Citizens United and the End of Democracy
America moves fast. So fast that, quite possibly, nothing defines its citizens better than speeding tickets.
On our highways, strange numbers are posted on signs like “55” or “60”. These signs are supposed to indicate the speed limit on the road. But due to our undying desire to move fast, literally no one in the country obeys these limits. In fact, when a cop is pretentious enough to give someone a ticket for driving 12 miles per hour over the limit, we get pissed!
You’d think in a country where nobody obeys the speed limits, we’d demand the speed limits to change. But in America, we don’t get change. We’ve had the same constitution from the beginning, even though our founders wanted it to be rewritten every 19 years.
The other thing about America, if you ask most Americans, is that it’s Number One — in literally everything, yes siree.
“You can’t fix what ain’t broken” is a famous American saying, and if we’re Number One in everything (and we are), then why change?
In America, we’re sure of two things — and, unsurprisingly, they’re related. We’re sure that we’re the best, and because we’re the best, that makes us all special snowflakes. And rules, my friends, do not apply to special snowflakes. If America is anything, it’s the Land of the Free. And if you’re not free to break the rules, then you’re a dumb commie bastard.
It is this singular trait, I think, that makes America both great and awful. From the time that we’re born, we’re brainwashed to believe that we’re special, and because we’re special, we’re great.
If you’ve ever followed American politics, you should know that America is not logical. “Special” and “great” are relative terms. By the very definition, you can only be great compared to something else. If everyone in America was great, then we’d all just be normal. And if we were all normal then nobody would be special.
If every four years, the elected president promises us change, and we vote for that candidate, and we never get any change — that’s literally the definition of insanity.
But it isn’t really insane — because we don’t really care about change. What we care about is being special. So is it any wonder why our elections are controlled by “special interests”? No.
Around 1954, we added the words “under God” to the pledge of allegiance. In ’56, we add “in God we trust” on our money. In 2010, we forgot about God and decided to put our trust in money instead. The supreme court ruled in favor of Citizens United, which gave corporations the same rights as people to finance elections.
Since that time, corporate profits have been doing just fine. The approval rating of Congress? Not so much:
In 2010, Congress had almost a 40% approval rating — roughly its long-term average. Within 3 years, after we started letting corporations do the picking, that number would drop to as low as 9%. It has averaged at about 13% since the ruling on Citizens United.
In America, we sympathize with the rich. It would be unfair to limit their power now, because — one day — in the future, we’ll all be rich, too. We believe in God and money. Money doesn’t have any rules, we decided, and God’s only got one: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Well corporations got what they want: more profits. Unfortunately for us, whatever we wanted — we didn’t get it. It seems like corporations didn’t really give a shit about us. So maybe we should stop caring about them and get rid of Citizens United.
In America, election ads seem to work a little better than speed limit signs. We might try our best to ignore the ads, but it doesn’t look like it’s working.
If capitalism made us good at anything, great God is it advertising.
