Harris outspent Trump 3:1. Hillary outspent Trump 2:1. It's not that easy to buy an election.
We know the Supreme Court legalized unlimited campaign spending, and we’re not dumb enough to think Elon’s money wasn’t part of the Trump campaign.
The whole point of journalism and freedom of speech was to create a market place of ideas that allows for competition between ideas.
The right side of the information sphere insulates its viewers from the left and center. They do not get punished by their own for platforming inaccurate or fringe theories. Instead they compete on getting the more viral narrative platformed, while voices that counter the inaccuracies do not get platformed.
They are a demagoguery machine. The political party and news media are the same entity.
The left and center are largely stuck with the ideas of being relatively true to facts, getting punished by members for getting things wrong.
There are people on the left which are trying to recreate the success of the fringe right, which has become the core base on the right.
They are starting a decades long process, that began around watergate.
Almost regardless of political positions it's hard to argue Trump is fit or qualified to be president. He is openly corrupt, persuing an economic policy the vast majority of Conservative economists think is idiotic, and has called our veterans losers. Has never held any other government post has no knowledge of government policies and worse doesn't care to learn. Even though his ignorance is causing a lot of damage including to his voters he doesn't seem to care to learn about how any policy stuff works.
To counter that you need media like Fox or worse OAN/News Max to put out propaganda because it's impossible for even the most partisan person to defend him if they're an honest and thoughtful person
The point is about does spending buying an election, not rationality or sanity.