Logan Ramsey
News Editor
We all know that money buys politics. It’s not a secret. American’s trust in government has been declining for a long time, and for good reason. Across both sides of the political aisle, it’s widely recognized that we don’t have a government that works for the people.
This distrust comes from the lack of power regular citizens have in expressing support for political candidates or sounding off on political issues. The power our voices carry in the public sphere is evaporating at a terrifying rate and that power is being taken by the people on top of the capitalist structure.
This has been happening for a long time, and at the same time Americans have become more apathetic. ‘Why participate in a system where our voices aren’t heard?’ people ask. What people don’t realize is that the average citizen not participating in the process is the entire goal.
The people at the top want the American people to be apathetic. They want us to not participate in the electoral process because that makes their consolidation of power even easier.
The origin point of money in politics becoming a major issue that many point to is the supreme court ruling on Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 2010. This ruling declared that campaign contributions are a protected form of free speech and extended these protections to corporations, effectively giving them the same rights as individuals. This might not sound bad in principle to you, but in practice it’s allowed corporations to give unlimited sums of money to Super PACS to spend on campaign advertisements.
While Citizens United has certainly exacerbated the problem, it wasn’t where it started. The corrupting influence of money in politics began in 1933 with Campaigns Inc., the first political consulting firm in the history of the world. Upton Sinclair, a life-long socialist, made a bid for Governor of California and surprisingly won the democratic nomination. Campaigns Inc. was terrified of the prospect of a Sinclair governorship and spread lies for his opposition, effectively killing his chances of becoming governor. What a different country we might live in if Sinclair had paved the way for socialism in American politics.
This ultimate power of money in politics has been a long time in the making and it’s not likely to go away anytime soon. It’s more likely to become even more widespread. In the 2014 ruling of McCutcheon vs. FEC, the Supreme Court found that limits on campaign spending made by an individual donor to candidates, party committees and PACs was unconstitutional. This means that billionaires who have more money than you and I could ever dream of can donate however much they want to, and prop up their own interests.
Another facet of the problem is dark money, donations from undisclosed sources, which is increasingly becoming a determining factor in our elections. Typically, PACs have to disclose the sources their money comes from. Non-profit organizations however, do not. This allows PACs to receive dark money while still disclosing a source.
Dark money in our politics has skyrocketed since 2010. According to OpenSecrets.org, “Dark money groups have reported nearly $1 billion in direct spending on U.S. elections to the FEC since Citizens United.” By its very nature, dark money is hidden. Some nonprofits report little to no spending to the IRS but disclose “millions of dollars” in spending to the FEC. What we know about Dark Money in politics is likely only the tip of the iceberg.
And this isn’t just a problem in national politics. Dark money is relatively easy to pour into state and local elections because of inconsistencies in state law and the low cost of entry.
While you may not have heard about some of the specifics about dark money, this information probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you. People on all sides of the political aisle complain about how the politicians are bought and paid for. While more dark money is spent in republican campaigns, it’s also a major problem for democrats. And if both factions of the duopoly continue to do nothing about this problem, it will continue to get more widespread. Our ability to support candidates who actually represent our values will completely disappear as the politicians are bought and sold like products.
When Campaigns Inc. was founded, their goal was not to protect American values, but to protect their pocketbooks. This motivation hasn’t changed since 1933.
Capitalism itself didn’t cause all of this, but what did is the unchecked greed of the people on top of the economic structure. Our government allowed this greed to infect our electoral process and erode it over a long time, and they aren’t showing any signs they plan to reverse course. Even with that being true, we can’t stop fighting to fix the process. The anonymous donors who have money to throw away on campaigns want average people to be discouraged by the power imbalance. Apathetic people are a lot easier to control than people who are angry.
I don’t know how we can stop money from ruining our government, but what I do know is that we can’t give up. Don’t ever be apathetic; we should be enraged.
