THE GRAND STRATEGY BEHIND THE PLOT TO SUBVERT OUR DEMOCRACY
This is a decades-long effort, funded by wealthy Americans, many whose names you have never heard.
A powerful group of Americans has notions that constitute a break from our history. They fundamentally distrust democracy and no longer see it as the way of achieving the future we should have.
It did not used to be this way. For generations, Americans could count on strong institutions to protect our democracy from everything from domestic demagogues to foreign propagandists. The independence of our judiciary, so important to the founders, meant that the application of law could not be wielded as a partisan tool. The Supreme Court read the Constitution as a document written to guarantee freedoms for ordinary people. American political parties and candidates for office were forbidden from taking unlimited amounts of money from any source and all contributions had to be disclosed.
In those years, our Democracy was robust, though it operated in a narrow range. The right and the left differed profoundly on the strategies that would move the country forward, but they broadly agreed on what it meant to move forward, and all were committed to doing so within a democratic system. And yet, as Americans celebrated our progress, the seeds of our destruction were being planted and nurtured.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY
Now, far later than we should have, we see the breathtaking grand strategy they have used to subvert our democracy. This group is wealthy and corporatist. They, not the MAGA horde they have duped, are behind our troubles. (If you doubt this, see the 1971 Powell Memo.)
They had a huge advantage in money. The first question a strategist asks is how to build on your side’s relative strengths. Where there’s an advantage, how do you make that advantage more powerful? When the advantage is money, the answer is to increase the influence of money in politics. If that can be accomplished, then those with money to spend in politics gain power relative to those without it.
How do you accomplish that in a country with campaign finance laws, with required disclosure of political expenditures? Congress, in a bi-partisan manner, passed these laws. The laws were widely popular. You would have to get the Supreme Court to nullify those laws, but an independent judiciary would never so dramatically interfere with the integrity of our politics.
A CAPTURED COURT OPENED THE DARK MONEY FLOODGATES
So, the Court had to be captured. But how? It would not work to tell people in a democracy that they should appoint judges who will work for monied interests over ordinary citizens. Instead, the anti-democratic forces had to hide their intent and find another cause to galvanize support to capture the court. Something they can get people passionate about. Like abortion. Then, if they spend time and money to outrage and frighten and organize, they might create single issue voters who will provide the edge needed so that, over time, the independence of the Supreme Court can be compromised.
Well, that’s exactly what happened. And once they had their bare majority, the court immediately undermined campaign finance laws. That was Citizens United in 2010.
Immediately, dark money, and unlimited amounts of it, began to flow into our politics like cancer. As long planned, those corporate interests with billions to spend became far more politically powerful than ordinary citizens.
First goal achieved. Now those with extra power turned to corrupting the democracy itself. But there was still the problem of voters. Because Americans are not going to give up voting. So they had to use the advantage now gained through Citizens United to make voting less effective. To do that, they need the Court, plus state legislatures. Right on cue, untold amounts of that dark money went into campaigns to gain control of state legislatures often through extreme gerrymandering.
Here again, they needed a committed corps of voters who would be too angry to see how they were being used. Now billions of dollars went into campaigns that lied and demonized. There are too many examples to cite. Most recently, the Washington Post reports that this election cycle the Republicans have spent $40 million in ads demonizing Nancy Pelosi. The hideous political assassination attempt that caused her husband to be bludgeoned by a hammer wielding conspiracy theorist who broke into their home, is a sad sign of the damage they have done to our polity. Of course, this follows years where they spent untold amounts to lie about Hillary Clinton. They built a whole media ecosystem to push crazy conspiracies that fire up the base about things completely silly, totally false, and absolutely unrelated to the issues of governance.
After the 2010 elections, the GOP controlled many state houses. They used the decennial remap to lock their victories into gerrymandered maps.
GUTTING VOTING RIGHTS
With control of both state houses and the Supreme Court, they took the next step. In a series of rulings, the Court gutted enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, then gutted the Act itself, and then forbade any federal court from getting involved in gerrymandering cases.
Now we have a corrupt partisan court and weakened rules protecting voters. We also have state legislatures ready to curtail voting rights and to ignore laws to maintain power. But we still have elections, and people still try to win at the polls.
Their next step is to use their money and power to make Americans doubt the integrity of elections themselves, then they might get the chance to capture the government through other means.
This was a decades-long effort, funded by wealthy Americans, many whose names you have never heard. Its lead staffer is a man named Leonard Leo. He oversees the day-to-day use of dark money in right wing politics.
THE BIG LIE
Then came Donald Trump. Many people contributed to tilting the balance towards money and away from ordinary citizens and voters, but no one could have foreseen the full scope of his destructive power.
He succeeded in getting nearly thirty percent of Americans to doubt election results. The anti-democratic forces knew what to do with this. They spread his lies to make room for their captured legislatures to pass new and bogus election laws to make the rest of us now worry about the validity of elections. Once we all doubt the results, the moneyed power can impose leadership through their corrupt Court.
Now we stand at the precipice. We are fighting a defensive battle, on ground the forces arrayed against democracy have spent years preparing. If we hold, we must not falter in rebuilding the institutions that support democracy, we must not fear to break the outsized influence of money in politics.