By Tim Wood
I’ve recently read an extensive interview with President Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain. The intuition I came away with from this interview was just how present day politics and politicians serving in the U.S. Congress have become some sort of a club, with leadership basically working within a Catch-22 (for us) election process involving career politicians and career lobbyists.
I’ll try explaining. Klain had become interested in politics since high school. At Harvard Law School he first came into Biden’s orbit in 1986 with work on Biden’s chaired Senate Judiciary Committee. This basically started Klain’s career interests as a Democratic strategist.
He spoke of his career (to date) as splitting between the government and private sectors. That makes about 35 to 40 years of involvement of some kind in U.S. politics from college to now; he’s 61 years old. In reference to “old” teams working in the White House, he spoke highly of the importance of having an “experienced” staff (meaning decades in government) in order to get legislation pushed through our congress.
I thought, “This is a real plug for career politicians! … Here I thought success was having partisan control of both the House and Senate!”
Presently, one should look at and study the struggles of our U.S. campaign finance laws and just how money is now playing an exaggerated role in our elections. During my research, I ran across this quote from Abraham Lincoln from a Nov. 21, 1864 letter in which he warns colleagues of a crisis approaching: “As a result of the war, corporations have become enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s rule by preying upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
I strongly related to that statement and it increased my respect for Lincoln even more, knowing we are, indeed, closer to this “state of the union” than ever before. Financial manipulation within elections in exchange for governmental influence has been happening within this country’s entire existence. One could have been optimistic with Roosevelt’s Tillman Act in 1907: a ban on bank and corporate political funding, but that law was and is largely ignored, and, it’s still on the books.
Then we have a progression of SCOTUS decisions and congressional acts attempting to regulate the influence of money in elections summarized here: 1944 (PAC), 1950 (electronic campaigning), 1971 (FECA – too well intended to last). Then came Nixon’s exposed campaign corruption that helped establish the 1974 Federal Election Commission. … Can’t say we didn’t try.
Then along comes SCOTUS with the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, forever linking campaign fundraising and spending with freedom of speech. Since that time there have been about 32 bills, amendments, or SCOTUS decisions that have continually undermined anti-corruption regulation for campaign finance, mostly lead by Republicans.
In 2012, we had Citizens United v. FEC and the birth of the super-PAC that opened the flood gates for financial (as well as power broker) shenanigans, now controlled by political operatives and lobbyists.
Anyone out there gullible enough not to realize that money and power (more often than not) corrupt people must be living in some kind of dream world. Mix that in with career politicians and you now have what we’re looking at in 2023: An elitists group of political operatives (most all career politicians, both left and right) that crave to hold onto their position of power and ideologies at what ever cost necessary. Just as Lincoln predicted in 1864. And it is presently widening both the ideology and wealth gap between our countrymen and countrywomen.
What you see now in our House of Representatives is a minority of extremists holding sway over a majority of congressional legislators. We are witnessing the ferality of non-regulated money flowing into our elections, along with the ferality of many politicians that regularly lie and purposely spread false information. To make matters worse, these political operatives form alliances with the owners of media companies that assist them in their grasp for power and authority by simply helping to divide the U.S. Citizenry; Just as Lincoln warned: “…preying upon the prejudices of the people.”
I’ve often wondered why, when given the chance, regulating campaign finance, making it easier to vote, living by majority rule, installing term limits, and making it a priority to create an election system that encourages noble and moral people to run for public office, never seems to gain ground in today’s world.
Now that I’m older and have a better sense of how our modern world works, I think it is because our leaders today are entrenched within a system of their own political creation during the last 60 or 70 years. I think we will start seeing politicians surviving in this system for decades, if they live long lives. God help us. Both Biden and McConnell each have been in politics for approximately 50 years. Operatives like Klain started in their 20’s.
We are now living in an era of yearly, continual political fund raising, spending and campaigning. And like the social networking and nepotism of Hollywood, so goes our congressmen and women and our presidents. They are becoming entertainers. It may not be what we want, but it seems out of our control and influence now.
Since I personally think politicians today are nothing more than a subspecies in some distorted version of the entertainment world, this, at least, helps me process what never ceases to amaze me in today’s governance. An example is Ron DeSantis using his political authority to commandeer and completely reform the New College of Florida into his and his minions’ vision of conservative morality. Now that’s entertainment!
Trouble is, it’s our taxes that help to feed it, isn’t it? And just for the record, I believe that the SCOTUS is right up there with them. We need political leadership made up of fresh thinking activists and enforced term limits; Not the same old, entrenched, partisan, career politicians.
Tim and Kristy Wood moved to Beaufort in 1974. He worked as a carpenter in both restoration and new home construction, as well as operating a shop specializing in custom woodwork, Wood on Wood Specs. He is semi-retired, involved with fine woodworking and formerly sat on the City of Beaufort Zoning Board of Appeals.
