I am a big fan of Stephen Colbert. I find his show hilarious, often firing on many levels. I love watching one of his long satirical bits play out between two commercial breaks, ending with a biting conclusion underscored by Colbert's character's earnestness. So it is probably no surprise that I love what he is doing with his Jon Stewart’s his “Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC.”
It makes sense that the performer's quasi-political organization is making its way into a lot of news stories lately, particularly anything that discusses Super PACs, what they are, and the immediate way they are influencing the current political landscape, most easily seen in the squabbling for the Republican presidential nomination.
So in the many stories I perused in my Colbert-fandom (and aimless boredom), I was a little taken aback when I read freelancer E.D. Kain's piece in The Atlantic, “Stephen Colbert's Real Advantage: Free Speech.” In what has largely been anywhere from a love-fest to a shrug from many media outlets when discussing Americans for A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Kain seems a bit skeptical, maybe even displeased. Of course, it is not necessarily Colbert's Super PAC itself that bothers Kain as much as how Colbert's Super PAC is a flashpoint for the populace distaste for the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in what is now referred to as the Citizens United case.
As Kain succinctly states it:
In a 5-4 decision in January of 2010, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional campaign finance regulations which restricted corporations and unions from using funds from their general treasuries in elections, striking down previous court decisions on the matter...Many liberals, upset by disproportionate corporate influence over the political process, worried that the decision would further entrench the power of corporations in American democracy.
Colbert's satirical super PAC, however, far from effectively satirizing Citizens United, illustrates why this concern is misguided.
Prior to the 2010 decision, one industry already had the ability to dip into its bottomless war chest to influence electioneering. The big media companies, and their parent corporations like GE, have been historically excluded from campaign finance laws like McCain-Feingold. This exclusion was understandable: restricting the freedom of the press is obviously unconstitutional on free speech grounds.But the media has enormous power over the political process.
(Sorry, didn't mean to use the whole article, but it lends itself to a fantastic discussion.)
It seems like Kain is saying, “tone it down a bit,” or “let's see the forest for the trees,” sentiments often expressed by Colbert's former non-coordinating partner, Jon Stewart. While everyone is screaming about the dirty money distorting our political process in the campaigning stage, and blaming it all on Citizens United, that is kind of short sighted, or an easy out.
And as much as the fan in me wanted to defend Colbert from Kain's critique, I found what Kain had to say pretty important, and a gateway to a lot of interesting talking point. So put on the specs, 'cause this might be a long one.
There are a lot of reasons why this Colbert story has taken off. A faux political pundit from a late night cable satire starting up a political action committee and then wading into the electoral process is certainly more “man bites dog,” than “dog bites man.” I also wonder if there is a hint of mea culpa in there.
My favorite part of this Super PAC satire, is that it is as educational as it is funny. From the time he filed a request with the FEC to when he ceded control of his PAC to Stewart, through all of the hilarious and illuminating bits along the way, I have learned more about political action committees and the legal laundering provided by 504(c)4 groups, than in anything I read in more traditional media sources. And frankly, as satirical as it is, I don't think Colbert is really editorializing. He is simply showing exactly how the rules are set up and what you can get away with.
By explaining Colbert's story in their discussions of PAC's, news organizations can play catch up to the type of explanation they could have lent this debate at any other point in the past two years.
So while Kain may say that, “Colbert simply missed the mark in his super PAC satire,” I disagree. Yes, you could say this is all a big ploy to show how screwed up Citizens United is. But it seems a lot more like a clever exploration of what it is and what it can do.
And that has value. Colbert has contributed or even started the conversation about Citizens United and the effect of corporate money in the electoral process. We need to take it the next step though, and look past this clever bit, and this controversial court decision, to see where Citizens United fits in the landscape of electoral influence.
It is hard for a lot of us to wrap our heads around this whole “corporations are people thing,” and that might be the biggest obstacle to step around when discussing Citizens United. But take a break from literalism for a second. What the ruling did was not suddenly pump flesh and blood into corporations, it pumped more “speech” (in this case money, which the Supreme Court has said can equal speech in political discourse) into the electoral process.
That sounds like a bad thing, allowing more corporate influence to be peddled in campaigning. But as Kain again aptly points out, Citizens United does not usher in more corporate financial influence on elections. It simply evens the playing field, allowing ALL moneyed organizations to get in on the game.
Beyond the ruling applying to influence peddlers on either side of the aisle, more speech may help drown some of the influence of large corporations that have gone unchecked for years, media companies.
Again I'll defer to Kain to say things better than I can:
There is little doubt that corporations play a big role in American politics. But the true corporate kingmakers are the mass media outlets that decide what news is fit to print, which candidates are "serious" and which issues are important enough to cover. Citizens United doesn't change this so much as it levels the playing field.
I guess this was part of the conversation about undue influence many of us kind of overlooked. Yeah, it's shady as hell that Karl Rove can start American Crossroads and fight the conservative battle wherever he wants in any number of nefarious ways. But in all the hub-bub over transparency and fairness, no one said anything about how the news media is shaping this process more than anyone.
It's pretty obvious once you look. Colbert's whole schtick would be just another slowly dying Twitter trend if he didn't have a half-hour of TV four times a week that shines the light squarely on him.
In a more common example, what about all of the "projections” and “analysis” and “conclusions” about the political process that the media sends out as news every day.
I am not just talking about some pundit getting up and saying, “Obama has failed,” or, “Romney seems like a hollow shill,” or “the most apt word to describe Newt Gingrich is corpulent.”
The editorial act of just selecting what you will talk about and what you won't influences political fates.
As Kain (and Slate's Dave Weigel) points out, New Mexico Libertarian Governor Gary Johnson withered from the GOP race quickly because no news organization gave his campaign any notice or credit.
It seems the media plays right into the hands of this corporate influence bias. If a candidate doesn't have enough money to have a big fancy campaign, the media doesn't want to pay them any mind.
Look at Ron Paul. It took several strong showings in numerous polls before he was even in the discussion, and he is still viewed as a fringe candidate. He was routinely skipped over as the conversation focused on more “traditional” candidates like Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bauchman, and the rest of the funny farm (most of whom have bailed out by now).
It grows from there too. Look at the Iowa caucus. Less than 6% of eligible Iowans came out to vote, and in the end they handed Romney an eight vote victory over Rick Santorum. Or maybe that was the other way around.
All of that seems like very small beer, but given that semiotics matter in these early days, here’s a little thought experiment: What if Mr. Romney was heading into New Hampshire after a “surprising second-place finish” or worse still, the “loser to a far less well-financed candidate.” Those eight votes, real or not, seem to have real value in that context.
Eight measly votes, and suddenly most media sources are touting "Romney the victor." After two Republican primary events where Romney came out ahead, he is referred to often as the “eventual nominee." Then he suddenly takes a beating in South Carolina and the whole narrative changes, talking about how Gingrich, who was looked at as a long shot not six months ago, is now the strongest candidate.
As Kain said, these organizations are kingmakers. The momentum put forth by the newsmakers is indeed making the news. How would coverage of their individual agendas shift if Paul was crushing everyone, or if Romney couldn't gain more than 3%, or Gingrich wasn't so damn creepy.
Yes, there is plenty of undue and unchecked influence going on in these campaigns. But it may surprise you how little Citizens United has really changed anything.
Again, I'll defer to Kain:
Meanwhile, the media's ability to arbitrarily set rules that govern who is and who is not included in debates is an exercise of power that few other corporations can imagine. Politics is little more than the messy transaction of power, after all, and money is just one of its currencies.
Which leads us to our next point......
“THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL”
That quote is important to note, because that is the full extrapolation of the often shouted adage, “money is the root of all evil.” That is an easy answer, and one that certainly stirs a classists debate. But money is not evil in and of itself. We project our ill will upon it through often underhanded and covetous behavior in its pursuit.
Citizens United did not usher in an era of corporate overreach into the political system. There has been dirty money flowing through government forever, and it seems there always will be. Since there are morally questionable to frankly repugnant individuals on either side of the corporate/political divide, money can work it's way in easy enough.
Congressmen routinely flow between the worlds of the legislature and the lobbyists. Federal regulators drift between their policing agencies and the companies they oversee with disturbing frequency. There is an entire system built to provide the guise of governance and insulate it's power brokers. They are all "Washington Insiders," because once you are in, why the hell would you get out. Who wants to leave the land of milk and honey?
The civil unrest over money in politics is incredibly shortsighted if we just keep lobbing grenades at Citizens United. Especially since it has very little chance of getting repealed or reargued. Supreme Court precedent is legal precedent, so we are going to have to live with this one for a while. And Free Speech provides a steep legal hill to climb (as it should).
What we should be up in arms about is how causal this whole exchange of money and power is. We shouldn't be screaming about Supreme Court rulings as much as the actions of our legislators who continue to fail us every day.
Enact laws like the STOCK Act to fight insider trading. Draft more bills that aim to root out lobbying and other forms of undue corporate influence.
Citizens United should be held up as an example of what is wrong with government not because of how the Supreme Court ruled, but because of how it was drafted. A bill said to have built in safeties and checks so that candidates can't be directly involved with their PAC's, and the money has to be transparent, but only to a point, show how hard legislators work to spit out these phony, hollow acts for the purpose of political theater.
They build loopholes for their loopholes. They protect themselves at every turn, and feed us trash that is again often re-peddled or under reported. They serve their own interests before anyone else's. And the worst part is they can afford to.
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