During his campaign for reelection to a second term, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the following (Oct. 31, 1936):

“In 1932 … we had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, and war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that goverment by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—I welcome their hatred .”

This is a remarkable statement for a Presidential candidate, at least in terms of contemporary standards. Here was a national politician impugning the integrity of those who had the resources and power to help him be reelected. Then again, the business elite were not exactly popular in the midst of the Great Depression. Unfettered and unregulated capitalism had led to an economic catastrophe of almost irreversible proportions. Fortunately, John Maynard Keynes came along with some interesting economic innovations and FDR arrived with a ‘let’s try anything’ attitide, just in time to arrest the downward spiral until war could justify the pump-priming public spending necessary to turn things around.

FDR, for all his rhetoric and all the negative animus he generated among the economic elite, was quite conservative. He had a very difficult time shedding conventional fiscal bromides like balanced budgets and a sound dollar. After winning this 1936 election, he tried to return to so-called soind economics which caused the nascent recovery to sputter and temporarily reverse direction. Further, he eschewed all radical initiatives like the Townsand plan of giving $200 dollars per month to the elderly on condition they spend it all. Rather, the main elements of his Social Security initiative, hatched by University of Wisconsin economists, was rather conservative in the short term. Collections would start immediately but payments, and thus any stimulus to the economy, would not happen for another decade or so. Nevertheless, the elite hated him with a passion. He was considered a ‘traitor to his class’ even as he saved capitalism from self-destructing. The ungrateful sots!

Today, few politicians with national aspirations could confront the elite as FDR did and expect to survive (Perhaps Bernie Sanders would have been the exception but we will never know and I have my doubts about that). Most, except in a few safe seats, can survive even in more local elections. Politics is now money and money is now politics. The days are long gone when William Proxmire could be reelected U.S. Senator from Wisconsin while spending less than a thousand dollars in total, as he did in his 1976 campaign (he served in the Senate from 1957 to 1989). In contrast, Tammy Baldwin (a liberal Democrat I enthusiastically support) raised about $31 million for her 2018 Senate reelection bid.

Since 2010, when the Citizens United decision opened the floodgates, money totally has ruled politics, sweeping away the restraints that had been legislated by the McCain-Feingold campaign financing law passed a mere 8 years earlier. I mean, money was always important but now it seems everything. This is precisely why I get scores of texts and emails every damn day (or is it every hour?) pleading and begging and threatening for just one more contribution. I never realized my $10 buck contribution could save western civilization. Wow!

I can recall visiting a politician running against Russ Feingold in the Wisconsin Senate Democratic primary race many years ago (I was a Russ supporter and was there because I was with a friend of this guy whose name is now lost to me). As we chatted for a few minuutes, the candidate’s handler kept berating him to get back to making phone calls in which he asked rich people for money (his staff would call poor people like me). This was back in the 1990s and, apparently even then, politics was all about money. His manager was irate that he was wasting precious moments from the all important task of raking in more dough.

During that same campaign, Feingold called the university to see if experts would meet with him to brainstorm on selcted policy topics. Few were eager to do this since no one gave him a shot at this point in the campaign but, in the end, he fooled them all. I agreed to go and spent two full morning mentoring him on poverty and welfare issues. It was soooo refreshing to have a politician concerned with issues and not merely raising money. WOW! In the future, we occasionally ran into one another on the D.C. to Madison Friday night flights (I was in D.C. an awful lot) and he always wanted to pick my brain. [I cannot believe Wisconsin went from this Rhodes Scholar to Ron Johnson … a strong candidate for the flat out dumbest Senator in Congress.]

How did it get so bad? Not overnight, that’s for sure. The Republican Party started out as the liberals, big on infrastructure investments, in supporting opportunity for the small guy, and in ending slavery and helping the disenfranchised get a foothold in society. This was the party of Lincoln after all. But, as early as 1876, things were changing. With contested electoral votes, a backroom deal inCongress gave Republican candidate Rutheford B. Hayes one more electoral vote than he needed to take the White House on condition that he withdraw troops from the South, thus abandoning millions of Blacks to Jim Crow laws and the KKK.

The desire to win is a slippery but understandable slope. Toward the end of the 19th century, Republicans realized that, with the solid South in the hands of the Dems, they relied upon New York State to win national elections. New York being the seat of the industrial north, that meant the party heavyweights needed the support of the moneyed classes. Not surprisingly, the principles on which the party was founded continued to erode.

In the 1896 election, Republican William McKinley was running against Democratic populist William Jennings Bryan, the champion of (white) working stiffs and small farmers and easy money. The elite grew concerned as Bryan toured the country giving spell binding speeches while McKinley ran a traditional ‘front porch’ campaign. Panicking, several corporate giants got together and had hundreds of thousands of dollars (real money at the time) delivered to Mark Hannah who ran the Republican campaign, much of it in cash stuffed in large suitcases. It worked and a lesson was learned, never to be forgotten.

Today, I doubt that anyone is unaware that our democracy is held hostage to the moneyed interests. Note that the ticket to be included in the first debate among Republican Presidential candidates depends on how much money you raise. Allegedly, one candidate is paying people to ‘contribute’ to his campaign just so he can make the cut. A sorry state of affairs indeed.

Perhaps we can get a better idea of the role of money if we take a quick and brief look at some numbers:

Those tracking these things found that CEO’s giving their own money (not corporate or PAC) donations in the decade after 2010 (the year of the Citizens United decision) contributed mostly to Republicans. These individuals gave $282 million to the GOP as opposed to $38 million to those other guys (known socialists and likely Commies).

Sometimes, the behavior of corporate entities (considered people in the Citizens United decision) act as hypocritically as real folks do. Hard to believe, right? When Georgia passed a law effectively restricting voting among minorities, the GOOGLE corporation wrote a letter condeming that act. Privately, however, they gave $35,000 to the Republican State Leadership Committee which was working to advance such legislation. At one meeting of this group, those running the meeting clearly stated that restricting voting rights was ‘the only defense of the Republcican Party.’

Want to effect legislation? Perhaps you can write a letter to the editor or contact your Congressperson. A more effective strategy is to spend millions on lobbying, if you have that kind of dough. Lets look at the money spent just on direct lobbying efforts in 2022, just one year mind you. A glance at who is giving big bucks says a lot about what is expected in return.

National Realtors Assoc. ………………. $82 million

Chamber of Commerce ………………. 81 “

Big Pharma ………………………………….. 29 “

Am. Hospital Association ………….. 27 “

Blue Cross-Blue Sheild ……………… 27 “

Amazon ……………………………………… 21 “

American Medical Association … 21 “

The Business Roundtable ………… 20 “

American Chemical Council …….. 20 “

META (i.e., Facebook) …………….. 20 “

Look at this list and think about things for a second. Do you for one moment believe that Congress will do anything about the comparatively high costs of drugs in the U.S., or somehow curtail the prices of medical care here (the highest in the world by far), or do anything substantive to reign in the social media giants, or impose common sense reforms on corporations and banking? If you do, I have a great deal for you on some land in Florida. Just to be fair, there are a few big contibutors on the other side. The Soros fund has distributed some $179 million to advance progressive principles.

One final list that caught my eye. Many corporations decried the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and on the efforts of those lawmakers seeking to overturn the election results. That was public spirited of them. Then, however, they turned around and financially supported some of the very same people who defended ‘the Big lie’ and took steps to overturn the legitimate will of the voters. Here are some the biggest contributors (2021 and after) who supported those very politicians who attempted to subvert the Constitution and the will of the people.

National Beer Wholesale Assoc. ……………………. $904,000

National Automobile Association ………………… 829, 500

American Bankers Assoc. …………………………….. 779,000

Nat. Association of Home Builders …………….. 663,000

AT & T …………………………………………………………. 629,000

Ass. of Builders and Contractors ……………… 587,000

CUNA Mutual’s PAC ………………………………….. 523,000

Home Depot ……………………………………………….. 477,500

Lockheed Martin ………………………………………… 440,000

Boeing ………………………………………………………….. 411,000

UPS ……………………………………………………………… 410,000

COMCAST …………………………………………………. 381,500

Who needs foreign enemies when corporate America is most willing to support the very people who would undermine our Constitution and trash our democracy. The cartoon character POGO was right … we have met the enemy and it is us.

Alas, I see no feasible way of turning this situation around. Money is way too concentrated at the top and they will not give up power voluntarily. Then again, I’m a pessimistic Irishman with a dark cloud over his head.

Have I ever said this before? I am so freaking happy that I am old and on my way out.