What is the Invisible Dark Force Destroying Everything?

In our post-Citizens United world, when industry or a “generous” billionaire opposes a policy, what they want beats democracy almost every time...

The song we produced inspired by this article is available here.
My reading this article as an audio podcast is available here.

Exactly 178 years ago this month, French astronomer and mathematician Urbain Le Verrier calculated the existence of the then-unknown planet Neptune based on irregularities in the orbit of Uranus, which he postulated were caused by the unknown planet’s gravitational pull.

Some invisible force was clearly distorting Uranus’ orbit, and, when he did the math, he’d not only discovered but accurately predicted the location of the planet Neptune.

Many Americans watch our generation’s political dysfunction and Congress’ inability to get simple things done that would help our country and world and wonder, “Is there a dark planet, some dark force, that is pulling at and distorting our politics?”

Turns out, there is. Read on.

Consider this example: Early this month, for the first time in history, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, reached out to advertising agencies and governments to ban advertisements for products that use fossil fuels and the companies that drill and mine them.

Saying the problem was “aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies – Mad Men,” he called on that industry (which I was once part of, having owned two advertising agencies and taught advertising and marketing) to “stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction.”

Guterres also called on governments to ban such advertising, and while advertising isn’t that “dark force,” the American response to Secretary General Guterres’ speech tells us what is.

“Many governments restrict or prohibit advertising for products that harm human health – like tobacco. Some are now doing the same with fossil fuels. I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil fuel companies.”

So far, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Sydney have taken up Guterres’ challenge and banned all television advertising for gas-powered cars, airlines, cruise ships, and, of course, the fossil fuel companies themselves.

This strategy was very effective here in the United States against tobacco. As The Washington Post noted in an article about Guterres’ speech:

“There’s evidence that this works. Starting in the 1970s, the constant drumbeat of new findings on the health effects of cigarettes triggered a lengthy process where nations restricted advertisements for cigarettes on TV, the radio and in public spaces. In the United States, bans began with cigarette advertising on television, and grew to covering the sponsorship of events, public transit ads and more.”

Of course, we banned tobacco advertising back in the 1970s, before political bribery was legalized by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court.

This is where we meet that mysterious dark force that is deforming American politics.

After being wined and dined for years — with one of his billionaire patrons buying his mother’s house and fixing it up and putting his grandnephew through a ritzy private academy — Clarence Thomas returned the favor by casting his tie-breaking Citizens United vote, almost fully legalizing billionaires and giant companies bribing politicians.

Political bribery is still illegal in Scotland, The Netherlands, and Australia, which is why politicians in those countries could stand up to the fossil fuel industry. America, in fact, is the only country in the developed world that lets the massive, gravitational “dark force” of billionaires’ and giant corporations’ money be used to purchase politicians who put themselves up for sale.

And that’s not only why we won’t see a ban on fossil fuel advertising any day soon; it’s why we won’t see a lot of other things that a majority of Americans want, as well.

In our post-Citizens United world, when industry or a “generous” billionaire opposes a policy, what they want beats democracy almost every time.

For example, a clear majority of Americans tell pollsters that:

— College should be free and student debt eliminated
— Assault weapons should entirely banned
— Social Security should be expanded and rich people should also pay into it like everybody else does
— Fifteen dollars an hour should be the national minimum wage
— The morbidly rich, who currently pay an average 3.4% income tax, should instead pay the top rate that was originally designed for them
— America should have a quality, comprehensive national healthcare system
— Climate change is a threat to our nation and government must act
— Massive corporations have too much power and should be broken up
— Government should intervene in the pharmaceutical marketplace to stop drug price rip-offs
— The Citizens United decision by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court should be reversed, either by Congress or by expanding the Court
— Homelessness must be addressed by government building or incentivizing the construction of affordable housing
— Taxpayer money should not be used to subsidize religious schools
— Abortion should be legal with reasonable restrictions, per Roe v Wade, and
— Unions should be strengthened and the limits put on them by Republicans on the Supreme Court that allow corporate unionbusting should be abolished.

Why don’t we get any of these things? Because, simply, big corporations and ideological billionaires can legally shovel money at federal- and state-level politicians to prevent every single one of them.

Average Americans can’t have nice things, in other words, because big money doesn’t want them to and five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized political bribery.

While Democrats are trying mightily on all these issues mentioned above, at every turn they’ve been frustrated by a solid wall of Republican opposition, aided by a handful of bought-off Democrats like Joe Manchin, Kirstin Sinema, and Josh Gottheimer’s “problem solvers.”

Republicans aren’t even bashful about their corruption. For example, Ron DeSantis — who apparently wants the fossil fuel industry to bankroll his 2028 run for the White House — recently ordered the words “climate change” excised from all government policy statements and documents, and refuses to acknowledge it as a factor in the recent severe weather in Florida.

If Citizens United were reversed — either by Congress or expanding the Supreme Court — and we went back to politicians having to answer to their voters rather than their largest donors, America could quickly get back on track. The gravitational hold of the “dark force” of big money would be broken, just as it has been in every other advanced democracy in the world.

Like in the years before bribery was legalized, average Americans could again have nice things including good pay, cheap health insurance, free college, and a safe retirement instead of the current situation where only the morbidly rich get what they want.

The middle class could be revitalized, homelessness ended, and medical and student debt would become things of the past — as they are in every other developed country in the world.

We might even get a ban on advertisements for fossil fuel companies and those that use their products!

All we have to do, as I detail in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, is end the “dark force” of political bribery that was criminally inflicted on us by five corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court…