The right-wing 'bribery' scheme trying to buy the midterms: Nobel economist

U.S. President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. arrive at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon

On Tuesday, a Nobel Prize-winning economist warned that a “scheme” is in the works to influence the midterm results and buy the favor of the winning candidates, having already bought favor with President Donald Trump and his sons. This is according to Paul Krugman, who warns that while cryptocurrency “has not succeeded in creating a viable business in the normal sense, it has been extraordinarily successful at buying political influence – and they’re set to do it again.”

“The midterm elections look – based upon polling, based upon just impressions – look like a big blue wave,” says Krugman. “Elliot Morris gives the Democrats a 97 percent chance of taking the House and two-to-one odds of taking the Senate. But there’s still a few weeks to go and it looks like there’s a big wave of right-wing money that’s going to come crashing in. We don’t know how effective that will be. The role of money in politics, particularly of last-minute advertising blitzes, is somewhat unclear. But it is coming and crypto is going to be a pretty big part of it.” He notes that the crypto industry spent big in 2024 and is poised to spend even more in 2026 – an unusual move for a midterm cycle.

“But this industry is going to go all in,” asserts Krugman. “The crypto political strategy has been to knock out candidates that it considers hostile, and that is a strategy that was very effective in the last election cycle.” He explains that the crypto industry spent big to defeat crypto-skeptical Democrats in favor of potential allies, whether Republican or Democrat. In Ohio, for example, the crypto industry spent $38 million to flip a blue Senate seat red, and this year they’ve spent another $30 million to prevent Democrat Sherrod Brown from winning the seat back.

“Crypto became seen in Washington as a force to be afraid of” after victories like Ohio, but according to Krugman, it is “still barely used for legitimate transactions.” Instead, he explains, it is “pretty much only for criminal activities, including, by the way, Iranian efforts to bypass U.S. sanctions.” According to the Federal Reserve, notes Krugman, only 2 percent of Americans have actually used crypto to buy something other than assets, “but the political effectiveness has been huge, and it has intimidated a lot of politicians. Back in February, Chuck Schumer warned his colleagues not to do too much to offend Fairshake, the big crypto lobbying group. Crypto has also, in addition to campaign contributions, done a lot of what in the old days we would call bribery. There’s a lot of money that flows from the crypto industry to politicians and their relatives, and not just Trump… it’s an industry that has developed a really effective political strategy. They couldn’t actually produce stuff, but if we count the $1.4 billion or so that Trump personally has made from crypto as part of its campaign contributions, then crypto may be the biggest single political financial force out there.”

If the blue wave does come, warns Krugman, the crypto industry will not stop peddling its influence just because a particular seat has turned Democrat, and it may even resort to outright “bribery.” But, he asserts, buying Democratic influence is “a completely different universe from the Trumpian Republican Party, and so the crypto industry knows that if Democrats really do sweep, if this is a blue wave which brings them not just the House but the Senate, it will be a less favorable environment, so their scam will be greatly endangered.”

So as crypto seeks to exert its influence after the election, concludes Krugman, “I guess we’re going to learn something about how much of a democracy we remain. I mean, yes, a vote is a vote, even if it’s a vote that was influenced by money, but we’re going to find out: can a wave of largely corrupt money – clearly totally corrupt in the case of crypto, but largely corrupt in other cases – can a wave of corrupt money stop a popular electoral uprising against a really disastrous administration and its allies in Congress?”

From Your Site Articles