The Daily Comrade
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Is Money STEALING Our DEMOCRACY?
Is money influencing politicians and
undermining the democratic system that
makes this country great? A lot of things
seem to point to the fact that the people are
taking a passanger seat on this democracy
bus.With polititcians taking donations left
and right its hard to say who is really to
blame for governmental disfunction at times.
A lot of sources have some specualtion on as
to why there exitists a disfunctioning
democracy in this country. Clift Elenor,
from the Daily Beast, as long with many
other journalits would believe that this
comes as a result of ruling that dates back 7
years from today. They are refering to the
Citizens United ruling which gave leway to
huge Super PACS and annoymous donations
to take place in all regions of government.
Since 1870
Donations are being made in
basically every branch of government,
including the Executive, Legislative, and
Judiciary branches as well as at the state
level. Contributions to campaigns running
for positions in those branches is where this
ruling excels according to Micheal Waldman
in his article, In 2016, the Integrity of Our
Democracy at Stake. He states,Where the
new big money really booms loudly is in
state and local races. Evidence is
accumulating of the ways that untrammeled
wealthy individuals now can effectively buy
a town council or county government. At the
lower level, it turns out, you dont have to
be a Koch brother to be a kingmaker.
The problem with annoyomus
donations is that no one knows if a politician
is being influnced by his big donors which
help them win the race. Alot of winning
campagins usually invest alot of money that
they recieve in adertisement. Leading to
notion that who has the most money in a
race for a seat in government will most
likely win. So does having alot of money
really make you the best candidate? does it
mean you just have a bigger amount of
resources than youre competitor?
David Brookes, from the New York
Times, believes this not the case and will
never be the case. In his article,"Money
Matters Less", written back in 2014, he
claims that not a lot has happened with the
ruling on Citizens United. On the side that
supports and pushes for money in politics
claims that there has not been any
significant changes within local and
nationwide government. He states that
according to some research databases in
2014, the Democratic Party was the highest
receiver and spender when it came to
donations. Brooke brushes off the fear that
was riled up in the aftermath of the ruling.
From Brookes own personal experience he
did see a lot of fear and uncertainty from the
Democratic side. Stating in the article while
he was in congress while the ruling
happened, This is the end of our party,
wailed one Democrat, aware he was going
over the top. He goes on to say that the side
that was most afraid of the big money
coming in was the one that was most
benefitting from it. He then comes out to say
that there is nothing to worry about,
claiming that this just helps people run
campaigns with more peace of mind.
Whichever side you are on, could it
be plausible that as an individual you would
or would not be influenced by large sum of
money on your way to a position of power?
Does it make sense that anonymous entities
are allowed to donate money to campaigns,
never to reveal their identity? These large
sums of money do have to be deposited with
in a super PAC. Which is basically separate
account that basically just track what is
spent and where it is spent.
Recalling back to the 2016
Presidential Election a few candidiates
spoke out about Citizens United. Some of
those including Donald Trump, Hillary
Clinton, and Bernie Sanders. These
candidates all had something to say about
Citizens United, but as some would say
actions speak louder than words. Donald
Trump liked to proclaim that alot of his
campaign was funded by him and his
individual supporters alone. While still
recieving endorsements from serveral
companies he did not have a Super PAC.
Hillary Cliton started out the race the 2016
Presidential race with not alot to say about
Citizens United but as the race went further
she doubled down on the idea of getting rid
of it and doing something about it. While
she did make passionate speaches about this
topic she was still taking in huge sums of
money with her Super PAC. While her
counterparts were doing other actions.
Bernie Sanders was also a very
prominante candidiate during the 2016
Presidential race when it came to doing
something about Citizens United. He started
his campaign bascially saying that their
needs to be a resurgance to retake back
democracy into the peoples hands, and the
first step would be over turn Citizens
United. He backed up his claims by not
taking any donations from big corporations
and only accepting those form sole
individuals. He raised the majority of his
campaign fund through sole individual
donations almost matching that of what
Clinton had raised through her Super Pac.
While this all comes into play, it
gives us an example of how money can
affect the performance of a campaign.
Bernie Sanders did not have the advantage
with name recognition and a small
budget.This lead to a slow but solid start for
him. As time progressed and the number of
donations he was recieving was rising he
started to get more name recognition
becuase of the infrustructure he was able to
provide for his campaign. He was able to get
ads, and flyers, and a well rounded staff to
help advance in the polling. While at the
same hand Cliton and Trump started their having all of this money, does it really make
campaigns with a soild amount of funds. it a fair Democratic System?
While having attained those funds from
different methods, it still proves the point
that they were able to get a upper hand in
this race agaisnt their competitors. While