Three big issues will be ignored in the 2024 US election debates

An attendee wears a necklace with a rifle pendant and a shirt featuring Donald Trump during a town hall event with Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, in New Hampshire, US, on June 6. Christie became the latest Republican to enter the 2024 presidential campaign. BloombergShow less

No sooner has one American election cycle ended than another begins. Those just elected begin raising money for the next round, while their consultants get busy advising them on which issues will be good for their re-election. As a result, the focus of political debates and elections are more often than not driven by crass posturing geared toward a candidate’s personal or partisan advantage, and less by serious policy concerns that serve Americans’ current and future needs.

As we approach 2024, it is already becoming clear in the US that partisan heckling over divisive issues will dominate the election debates, while many “big issues” will be ignored, largely because neither of the two main parties will see any advantage to embracing them. Here are three important concerns that will not be discussed in 2024.

The biggest “big issue” that won’t be on the agenda of either Democrats or Republicans is the corrupting role of money in American politics. Ever since the Supreme Court struck down campaign finance reform, the costs of federal elections have skyrocketed. In 2020, over $14 billion was spent on presidential and congressional contests – more than double the amount spent in 2016.

Volunteers build campaign yard signs before a visit by former US President Donald Trump in Grimes, Iowa, on June 1. Bloomberg

It’s not just the amounts that are concerning. It’s what the money chase has done to US politics. The two major political parties no longer exist as organisations focused on providing grassroots activists with state and local structures and meaningful access to decision-making. Instead, the parties and their related entities have become fundraising vehicles that raise hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle and then dispense these monies to consulting groups to develop communication strategies, advertising campaigns and voter contact (through email, phone, and social media) to raise more money. The issues that matter to the consultants are those that bring in more money.

None of this is to suggest that the 2024 election will be without substance

Even more damaging to the political process is the role that major donors and “independent” political committees have come to play in funding elections. In 2020, 100 individuals gave more than $1.6bn to political committees supporting candidates and their parties – more than 11 per cent of the total spent in the entire cycle. And the amount raised and spent by the “independent” committees was $3.bn, giving them an outsized role in determining the issues raised and shaping the outcome of several contests. As we saw in the 2022 elections, some billionaires with special interests spent millions funding their own political committees, using them to create massive advertising campaigns to tear down candidates they sought to defeat.

As a result of the role of that big money has come to play in American politics, both parties have adapted their entire operations to reflect this money chase. And neither appears willing to challenge its corrupting influence. They’ve successfully rendered it a “non-issue”, so much so that there have been more stories in the past week about the influence of big money in golf or soccer than there have been in the past two years about the role of money in politics.

Another “big issue” that won’t be raised by either party is the absurd amount of money spent to maintain and even upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal. The US currently possesses over 5,500 nuclear warheads (3,700 active, the rest inactive). Russia’s stockpile is almost 6,000.

Russian soldiers in chemical protection suits at the Serpukhov's military missile forces research institute, outside Moscow on April 6, 2010. AFP

Not only do Americans and the Russians possess more of these deadly weapons than one can reasonably argue are even needed, but the US continues to produce new warheads annually and is currently in the process of upgrading, modernising and repositioning its arsenal. The cost to the US treasury is over $60bn annually (projected to be $634bn for the next decade).

In the same way that neither party will raise the issue of campaign finance reform – since they see that as akin to unilateral disarmament – it has become taboo in politics to speak of placing serious controls on the US nuclear arsenal. America has gradually reduced its stockpile of such weapons from over 31,000 in 1967 to today’s 5,500. And then president Barack Obama did negotiate a mutual reduction treaty with the Russians in 2010 that was supposed to reduce stockpiles to 1,500 each, but politics intervened, the goals weren’t met and new warheads continued to be developed.

Back in the 1980s, Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign attempted to introduce a platform plank calling on the US to pledge “no first use” of nuclear bombs. In making his case, Mr Jackson maintained that neither side could ever use a nuclear warhead since to do so would bring about “mutually assured destruction”. With thousands of bombs on both sides, if one side used the bomb, five seconds later the other side would massively retaliate. In reality, he argued: “There is no first use and no second use. In fact, the bomb is no use at all.” The party establishment reacted quite negatively to Jackson, saying that “no first use” would make Democrats appear weak. The resolution was defeated and hasn’t been raised again.

One more issue that won’t be discussed next year is the ever-increasing and bloated US defence budget. Now pegged at $842bn for 2024, an increase of over $126bn in two years, it will continue to grow, unchecked, in the future. While it is no secret that this amount includes significant waste, it has become something no one dares to challenge.

Because previous congresses have cut taxes for the wealthy, thereby reducing revenues, while funding wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the amount of funds available for needed social programmes has become constricted. But no one on the national stage from the two major parties will dare to suggest that Americans cut defence spending and raise taxes on the super wealthy in order to expand access to health care or increase funding for public education.

None of this is to suggest that the 2024 election will be without substance. Critical social, political and economic concerns will be debated. And given the deep polarisation that exists between the two parties on many issues, voters will have a real choice. It would, however, be so much more consequential if the corrupting role of money in politics, America’s costly and useless nuclear stockpile and the bloated defence budget were also up for debate. But, alas, they won’t be on the agenda in 2024.