"The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report.""

The United States of America has become the envy of the world after a ten-billion-dollar expenditure on political advertising changed virtually nothing.

People around the globe marvelled at a democracy so robust it could withstand an outlay of cash greater than the gross domestic product of nations such as Tajikistan, Montenegro, and Somalia.

“In my country, I would worry that spending ten billion dollars on campaign ads would result in the entire government being ousted,” a resident of Tajikistan said. “But America is such a great nation that you can spend that much and the results are barely detectable.”

“When you imagine what you could do with ten billion dollars, you immediately think of building new roads or schools,” a citizen of Montenegro said. “But America’s roads and schools must be in excellent shape, if they can afford to spend ten billion dollars on elections instead.”

“Ten billion dollars could pay for a lot of solar panels, wind farms, and other measures to mitigate climate change,” a resident of Somalia said. “Thank heavens Americans realized that political advertising is the thing that makes them No. 1 in the world and decided to spend it on that.”