The Government is Controlled by Corporate Money's Corruption

(Janssen)

This week I watched three really interesting and eye opening TedTalks, all centered around the issue of divisiveness in politics. One video I watched was A Republican mayor's plan to replace partisanship with policy by G.T. Bynum. Bynum argued that in order to make progress, we need to bring people together with data and facts, instead of negativity and childish contests. Another TedTalk I watched was How our friendship survives our opposing politics by Caitlin Quattromani and Lauren Arledge. In this video, these moms talked about how even though they are part of different political parties, they get along. They propose that instead of judging other peoples' differing beliefs and values, people need to not let emotions get in the way, and instead exchange dialogue to hear other points of view.

The last video was We the people, and the republic we must reclaim by Lawrence Lessig. Lessig talked about how "funders," are essentially the ones who get to choose who wins elections because they pay for the campaigns of their choosing. Lessig argued that our Representative Democracy is not truly a system that is completely dependent on the people alone, like it's supposed to be. Instead, like many things, our so called Democracy revolves around who has the most money.

(Guccione) 

The Issue

Lessig got me thinking a little more about how politics work, and how our government runs in general.  In a perfect world, politicians would agree on every issue and they would make their decisions based on the good of the people, not based on their own agenda. But unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. Instead we live in a country in which politics are corrupt and politicians often can not seem to agree on anything or work together towards a common goal. 

I'm going to dive into how these corporations control elections. How it works, is Super PACs, or "political action committees" get their funding from multibillion-dollar businesses, and then these Super PACs proceed to fund campaigns (Corporate money threatens US democracy). So essentially, these big corporations indirectly fund candidates and their campaigns that coincide with their own political views. So what does this mean? This means that 'Big Business' gets to decide who wins the elections before the public gets a shot at it. In other words, multibillion-dollar corporations are controlling the elections like a puppet on a string. 

(Yomare)

This is a big problem because the campaigns and their respective candidates that get lots of funding are the ones that can afford large scale advertising like promotion videos, commercials, travel to different areas, manpower, and radio time; whereas the campaigns that don't have a lot of money usually don't make it very far in the fight. Lessig gave a very shocking statistic in his TedTalk. He said that 0.000042% of Americans funded 60% of the Super PAC money in 2010. That's only 132 rich Americans that provided Super PACs with the most of the necessary funding for campaigns. This is yet another example of how the rich control the government. 

The Solution

So, how do we solve this problem? In the simplest of terms, we need campaign finance reform. Right now, in order to win an election, a candidate either needs to be rich themselves, or they need to be backed by rich corporations. Lessig argues that this is a very fixable issue: the government needs to make it so that campaigns can only get their money from small scale donations instead of from large 'big money' donations all at once. A bill introduced by Democrat Congressman John Sarbanes called "The Government By the People Act, H.R. 20" is a progressive law that is meant to fight back against corporate money in politics. This would "increase the power of small contributions that regular Americans can afford to give and therefor incentivize candidates to reach out to everyday people" (Corporate Money In Politics). This forces the creation of smaller People PACs not backed by large corporation, giving a bigger voice to everyday citizens. It also forces candidates to make better relations with more lower class citizens instead of trying to mainly lobby the rich people capable of funding their campaigns.

In the wise words of Abraham Lincoln, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The United States is extremely divided. We're not a country that is necessarily split between wether or not slavery should be legal like during Lincoln's time, but we are definitely split. In politics Democrats and Republicans are constantly on opposite sides of the fight, and citizens are continuing to get back control that Big Business has. It's crucial that our country implements campaign finance reform in order to create more trust in politicians and unite our country. It's time for the power that large corporations have over the government to end and instead return that power to the people. 

Works Cited 

Bynum, G.T. "A Republican mayor's plan to replace partisanship with policy." TED, Feb. 2013,
        www.ted.com/talks/g_t_bynum_a_republican_mayor_s_plan_to_replace_partisanship_with_policy.
        Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

"Corporate Money In Politics." Communications Workers of America, cwa-union.org/national-issues/
        economic-justice-democracy/corporate-money-in-politics. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

"Corporate money in politics threatens US democracy—or does it?" University of Rochester, 6 July
        2020, www.rochester.edu/newscenter/does-money-in-politics-threaten-us-democracy-442802/.
        Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

Guccione, John. 100 US Dollar Banknotes. 23 Jan. 2014. Pexels, 30 Dec. 2019, www.pexels.com/photo/
        100-us-dollar-banknotes-3483098/. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

Janssen, Vincent M.A. Photo of Person Wearing Guy Fawkes Mask. 5 Nov. 2014. Pixels, 23 July 2019,
        www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-wearing-guy-fawkes-mask-2698473/. Accessed 18 Dec.     

        2020.

Lessig, Lawrence. "We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim." TED, Feb. 2013, www.ted.com/
        talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

Quattromani, Caitlin, and Lauran Arledge. "How our friendship survives our opposing politics."
        TED, July 2017, www.ted.com/talks/caitlin_quattromani_and_lauran_arledge_how_our_friendship_

        survives_our_opposing_politics. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

Yomare. Hand Puppet. 22 May 2015. Pixabay, 26 May 2015, pixabay.com/photos/
        hand-puppet-snowman-political-alex-784077/. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.