Nothing special, and an exceeding amount is above board. Everyone is playing the same game, using mostly the same tactics. Get wealthy people on board, use that to get policy makers on board while buying up advertising to target and sway people one way or the other.

All foreign powers will try to do the same thing, through the legal channels, and the not so legal channels. The current order enforced on the back of the US dollar is simply too powerful to not do that. Americans are broadly naive about this, so it's relatively easy to "shock" them into caring about it.