It was called the worst decision since Dred Scott by Rep. Alan Grayson (D. Fl.). President Barack Obama pledged to “work immediately” to develop a “forceful response. The New York Times calls it disastrous.
With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.
Citizens United has been decided, another 5-4 decision, and it will rock the political world. It pits two competing interests against each other, head to head. On the one side:
The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.
On the other side, as Ilya Somin argues, corporations should have the same free speech rights as individuals. They are made up of people, and allowing corporations to spend at will balances other unequal assertions of speech, such as celebrities, politicians and members of media, whose words carry greater influence than those of ordinary people.
The question of whether the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is right or wrong is past. The decision is, weak as it may be given that one vote changed a century of law. The Supremes need not have reached the broad question decided, since on the question of whether Hillary, The Movie. But they went whole hog, way past the narrow issue to reach the big Kahuna issue. And for once, they decided something, if only by the skin of their teeth.
The money will flow, and special interests will use it with gleeful abandon to elect or defeat politicians of their choosing. Of this there can be no doubt. We the People face a deluge. It may not all be contrary to our personal view. Much of it may support our political leanings, and much of it may not. But it will be deluge either way. It clearly has the potential to silence politicians and influence their votes, though it may be naive to think that isn’t the case already or that it will change things.
But will the sky fall? That depends on us.
We have become a lazy people. We sit on the couch and wait to be told what we think. We can stand up for ourselves any time we want. We can laugh off hate-filled messages or facile manipulation, knowing that it’s just some special interest trying to spin our heads around. We know what they are doing. We can choose to be smarter and better than to blindly accept it.
The only force more powerful than unconstrained corporate cash is a knowledgeable and thoughtful citizenry. Maybe this is the kick in the butt we need to resume our rightful place in the democratic process. It’s entirely up to us.
The question of whether the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is right or wrong is past. The decision is, weak as it may be given that one vote changed a century of law. The Supremes need not have reached the broad question decided, since on the question of whether Hillary, The Movie. But they went whole hog, way past the narrow issue to reach the big Kahuna issue. And for once, they decided something, if only by the skin of their teeth.
The money will flow, and special interests will use it with gleeful abandon to elect or defeat politicians of their choosing. Of this there can be no doubt. We the People face a deluge. It may not all be contrary to our personal view. Much of it may support our political leanings, and much of it may not. But it will be deluge either way. It clearly has the potential to silence politicians and influence their votes, though it may be naive to think that isn’t the case already or that it will change things.
But will the sky fall? That depends on us.
It’s not like we don’t know that these influences exist and are being used to manipulate public opinion. Some may reflect legitimate, fact-based opinion. Others may be flights of fantasy, deliberately deceiving us into hating those they want us to hate.No corporation can force us to be stupid or foolish. Perhaps this decision force the public to be far more knowledgeable, more discerning, in how we approach our civic duty. Perhaps the age of spoon fed information from people more powerful than us will come to an end. They can spend as much as they want, but they can’t force us to believe lies.
Democracy takes work. Nobody promised that it would be easy to maintain a free nation without getting out of the recliner, except for bathroom breaks during commercials. Perhaps we’ve had it too easy for too long, being spoon fed politics in 90 second intervals. McCain’s “extreme naïveté” is one that assumes that Americans will never get off the couch and think for themselves. He may be right, but we do have the power to alter the equation, and we have it on our own, no law needed.
And of course, we always get the government we deserve. No Supreme Court decision can change this. It’s entirely up to us.
We have become a lazy people. We sit on the couch and wait to be told what we think. We can stand up for ourselves any time we want. We can laugh off hate-filled messages or facile manipulation, knowing that it’s just some special interest trying to spin our heads around. We know what they are doing. We can choose to be smarter and better than to blindly accept it.
The only force more powerful than unconstrained corporate cash is a knowledgeable and thoughtful citizenry. Maybe this is the kick in the butt we need to resume our rightful place in the democratic process. It’s entirely up to us.
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S:
I have succumbed to cynicism: Did you say democracy? Marx still makes a lot of sense to me; class counts more than ever, and, somehow, Bloggers of the World Unite! doesn’t have quite the ring the Communist Manifesto once had. I keep think of the early Medieval period; institutions separate from social forces, and a deepening that the world is out of control.
N
Well, yeah, to all of that. If somebody is going to vote against a guy because some corporation has spent a gazillion dollars on ads truthfully or falsely accusing him of, say, masticating in public — even with videos, taken from a restaurant — the solution to that problem isn’t going to be to forbid the ads, although part of it might include requiring the folks paying for the ad — whether it’s a nonprofit, a guy, or BigOilCo — of the ad to identify themselves.
Cynicism? You’ve become my Pollyanna in residence. As if there is an “answer” out there. Think Monty Python.
They will identify themselves. Americans For Freedom. Citizens for Justice. Bankers For Bonuses. Catchy names like that.
A million thanks for that MP scene, the clarity and laughter.
Scott as torn apart as I am by today’s depressing issues, I’m really grateful for/and admiring your righteous eloquence.
An unspoken self-evident truth underlying our Constitution is that The People are fools who will, given the chance, choose despotism.
Power to the People, brother.