical about it, but I wish we could fix the system, eliminate more of the grift, and take our democracy back from the rich. We should begrudge the massive amounts of money raised and spent by these campaigns. We should begrudge all the huge donors and their uneven power in setting policy. Those things are anti-democratic and acting like it is democratic and a “going out of business” “bake sale” every election to make it seem democracy-feeling is evil and I think needs to stop.