Money in Politics

Are you passionate about protecting, repealing, reforming X, Y, Z? Good for you. Congress doesn’t care.

A recent study found that little of what's done by the U.S. congress has any correlation whatsoever to the issues and outcomes about which American voters care. What matters to congress is not the opinion of Republicans, or Democrats, or the Tea Party, or the Occupy Movement, or any other average citizen or interest group, but rather the opinion of people and groups with big money.

The study in “Perspectives on Politics” (Sep 2014) by professors Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page of Princeton and Northwestern, respectively analyzed 20 years of data and concluded that “economic elites” and business interests have “substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” while average citizens and interest groups have “little or no independent influence.”

I think most of us knew this in our gut and we didn’t need a research study, or even Donald Trump boasting about it, to know the system is corrupt. During 2015‘s first Republican debate Trump said he gave to everybody, and gesturing to the other nine people on the stage with him said, “When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them...they are there for me.” Then he added, “that’s a broken system.” Donald Trump says some crazy stuff, but he’s right about this -- the system is broken.

People, corporations, PACs, super PACs, and the in-name-only “social welfare” organizations, and their lobbyists untethered by recent U.S. Supreme Court  decisions have poured literally billions into influencing our government. They’ve earned an estimated return in terms of tax breaks and subsidies of 750 times their investment. Nice work if you can get it. And people like Charles and David Koch, and George Soros, and Sheldon Adelson, and Michael Bloomberg, and others like Donald Trump, can and do get it.

Lawrence Lessig, who is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, has written extensively and eloquently on the corrupting influence of unlimited money on American government. Big money has a disproportionate influence on who runs for office, who gets elected, and what gets done or doesn’t get done.

But corruption of the democratic process isn’t the only thing that’s happening. In the unending quest to raise money, the two political parties and their surrogates have resorted to the outreach theme that works best -- fear and anger. Everything has become a “war;” a “war on women,” a “war on coal,” a “war on religion.” The effect on our discourse and culture has been corrosive, creating a hyper-partisan divide that fuels incivility, distrust, and confrontation.

We must get money out of politics not just to save the Republic from its corrupting influence on democracy, but also from its corrosive impact on our American culture. Join one of the many grassroots efforts to take our Republic back. A good one here in our state is WAmend.org, which has fielded an effort promoting a constitutional amendment, I-735, that would eliminate the disproportionate influence of concentrated money and political power on elections and governmental policy.

Money in American Politics: Its Effect on How We View One Another

In his commencement address at Syracuse University on May 13, 2012, Aaron Sorkin said.

"Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You're too good for schadenfreude, you're too good for gossip and snark, you're too good for intolerance—and since you're walking into the middle of a presidential election, it's worth mentioning that you're too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy."

Unfortunately, the direction of American political dialogue in the age of the Internet is towards more schadenfreude, gossip, snark, and intolerance, not less. The question is, "why?"

Much has written about the corrupting effect of money on democracy in America. Less is written about how all this money effects the way we Americans view one another. Foreigners seem to come away from a visit to America with the view that Americans are a friendly bunch, quick to say thank you, hold the door open, and prone to say, "Have a nice day," to just about anyone. But how friendly are we to one another? And has that changed?

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision dramatically increased spending on campaigns and spawned a new wave of political organizations funded by wealthy individuals. Then, in 2014, SCOTUS struck down the limit on the total amount of money wealthy donors could contribute to candidates and political committees. The result of these decisions should be no surprise. According to the Brookings Institute, “When candidate and independent spending are combined, 2014 ranks among the most expensive, if not the most expensive, in history.” And recently the Koch Brothers announced that they plan to spend nearly $900 million on the 2016 election. A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money!

Because of all this money flowing into the coffers of congressmen, and candidates, there is a growing sense among everyday Americans that their government does not truly represent their needs, values, nor aspirations, but rather the special interests of those who contribute the most money. Naturally, views differ on whether the result is a government that interferes too readily in the affairs of the public -- is too intrusive, too protective, too burdensome -- or a government that is too permissive of corporate practices that harm people and the environment.

The political parties and their supporters exploit this dichotomy of views in an attempt to wring more money out of contributors like you and I; everyday Americans, who can't compete with the Koch Brothers and their ilk, but feel we have a dog in the fight.

Using TV ads, direct mail, email, social media, and townhall meetings and the like, we are bombarded with the stock and trade of campaign fund raising memes: anger and fear. We are told by the Right that the president is a socialist hell bent on "redistributing wealth" and turning America into a communist state. The Left rails against Republican efforts to turn back the clock on civil liberties, the social safety net, and women's reproductive rights. The campaigns orchestrate outrage over this or that congressman's hypocrisy when their infidelity or insobriety surfaces. If real failings fail to be real enough, elaboration is used, with just enough ambiguity to make allegations juicy without being libelous.

To make matters worse, campaigns and their associated PACs and Super PACs have been collecting massive amounts of data on voters and crafting their messages to push the hot buttons of the demographic most likely to be convinced and to contribute. Workers in the oil and gas industry are told that Al Gore has a huge house, drives an SUV, and flies in his private jet to speaking engagements where he laments global warming. Women collecting food stamps are told that the congressman who demanded they be drug tested was arraigned for possessing cocaine. PETA members see "Sponsored Ads" show up on their Facebook page showing pigs confined to cages, with a link to an article on a Republican-sponsored bill to remove "burdensome regulations" on the treatment of livestock, while ranchers get push notifications about Democratic sponsored legislation that would require eggs be from free range chickens. It's all carefully choreographed to raise your ire and their coffers.

 Campaigns spend a good chunk of the money they collect from donors on "Big Data" and the algorithms that turn it into big propaganda. Frank Pasquale, in his recently published book, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information, has written that,

"Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior—silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point of being invasive."

But more than invading our privacy, an invasion made easier by how wide we fling open the pages of our digital books, these corporations, PACs, Super PACs, campaigns, and candidates are invading our psyche. By telling us that our political opposites are bent on wresting from us no less than our, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," they are setting us one against the other as not just as political adversaries, but as sworn enemies.

Among the more strident agitators, the National Rifle Association stands out as the best organized, most effective in their narrow issue area -- gun rights -- and most divisive, with their inflammatory rhetoric and wide-ranging attacks on "jack-booted government thugs," and "anti-gun, left-wing activists." As much as anything, the NRA has promoted a 'fear thy neighbor' mentality, and a shoot first, "stand your ground" ethos. But they aren't alone, polemicists on both sides of aisle use hyperbole like a magic wand, turning Americans against each other for the simple purpose of extracting contributions for campaigns. And it never ends.

The enormous amounts of money flowing into the political coffers of campaigns, candidates, PACs, and Super PACs generates a whirlwind that swoops down on Americans, wrests ever more money from them to 'offset the other sides money,' and leaves them twisted against each other.

Mao Zedong (it may have been Sun Yat-sen originally) is credited with saying, "Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed."One wonders how long the distinction will hold.