Americans convincing their fellow citizens to do things is a very different proposition to foreign governments convincing American citizens to do things.

True. Clearly your billionaire ruling class has your best interest at heart, so this is fine. /s

Could it be that both allowing American billionaires to use their hordes of gold to influence elections is also bad, but we don’t have the tools to stop them as readily as foreign adversaries? Must every solution be perfect from the outset? Must we do everything at once?

let's be honest here. billionaires are the ruling class wherever they exist.

Sure. But other places at least pretend to fight back, though. EU is actually trying to resist these notions as of late.