The Money

My thought on the McCutcheon case’s importance is as follows. Liberals need to quit whining about the money. I’m not saying the case isn’t a big deal. It is. But I am saying that the plutocrats have always had far more money than working people and they’ve always used it to control politics the best they can. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the corporate control over politics was far greater than today and working people organized on the ground to demand all sorts of changes that led to creation of the 20th century welfare state. The decline of unions and voices for the working class thanks to capital mobility and more aggressive corporate activism undermined these 20th century victories and has created a new Gilded Age in this country. Naturally, that’s going to include corporate control over elections. Such a decision is a symptom of larger problems, an result of American democratic decline, not a cause.

The problem today is that progressives believe the ballot box is where change is made, when in fact it is where change is consolidated. Organize on the ground to demand the change desired and the money can be overcome. But if you think a social movement is buying ad time on television or the right kind of media messaging, that’s a game that progressives are never going to win.