This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Our broken campaign finance system allowed two Soviet-born men to use laundered political contributions to buy an audience with the president, and to make the case for warping foreign policy to advance private personal and political fortunes.
How America’s System Of Legalized Corruption […]
That is precisely what it is.
Kudos to the headline-writer.
While I agree with the meat of this article it overlooks one factor.
They knew drump and his family and rudy prior to drump running for office.
Anytime someone I know (especially uninformed family) say “but what can you do?” I respond “get money out of politics as much as possible.”
They inevitably say it’s impossible, but it’s not. Start by overturning Citizens United. Money in politics (i.e. legalized corruption) is at the heart of everything wrong with this country and it’s government.
(Well, that and the racism, but that’s a harder fix)
Whatever turns on voting in the U.S. has more than $$$$$$$ as a factor.
Younger people who could benefit from student loan debt forgiveness or an actual Planet to live in (we are at that point in a few years) routinely under-vote, thus losing Dem votes (if they were so inclined in the first place).
Old geezers who stand to lose whatever government benefits and protections they do have break records to vote GOP.
The Right has always consistently outvoted Dem constituencies…because tribalism outdoes policy as a motivator for too many voters.
“But a system that trades six-figure political donations for access means that only the wealthiest few can afford to make their voices heard.”
Especially for a customer-service oriented executive like Trump who is extremely subservient to individuals paying his bills.
They could pass a law that says if anyone from a “super PAC” contacts the candidate, all the money they have is forfeit to the FEC to finance additional investigations of improper contacts between super PACs and candidates/campaigns. Let that shit snowball until there isn’t a single super PAC left.
Welp, so much for trump financing his own campaign.
I should point out that old geezers (like me for instance) could lose any benefits (Medicare, social security etc) we have if we voted for the GOP as a block. That’s one reason I tend to vote for democrats. Another is that democrats seem more logical and less given to crazy.
I was gonna explain this differently but my “smart phone” had other ideas. It did not like any of the less common words I was going to use. This is what I am left with as my computer is repaired.
I remember President Obama mentioning something like this in a State of the Union address. But Sam. Alito, sitting in his robes mouth “not true”. But he knew it was true and that what was intended. SCOTUS voted for CU to give the GOP another tool to entrench themselves. That wasn’t a side effect of a ruling in favor of free speech. It was the intended purpose of a ruling foisted off as one of free speech.
Oh please. Buying influence in various ways did not start with Citizens United. It’s inherent to the system, Democrats and Republicans alike. What candidates in effect do is go around and interview with wealthy people and organizations, business and otherwise, to be “hired” to work for them in Congress or state office and legislatures. That’s how capitalist politics in the U.S. and presumably elsewhere works.
While I agree that buying influence didn’t start with Citizens United, I can say that before Citizens United my company didn’t lobby congress. Since Citizens United to stay relevant at all we have had to form a PAC, hire two lobbying firms, and open three offices in Washington DC. At least one of our executives has to wander the Capital with a lobbyist on a pretty damn regular basis. Our folks are constantly going to fundraising dinners. I have had to sit in more meetings talking about which congress member we need to donate to and how much than I care to think about. Every congress member, Democrat or Republican, has his hand out for campaign donations. They won’t even talk to you until you have ponied up campaign funds.
We follow the law to the letter, but I can assure you what we are doing is legalized corruption. It is just a short step to illegal which got shorter with the Supreme Court rulings requiring proof of a quid pro quo.
All of this has taken money away from improving our products or paying more to our employees. Legalized corruption isn’t cheap.
The easiest thing to do is get dark money out of politics. Names have to be attached to donations.
This Darwin Award belongs to Buckley v. Valeo.
“the pair were pushing for Yovanovitch’s removal “to advance their personal financial interests and the political interests”
Which is exactly what Trump did on call with Zelensky. He sees it as nothing more than business as usual & thus “a perfect call”
People don’t really care about policy, including many who comment on TPM.
This article has only 16 comments in 3 hours. The money corruption of Nancy Pelosi, and her chilling effect on Democratic primaries is accepted and ignored.
People would rather gossip and preen than actually discuss policy.
Or so it seems.
Dylan was right when he sang “Money doesn’t talk, it swears”.
Yes: a system is, what a system does; its intent is the outcome it produces.
Motives are a different category: Maybe Alito’s were good – I doubt it but who knows – but his intent and that of the other conservative justices was to confer more power to the powerful.
I hear you, I don’t ignore the masters of money, like Pelosi. It’s tough in the House where they have to run every two years. At least the freshman came in, many of them, enjoying grass roots money.
Money seeps around and into campaigns 40 kinds of ways. Mostly legal.
[See the blowback I received for daring to question the wisdom of a vice president’s son receiving money from a (corruptish) foreign country over on the Biden thread. He did nothing illegal but the conflict of interest question is swept under the rugs by those who shrug off the status quo as “everyone does it”.]