While lobbying in some form has always existed, professional lobbying has exploded in the recent decades. Same goes for dark money which is a term to mean that

While lobbying in some form has always existed, professional lobbying has exploded in the recent decades. Same goes for dark money which is a term to mean that the funding behind the lobbying is kept secret. For example, in 2006 there was ~$5.2M spent on it vs ~$1B in 2020. While the total number of lobbyists has stayed roughly the same since 1998, the amount of money spent on lobbying has skyrocketed. The truth is that we used to have better controls over money's influence on politics and it used to be criminalized and prosecuted better.