For example, in 2004, when Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was buffeted by right-wing media attacks on his Vietnam War service (accusations echoed at CNN and other timid mainstream outlets), he was limited in his ability to respond because he faced legal constraints on campaign spending.
In other words, Kerry felt he couldn't afford ads to mount a counterattack against the smears, even as President George W. Bush had the luxury of sitting back and letting the right-wing news media (and the intimidated mainstream press) inflict serious damage on his opponent. That, in turn, made Bush's reelection prospects all the brighter.
Which brings me to my second reason for thinking the Left's "money in politics" emphasis was a mistake: I was confident that campaign reform would never survive long-term right-wing Republican dominance of the federal government.
Since the Constitution is at the crassest level whatever a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court says it is, eventually there would be enough right-wing justices to overturn any "reform" and give the wealthy even a freer hand to buy and sell the American political process. The Republican partisans who were getting appointed to the court would make sure of it.
That ugly reality came into harsh focus when five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court handed Election 2000 to George W. Bush by first stopping a recount in Florida and then twisting legal logic into an excuse to prevent its resumption. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
With Bush in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, the tipping point on campaign finance reform came during Bush's second term when he put Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito on the court with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
Once that group got an opening, with the Citizens United case in 2010, it threw out many of the reforms that had been painstakingly put in place over the preceding decades.
Media Beats Organizing
Similarly, the Right's media showed that it could trump the Left's "organizing." Even a long-standing grassroots group like ACORN was vulnerable when right-wing activists took aim with a video camera and the skill to selectively edit scenes of a phony prostitute seeking advice from ACORN employees. The media/political firestorm that followed destroyed ACORN.
So, by focusing on "organizing" and "campaign finance reform" rather than building a media infrastructure that could expose real abuses of power that the Republicans have made a central part of their modern modus operandi the liberals and the Left created an opening for the Right to claim near total control of the U.S. political process.
That was demonstrated dramatically this fall when secretive corporate money exploited the Citizens United ruling and overwhelmed Campaign 2010. In collaboration with the relentless pounding from the right-wing media, the ubiquitous attack ads helped give the Republicans control of the House of Representatives and a powerful hand in the Senate.
This past week, after Republican leaders finally consented to a White House meeting, Barack Obama apologized for not having done more to reach out to them and promised to collaborate with them on what looks more and more like cave-ins, even as Obama looks more and more like a one-term president.
The real question now is whether the Left has learned its lesson and will get serious about building an honest media infrastructure or will simply continue down the same-old path. Some prominent reformers are already making the case that the highest priority must be a constitutional amendment to reverse the court's Citizens United ruling. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Flush Republicans Play Hardball."]
But the idea of getting super-majorities in the Republican-dominated Congress and Republican-controlled statehouses to approve a constitutional amendment inhibiting corporate funding for politics is fantastical, certainly nothing that could even remotely happen without a national political movement that would require a very different news media than the one that now exists.
And even if an amendment somehow were to magically appear, it would only restore the prior status quo, which was already skewed to benefit the Right with its massive investments in media.
The only answer, though surely a difficult one, would be for the American people (including wealthy progressives) to support a tough-minded and truly independent media that is not afraid to challenge the propaganda that emanates primarily (though not exclusively) from the Right.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
