If
you thought corporate election spending was bad before, wait till 2016.
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| For more cartoons by Randall Enos, click here. |
After the Supreme Court’s democracy-mugging decree that let
corporations dump unlimited amounts of money into our elections, a guy named
Larry sent me an email that perfectly summed it all up: “Big money has plucked
our eagle!”
Thanks to the court’s freakish Citizens United ruling,
the Koch brothers have already amassed an unprecedented $900-million
electioneering fund for the 2016 cycle, making them the
godfathers of tea party Republicanism.
Thus, such presidential wannabes as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco
Rubio, and Scott Walker are shamelessly scurrying to kiss the Koch
ring and pledge fealty to the brotherhood’s extremist
plutocratic agenda.
But big money isn’t only corrupting candidates. It’s also
greatly diminishing voter participation in what has become a made-for-TV farce.
Worse, voters won’t even be informed that the Kochs paid for
this garbage, since the Supreme Court says they can run secret campaigns,
laundering their money through front groups to keep voters from knowing what
special interests are really behind the attacks.
We saw the impact of secret, unrestricted corporate money in last year’s
midterm elections. It produced a blight of negativity and a failure
to address people’s real needs.
All that made for an upchuck factor that kept nearly
two-thirds of the people from voting. Worst of all, it gave us
a Congress owned by corporate elites.
The Koch machine spent about $300
million to get those results. This time, they’ll spend three
times more.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator,
writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org.