Citizens United - or how Evil Corp stole your vote

Do you ever feel like voting just isn’t worth it?  Does it feel like politicians – your politicians – don’t represent your values?  Have you ever wondered why they seem to campaign on one set of issues only to seemingly vote in the complete opposite direction? 

You’re not crazy.  Well, you might be crazy but you’re not wrong about this.  Politics has changed drastically since the 2010 landmark ruling known as Citizen’s United.  What started loosely as a rebuttal to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 has perversely morphed into a giant corporate-fisting-democracy boondoggle that is still screwing over voters today. 

Citizen’s United was ostensibly about political fairness but was just wealthy conservatives complaining that people were publicly acknowledging the damage that unrestrained capitalism has on the American people and the world at-large. In truth though, it was always about finding ways to make large corporations “too big to fail” and too big to prosecute. You can explore a deeper dive on the effects of Citizens United here.

The result has been extraordinarily expensive elections from the national stage all the way down to local elections.  It’s not just rising inflation that has caused elections to routinely eclipse billions (the website OpenSecrets peg’s the last election at $20 billion) – it’s a black hole of campaign finance that directly and intentionally overrules and outspends both low income voters and small businesses. 

This ridiculous situation we’ve gotten ourselves into via corrupt courts is ultimately a self-fulfilling prophecy for the wealthy.  The longer we allow the scourge of Citizen’s United to continue, the more disenfranchised we all become until we’re ultimately reverted to a feudal society.  The primary difference being that now-days, thanks to our lust for forever-wars, we’ve seeded one of the worlds most advanced domestic surveillance programs, making any resistance nearly futile.  I’m not saying you should be a doomer, sell all your assets and go live in the national parks (they’re selling those off too) … but it may be a good time to learn how to pickle food the old-fashioned way.