Citizens United is one of the pieces of legislature that has to be overturned to head towards an equitable future.
Buckley v Valeo would like a word.
“Buckley v. Valeo is a landmark 1976 Supreme Court case that ruled limits on campaign expenditures are unconstitutional under the First Amendment, while upholding limits on contributions to candidates. The decision significantly shaped campaign finance laws in the United States.”
I really try to avoid fatalism, but I struggle to think of how we put citizens united back in the bottle (other than, of course, violent revolution.)
All I can come up with is a sufficiently powerful populist executive who can get people to the primaries in unheard of numbers and has the conviction to not only turn down infinite bribes but also to bully congress into voting themselves poorer. They also will need the courage and cunning to avoid being assassinated by the wealthy powers that be. Shouldn’t be hard to find.
And 28% are wrong
No, they just spend a lot of time on K Street
28% have been paid to say there isn’t too much money in politics.
Don’t worry — our Supreme Court overlords know what’s best for them … I mean us.
I mean it’s not like they’ve been taking improper gifts from billionaires for years…
27% didn’t understand the question because they’re stupid MAGAt hicks. The other 1% are the rich parasite bastards who want us to continue our culture war instead of shifting to class war.
Only 78%?
I must believe the other 22% responded sarcastically, it’s such an absurd question. “Yeah, right, there’s not ENOUGH money in politics! Dumbass.”
172%*
It’s pretty obvious. But I don’t necessarily have a solution. It’s a hard, hard problem to solve.
Overturning Citizens United would go a long way.
I have serious doubt that anyone on Capitol Hill is altruistic enough to vote themselves to a position of diminished financial security. The end result is easy but the solution as the other commenter said, not so easy.
It’s not altruism if everyone else is also affected. They would just need to act quickly.
They don’t have to vote on anything. Each state has the power to dismantle and neutralize it, as proposed in the Transparent Election Initiative (“The Montana Plan”).
It’s kind of a breakthrough and would be a game changer if many states could pass it.
Citizens united was a bullshit ruling that allowed unlimited money to get funneled into politics. It’s not a solvable problem anymore. The US stopped being even a semblance of a free country the moment it happened
The only way to solve it at this point starts with “gui” and ends with “llotine”. We are well and truly fucked, and the billionaires are now starting on Europe
Starting on? Europe is where it all began, it’s the source of all of the “old money”. Some of these banks have been around since the slavery days. Deutsch bankrolled Trump for many years.
Someone needs to read A Peoples History of the United States. This is who this country has always been and this is who SCOTUS has always been. Theyve ruled several times in the past that corporations are people and are protected by the 14th
The solution is for Americans to primary incumbent politicians regularly. Literally how the founding fathers designed the country to work.
The founding fathers didn’t intend for parties to exist, let alone primaries, or for there to be such a split in the interests of the ruling class as for the 2nd place candidate not being opposed to the winner’s agenda, hence when the vp used to go to 2nd place.
They also didn’t intend the SCOTUS to rule on the legality of laws.
Really not sure that makes sense as a solution. If people like their politician, why primary them? If politicians know they’ll just be primaried anyway then it really doesn’t matter if they enact the will of the people or that of corporations in the first place. That’s one of the big concerns with term limits too. If the incumbent is there due to corporate funding, the next one likely will be too. We need to stop corporations from funding elections and have strict laws that we actually follow around insider trading. Complete divestment for anyone in elected office.
Yeah, I think the idea that we need to “primary candidates” is technically right, but that’s got nothing to do with this. The issue is THAT money rules American Politics in a way different from other nations (people get mad at me for saying that, but you can go watch Johnny Harris talk about the role money plays in American Politics, or Philip Defranco, or BoyBoy). The issue isn’t “primaries,” the issue is that Congress greatly control who gets to even run prior to the primaries. And even during the primaries they choose who to put money behind. And we do primary incumbents? Like, when did anyone say we didn’t (not you, the other commenter). Otherwise we wouldn’t have the RNC/DNC or the literal primary elections.
Oh, and outside of money the issue is Gerrymandering. Before anyone shits on me, go look up how effective gerrymandering is. It decides elections. More than votes and more than money.
Look at Hawaii. They’re making strides right now
eating the rich might help
We are way past eating them. I recommend an industrial wood chipper.
Tax the extremely wealthy until they can’t afford to buy politicians. Don’t know how we get there when the wealthy already own all the politicians. But if people with too much money can’t be trusted to play well with others, taking away their money seems like the obvious solution.
Well I may not have the solution but I sure gotta couple of freakin’ todos.
The oligarchy doesnt believe theres enough
Is there? Shocker.
