General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: When a friend is addicted to something that is harmful to them [View all]BainsBane
(53,012 posts)In my opinion the single most important issue facing our political system. It needs to be tackled at the level of law, through SCOTUS. I find the recasting of the issue in terms of personal virtue and away from systemic reform to be troubling. It played a role in the election of Trump, which set the cause of changing the law back exponentially because of Trump's SCOTUS appointment.
I also have the impression that you don't realize that it is already illegal for politicians to accept corporate contributions. When you see charts bandied around showing how much money they got from this or that sector of the economy, those are from people who work in those industries, without information on the type of job or their income. A teller at a bank or even a janitor is listed as being part of the financial sector.
That, however, doesn't mean that big money--whether corporate or individual--is not a serious problem. Their influence is felt most through PACs and Super Pacs. The Mercer family bankrolled Trump. That is their personal money, not corporate money. Yet the narrative you take part in ignores their influence since it isn't "corporate." Meanwhile, a small business owner who works out of their home and has a corporate tax designation to avoid personal liability is subsumed under a category that includes Pac and Super Pac money from multinational conglomerates in finance, guns, and agriculture. I submit the problem is not corporate per se but big money, whether individual or from large corporations.
This recasting of the issue AWAY from systemic reform toward personal virtue comes on the tails of a celebrity politician who successfully raised record-breaking amounts of money, both raising and spending more than any candidate at that stage in history, largely through small, individual contributions. Yet most people seeking public office don't have that kind of celebrity, and the influence of money is even greater at the congressional and local level than the presidency. Congressman spend an inordinate amount of time raising money, including individual contributions. That takes away from the work they should be doing for the people and influences laws passed. We have for some time had corporate lobbyists writing legislation. No amount of personal virtue can wish that away. There needs to be legal, systemic reform.
I submit that the money itself is a problem, both corporate and individual contributions, and it needs to be taken out of politics. I favor public financing of elections and getting rid of private contributions altogether. I do not favor the unilateral disarmament of the Democratic Party to enable the Republican Party to gain even greater strength. I instead advocate for demanding that politicians take action to reform the system.
The problem has been set back enormously by the election of Trump. I think it a tragedy that so many who claimed to favor getting big money out of politics actually worked to make it even more entrenched by mobilizing against the election of our Democratic nominee in November. They chose big money. They chose the rollback of environmental policy. They chose a whole slew of right-wing policies they claimed they opposed, which means their actions demonstrated they favored them. They have made our task exponentially more difficult.