Global Crisis/Innovation Blog

Democracy? No – Dollarocracy: U.S. Elections Are About Money, Not Ideas

By Shlomo Maital

   President Obama has announced the launch of his presidential candidacy for 2012. According to USAToday,   the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates will each raise, and spend, $2 b. on the campaign!   It’s a bright new era — the Age of Dollarocracy!

   A stupid and disastrous Supreme Court decision has paved the way.  In Citizens United vs. Federal Election Committee,  the Court ruled in 2010 that independent groups not associated with political parties or campaigns can spend unlimited corporate and union cash on ads!  The Republicans used this ruling effectively to outspend the Democrats in the mid-term 2010 elections and thoroughly drubbed the Dems.  So the Dems are planning to try the same in 2012.

   Election spending has been rising exponentially in the U.S.  The elections have become a race to see who can raise more money for costly TV ads, not who can solve America’s myriad problems. 

   If you are really good at math, project these numbers into the future, and see where they lead. They definitely do not lead to an open democratic election where ideas compete, rather than corporate wallets:

     (President, and his total campaign spending, by election):  Clinton, 1992:  $100.6 m. ;  Clinton 1996, $108.5 m.; Bush, 2000, $172.1 m.; Bush, 2004,  $356.4 m.; Obama, 2008, $745.7 m.;  Obama, 2012, (est.), $2 b. 

    USAToday says Obama has asked 400 Democrat fundraisers to collect at least $350,000 each, by year’s end. 

     You may say that much of Obama’s money came from millions of small donations.  Close inspection reveals, however, that it is the big corporate donations that drive fund-raising. And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, these are nearly unlimited.

  Way to go, judges.  You’ve helped ruin American democracy for many years to come,  under the pretense that bankrolling candidates with unlimited millions is a constitutional right and part of freedom.  Where is the freedom to elect the best candidate even if he or she takes positions that anger the big-money corporate interests?