If you have ever responded to an online poll, petition or funding appeal from a political action group or candidate, or made a donation to a candidate or a cause, you probably have had this experience. Your attempt to be an involved citizen by expressing your views in the online world immediately subjects you to a barrage of solicitations, not only from the site initially engaged with but others some only vaguely connected.
The morning I write this, for example, my inbox contains financial appeals from congressional candidates from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, New York and Nevada. There are appeals from gubernatorial candidates from California, Colorado and Florida as well as Senate candidates from Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin. This in addition to daily appeals from state and national parties and multiple groups focusing on specific issues.
Trying to unsubscribe from one of these is like playing Whac-A-Mole. Finally opting out of one, which they don’t make it easy, only spawns another.
One site I follow updates daily on political races around the country. In every instance, after a brief mention of the candidate’s platform are reports on a candidate’s true viability: how much money they are raising versus their opponent’s haul. It was in this same vein in a recent Sun article about Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sliding poll numbers that focused less on his bad policies than on his massive advantage in funding.
How did we come to the point where the prime indicator of any candidate’s worth is how much money they’ve raised?
The corrupting influence of money increased dramatically following the 2010 Supreme Court’s decisions in the Citizens United case and a related one that freed political action groups. Citizens United deemed corporations were people, with the same rights of free speech.
Free speech in this case meant the ability to donate massive sums of money to effectively buy politicians. The second decision (Speech Now) allowed political action committees, with minimal controls and zero transparency, to shovel unlimited amounts of money to candidates.
These decisions impacted politics in America in several ways, all of them bad.
They have given us politicians who represent those who fund them, effectively muting the public’s voice. Who has time to attend to the public’s business when campaigns for re-election begin the day after elections as the winners strive to rake in more cash?
The flood of money explains why so many initiatives favored by large majorities of Americans — such as better access to health care, efforts to control gun violence or policies to address climate change — go nowhere. Policies that would benefit the country are undercut by those with deep pockets.
The influence of all this money, much of it so-called dark money because the identity of donors is hidden, has made voters increasingly cynical. The approval rating for Congress, according to a recent Gallup poll, is an abysmal 12%.
Essentially excluded from a system where money rules, many voters now choose politicians whose goal seems to wreck government rather than to make it and us better. This depth of cynicism brought us the likes of Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and others whose elections would have been unthinkable years ago.
Finally, imagine how much better off we could be if the massive amounts of money polluting the political system were directed toward positive goals such as scholarships, donations to improve infrastructure or the environment. What kind of money might be freed up?
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DeSantis is reportedly sitting on a pile estimated at almost $100 million, nearly as much as Trump’s. The recent recall campaign in California, according to one researcher, drew contributions totaling nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, most of it from PACs and lobbyists.
Worse, the amount of money flowing into campaigns from school boards and local governing commissions to state and federal offices continues to grow exponentially. More and more, to have a say, one has to pay.
There are countless literary references to the corrupting influence of money, including the money changers being thrown out of the temple, the analogy of the eye of the needle and the “root of all evil” adage. Unfortunately the Supreme Court forgot these and we are all the worse for that.
One of the other daily solicitations I receive is from a campaign to overturn Citizens United. Ironic, eh?
Greg McGann is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He lives in Gainesville.
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