The ambient influence of big money in American politics has become so overwhelming it can be difficult to discern where institutionalized bribery stops and anything even resembling the public interest begins. Just as ambient, fittingly enough, is the sound of mainstream politicians from both major parties condemning and decrying its corrupting influence, usually while finding creative new ways of leveraging it themselves.

America’s campaign finance debate has thus become both an arms race and an unconvincing pantomime act, with more than enough hypocrisy to go around. Every election cycle, it seems, now yields new innovations in shadowy fundraising, paired with increasingly absurd declarations from across the spectrum that raking in huge sums from wealthy people and powerful lobbies is the only way anyone can possibly compete — and, as some insist, win on the scale necessary to purge big money for good.

As political formulations go, it’s the kind of thing you’d have to be on drugs to take seriously. (“Our government has been bought by billionaires and corporations . . . and we need as many campaign contributions from them as possible to fix it. Q.E.D.”) Still, it’s essentially the argument we’ve heard again and again — notably from liberal figures who tend to be more vocal than their Republican counterparts about the need for campaign finance reform.