Outspending the Truth – The GOP Plan for Election 2012
Many have marveled at the amazing extent to which Republican politicians and office holders lie. They’ve been doing it for years, but now the lies are so blatant, and their frequency and magnitude so great, that it boggles the imagination.
But actually, there is a readily explainable reason for it – or rather two related reasons. One is that the Republican Party is now the Party of psychopaths. They have little or no conscience and little or no empathy for other people.
But that doesn’t explain the more recent astounding increase in their lies. That explanation lies in the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision of 2010. Even before that decision, the extent to which money influenced U.S. elections was highly toxic to our democracy. But Citizens United opened the floodgates.
Now the extent to which money influences our elections is so great that psychopathic politicians with access to lots of money are able to lie at will, in the knowledge that their money will likely cancel out their lies in the minds of many American voters. The basic principle is simple: If a lie is repeated often enough, loud enough, and with enough fake earnestness, many people will come to see the lie as indisputable truth.
The strategy is three-fold. 1) Suck up to the American oligarchy; 2) screw almost everyone else, and; 3) lie about it. Sucking up to the American oligarchy is what causes the money to come pouring in. Screwing everyone else is a necessary part of the game plan because that’s what the American oligarchy demands – for it enables them to become even wealthier and more powerful. And of course lying about it is necessary because most people resent getting screwed for the purpose of enriching the wealthy.
A few words about the American oligarchy
Some may feel uncomfortable about my use of the term “American oligarchy”, perhaps because it implies a conspiracy. Well yes, it is a conspiracy, in that these people don’t act alone. They coordinate their messages because when they all say the same thing it becomes even more believable. Oligarchy has been defined as "a form of government that effectively rests with a small segment of society". Another way of saying the same thing is that it is government by the rich and for the rich. With those definitions in mind, it should be easy to see why governments tend to turn into oligarchies when money has excessive influence in the political process. The rich use their money to influence public officials to use policies and enact legislation that enriches themselves at the expense of everyone else. They thus become richer and better able to repeat the process, which thereby becomes a vicious cycle.
That is what happens when a society allows money too much influence in the political process. That is what Citizens United did to our society. In 2010, 1 percent of the wealthiest 1 percent accounted for 25 percent of all campaign-related donations ($774 million) and 80% of all donations to the two major parties. Stephen Colbert noted that half of the money raised by Super PACs in 2011 came from just twenty-two people.
Money equated with speech
The 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision Buckley v. Valeo was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it recognized that there should be a limit to the First Amendment protection of campaign contributions. Specifically, it said that if excessive campaign contributions could be seen to have corrupting influences on the behavior of our government, Congress should be allowed to put a limit on campaign contributions for that reason.
On the other hand the Buckley decision essentially said that money can be equated with speech, by saying that our First Amendment protects the right of candidates for public office and independent parties to spend money on political campaigns in the form of “speech”. That decision has been explained as follows:
A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Randall v. Sorrell, went well beyond Buckley v. Valeo by striking down a portion of a 2006 Vermont law that limited campaign contributions, thus making even clearer the equating of money and speech. Citizens United then removed most of the remaining limits on the use of money to influence our political process.
The equating of money with speech is an outrageous perversion of our First Amendment. Campaign contributions do not express opinions. Jeff Milchen explains the meaning and consequences of this type of perversion:
The court clearly is interpreting the Constitution in a way that prevents representative democracy… With its ruling in Randall, the court is supporting the segregation of Americans into two distinct classes, just as it did when it twice supported blatantly discriminatory poll taxes that disenfranchised black citizens (and some poor whites) for nearly a century after the 15th Amendment officially enabled them to vote in 1870.
Today, one political class is the overwhelming majority – we express our preferences with our votes or volunteer efforts. The other class consists of those wielding real power – the ability to finance the bulk of candidates' campaigns and effectively "set the menu" of candidates from which the rest of us may choose.
The state of our corporate owned media
The removal of the remaining barriers to political campaign donations and spending is greatly compounded by the corporate consolidation of ownership of our communications media. What has historically been thought of as public airways is now monopolized to a large extent by a very small number of wealthy corporations controlled by wealthy and conservative individuals. This allows the transmission of daily propaganda to the American people, disguised as “news”. The corporations that control our communications media decide what is presented as news and how it is presented.
One of the best recent examples of the “mainstream” media’s contempt for the truth is illustrated by a commentary by the Washington Post fact checker, Glenn Kessler, on Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican Convention. Rather than even mention any of Ryan's many lies, Kessler dismissed them in his inappropriately named September 1 “Fact Checker” column.
First, he titled his article "The truth? C'mon, this is a political convention". Then he expounded upon the unimportance of checking the facts of a speaker at a political convention by saying of political conventions in general:
Then Kessler said, “Ryan was so quickly labeled a fibber by the Obama campaign that one suspects it was a deliberate effort to tear down his reputation as a policy expert…” Did Kessler consider the possibility that part of the rationale for labeling Ryan a fibber was that he fibbed? No, he didn’t. Did he discuss any of Ryan’s lies? No. He just criticized the Obama campaign for calling Ryan a fibber. So much for "fact checking".
Eric Alterman comments on Kessler's job of fact checking:
Outspending the truth
A recent editorial in The Nation summarizes the problem very well. After expounding on the astounding frequency and magnitude of Republican lies, they note the problem it poses for Democrats:
They note the ultimate Republican lie, which of course is designed to please their campaign contributors and screw everyone else:
Near the end of the editorial they note the bottom line – why the Republican Party is able to tell so many lies:
Lying about “welfare reform”
One of the most illuminating examples of the GOP plan to outspend the truth is their lies about welfare “reform”. The word “reform”, especially when applied to welfare, is a GOP euphemism for heartless cruelty. Their most cherished idea for welfare “reform” is to abolish welfare.
One of their most blatant lies about President Obama is that he abolished the work requirement for former President Clinton’s “Welfare Reform” act, otherwise known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Actually, abolishing at least part of the work requirement is warranted in a society that cares about its fellow citizens. There are hundreds of thousands or millions of single parents today who can’t find work or for whom work imposes serious barriers to caring for their children – thus driving more and more families (including the children) into poverty.
Why would the GOP think that TANF shouldn’t be made a little more generous than it is? Betsy Reed points out that due to a combination of our current recession and the insufficiency of TANF as a welfare measure, the U.S. poverty rate has risen to a 50-year high, with one in five children now living in poverty, while welfare continues to reach fewer and fewer of them. Apparently Republicans think that that is something to be proud of. Why else would they criticize a president for trying to amend such a situation?
Reed describes President Obama’s efforts to do something about this situation: What Obama did do is include in his 2009 stimulus package a provision for helping people on welfare get jobs – which is the purported purpose of welfare reform. This provision, referred to as the “TANF Emergency Contingency Fund”, placed 260 thousand parents and youth in paid jobs. It stimulated local economies and helped many thousands of people in dire need while providing them skills with which to improve future work prospects. Thirty states made use of it. Obama deserves praise for that, not condemnation, and not lies about what he did.
But Republicans called the program a “boondoggle” and said it was designed to promote “welfare dependence”, and the Republican controlled Congress eliminated it in September 2010, thereby depriving 100 thousand families of their means of livelihood.
Conclusion – the perversion of our First Amendment that paves the way for oligarchy
The free speech clause of our First Amendment was never meant to be merely a meaningless abstract concept. Rather, it was meant for a specific purpose – which is best ascertained by reviewing and assessing the deliberations and statements of the Founding Fathers who wrote it.
Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of our First Amendment. He elaborated on the rationale for freedom of speech in his Second Inaugural Address, in which he said:
Jefferson also said with respect to freedom of speech and freedom of the press:
Thus it is that the primary purpose of the free speech and press clauses of our First Amendment is the discovery of truth. Our Founders believed that by prohibiting the government censoring of speech, Americans would thereby have the opportunity to be exposed to such a variety of opinions and ideas that they would have the opportunity to divine truth. Thus freedom of speech and press are necessary to produce an informed citizenry. And only an informed citizenry can maintain a representative government and a free society.
The equating of money with speech, thus giving money the same sacred First Amendment protections as speech, accomplishes exactly the opposite. When unlimited amounts of money are allowed into our political process, the wealthiest of Americans gain control of our political process. It does not contribute to a free exchange of ideas. Instead it allows the propaganda of the rich free reign. They and the politicians they control with their money pervert our First Amendment and our political process by outspending the truth. You can equate money with speech if you want, but be aware that its primary consequence is the creation and entrenchment of oligarchy.
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