Air Date 9/6/2024

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JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast. We're living in a world that dark money in politics and Citizens United built. But since that Supreme court ruling in 2010, we've also invented cryptocurrency. That promises to be a brand new source of opacity and financial power built on smoke and mirrors. 

Sources providing our Top Takes in about 50 minutes today includes CounterSpin, Robert Reich, The PBS NewsHour, The Brian Lehrer Show, The Majority Report, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin, and Bernie Sanders. Then in the additional Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more on four topics: 

Section A: The System,

Section B: Funding Republicans,

Section C: Funding Democrats, and 

Section D: Solutions.

Steve Macek on Dark Money - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-23-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Let's start with some definition. Dark money doesn't mean funding for candidates or campaigns I don't like, or from groups I don't like. In your June piece for The Progressive, [00:01:00] you spell out what it is and in terms of where it can come from and what we can know about it. Help us, if you would, understand just the rules around dark money. 

STEVE MACEK: Sure. So dark money -- and I think Anna Massaglia of Open Secrets gave me, I think, a really nice, concise definition of dark money in the interview I did with her for this article. She called it funding from undisclosed sources that goes to influence political outcomes such as elections.

Now, thanks to the Supreme Court case in Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission in 2010 and some other cases, it is now completely legal for corporations and very wealthy individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence the outcomes of elections. Not all of that independent expenditure on elections [00:02:00] is dark money. Dark money is spending that comes from organizations that do not have to disclose their donors. One sort of organization, I'm sure your listeners are really familiar with, are super PACs, or what they're more technically known as IRS Code 527 organizations. It can take unlimited contributions and spend unlimited amounts on influencing elections, but they have to disclose the names of their donors.

There is this other sort of organization, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which is sometimes known as a social welfare nonprofit, who can raise huge amounts of money, but they do not have to disclose the names of their donors. But they are prevented from spending the majority of their budget on political activity, which means that a lot of these 501(c)(4) organizations spend [00:03:00] 49.999 percent of their budget attempting to influence the outcomes of elections, and the rest of it is spent on things like general political education or research that might in turn guide the creation of political ads and so on. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: When we talk about influencing the outcome of elections, it's not that they are taking out an ad for or against a particular candidate; that doesn't have to be involved at all.

STEVE MACEK: Right. So they can sometimes run issue ads. Sometimes these dark money groups, as long as they're working within the parameters of the law, will run ads for or against a particular candidate. 

But take, for example, Citizens for Sanity, the group that I talked about at the beginning of my Progressive article. This is a group that nobody knows very much about. It showed up back in 2022 and ran $40 million worth of ads in four battleground [00:04:00] states. Many of the ads were general ads attacking the Democrats for wanting to erase the border or for over kind of woke culture war themes. But they're spending 40 plus million dollars on ads, according to one estimate. What we do know is the officials of the group are almost identical to America First Legal, which was made up by former Trump administration officials. America First Legal was founded by Stephen Miller, that xenophobic former advisor, and sometimes speechwriter to Donald Trump. No one really knows exactly who is funding this organization because it is a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit, and so is not required by the IRS to disclose its donors. It has been running this year in Ohio and elsewhere, a whole bunch of digital ads and putting up billboards, for example, attacking [00:05:00] Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown for his stance on immigration policies, basically saying he wants to protect criminal illegals, and also running these general anti-woke -- they're very snarky, kind of anti-woke ads saying basically Democrats used to care about the middle class, now they only care about race and gender and DEI.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Right. Well, I think rich people influence policy. It's almost like dog bites man at this point, right? Yeah, it's bad, but that's how the system works. And I think it's important to lift up If it didn't matter for donors to obscure their support for this or that, well then they wouldn't be trying to obscure it.

And the thing you're writing about, these are down ballot issues where you might believe that Citizens for Sanity, in this case, any other organization, you might think of this as like a grassroots group that scrabbled together some money to take out ads. And so it is meaningful to know, [00:06:00] to connect these financial dots.

STEVE MACEK: Absolutely. It is meaningful. And since you made reference to down ballot races, one of the things that I think is so nefarious about dark money and these dark money organizations is that they are spending a lot on races for things like school board, or, as I discussed in the article, state Attorney General's races, right?

There is this organization that was founded in 2014 called the Republican Attorney General's Association or RAGA, which is a beautiful acronym. And they have been trying to elect extremely reactionary Republicans to the top law enforcement position in state after state. And in 2022, they spent something like $8.9 million trying to defeat Democratic State Attorney General's candidates [00:07:00] in the 2022 elections.

Now they are a PAC of a kind. They're a 527, so they have the same legal status as a super PAC, so they have to disclose their donors. But the fact is, one of the major donors is the group called the Concord Fund, which has given them $17 million. Concord Fund is a 501(c)(4) that was founded by Leonard Leo, the judicial activist affiliated with the Federalist Society, who is basically Donald Trump's Supreme Court whisperer, who is largely responsible for the conservative takeover of the federal court.

His organization, this fund that he controls gave $17 million to RAGA, and we have no idea who contributed that money to the fund. We can make some educated guesses, but nobody really knows who's funneling that money into trying to influence the election of the top law enforcement official in state after state around this country. That's alarming. [00:08:00] Because of course, some of these right wing billionaires and corporations have issues, have a vested interest in who is sitting in that position, because if it comes to enforcement of antitrust laws or corruption laws, if they have a more friendly Attorney General in that position, State Attorney General in that position, it could mean millions of dollars for their bottom line.

Why Big Money Supports Trump -Robert Reich - Air Date 8-27-24

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: Fascism, backed by big money, is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. We saw it in 1930s Germany, when industrial giants bailed out a cash strapped Nazi party right before Hitler's election, thinking that Hitler would protect their money and power. We're seeing something similar now.

Earlier this year, the GOP was running out of money. So, Trump turned to his wealthy backers for help. Many super rich donors, who once criticized Trump for stoking the violence of January 6th, have since had a change of heart, deciding their profits are worth more than our democracy. Trump has promised them that if [00:09:00] elected, he'll extend his 2017 tax cuts that went mainly to the wealthy, beyond 2025, when they're scheduled to expire.

And he's hinted at even more. 

DONALD TRUMP: The rich as hell, we're gonna give you tax cuts? 

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: He promised oil executives he would scrap regulations favoring electric vehicles and wind energy if they would give his campaign $1 billion. 

The Trump White House is for sale. And the wealthy are buying. 50 billionaire families gave at least $600 million in political donations as of May, with over two thirds going to support GOP candidates and conservative causes.

Elon Musk, one of the world's richest men, who also controls and manipulates one of the world's largest communications platforms, has committed to spending millions of dollars a month to elect Trump, and Trump has promised to make it worth Musk's while. 

DONALD TRUMP: We have to make life good for our smart people, and he's as smart as you get.

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: In previous [00:10:00] videos, I've highlighted alarming similarities between fascist regimes of the past and Trumpism. The alignment of American billionaires with Trump's anti-democracy movement. is one of the most dangerous parallels. 

The billionaires want the rest of us to fight each other so we don't look up and see where all the wealth and power have gone, so we don't join together and raise taxes on the super rich to finance childcare, better schools, our healthcare system, everything else we need. 

They fear democracy because there are far more of us than there are of them. We need to see through their fear tactics, and vote in overwhelming numbers this November.

We can learn from history and spot the danger. We are not doomed to repeat it. 

Trump shifts stance on cryptocurrency to win over new bloc of voters and mega-donors - PBS Newshour - Air Date 7-29-24

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: The incredible rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have created a new block of megadonors that voters and presidential candidates are now trying to win over. Former President Trump, who initially denounced cryptocurrency as [00:11:00] "highly volatile and based on thin air" back in 2019, reversed himself in his speech to the conference last Saturday by promising to make the US the crypto capital of the world, 

DONALD TRUMP: if crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted, and made in the USA. It's going to be. It's not going to be made anywhere else. And if Bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say, it's going to the moon, I want America to be the nation that leads the way. And that's what's going to happen. No, you're going to be very happy with me. 

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Joining me now to discuss the ramifications of all of this is David Yaffe-Bellany from the New York Times. David, thank you so much for being here. Help set the table for us for people who have not been following this that closely. Remind us of where crypto was after its big fall, and now it's sort of resurged in the marketplace. 

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: The last time most ordinary people tuned into the crypto industry, you know, top [00:12:00] executives were going to prison, the market was in free fall, and a lot of these kind of risky investments had been widely dismissed as worthless or scams. But a lot has changed since then. In January, the federal government approved a new investment product that's tied to the price of Bitcoin. And when that product started trading, it kind of opened up access to the crypto market to a whole lot of people who hadn't invested in it before. And as a result, the price of Bitcoin surged. It reached its record high a few months ago, and the prices of some of the other big crypto tokens have followed suit. And so the industry is in a much healthier state today than it has been for the last couple of years. 

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: So, as we just heard, the former President Trump made this very explicit pitch to the crypto world, saying, I might have been a skeptic before, but now I'm in full bore. What is his pitch, and why is this happening now? 

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Look, the crypto industry is furious about the way that it's been treated by the federal government. The Securities and Exchange Commission has [00:13:00] embarked on a pretty aggressive crackdown on crypto companies, a crackdown so severe that it's essentially an existential threat. It could drive the industry out of the United States if it's successful. And so the embrace of Trump is really a response to that. And, you know, a cynical reading of this is that Trump is kind of opportunistically seizing on what's happening, you know, under the current administration. Seeing an opportunity to attract donor dollars from the crypto industry, and that's why he's making this pitch, promising that he's going to turn the US into a kind of inviting sort of capital for crypto companies, rather than the sort of aggressive cop on the beat that it's been over the last couple of years. 

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Let's talk about that 'cop on the beat'. Currently, that's the Biden administration's cop on the beat. What is it that they're doing, and what is their argument about why they need to be such a tough cop?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: Sure. So, the leader of this push is the chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, and the argument that he has made over and over is that most [00:14:00] cryptocurrencies are essentially securities, which is to say that they're just like stocks and bonds that are traded on Wall Street and that they ought to be regulated as such and that crypto companies should have to make all the sorts of disclosures and follow all the same rules as people do, people who offer those traditional investment products. That is a legal argument that the crypto industry hates. You know, they're fighting back against it saying that if the SEC beats them in the courts on this issue, then they'll be driven out of the United States. So, that's sort of the crux of the debate. And, you know, Trump went in front of a crowd of Bitcoin supporters over the weekend and said, one of my first acts as president will be to fire Gary Gensler. And it got probably the biggest cheer of the day. 

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: So, do we know what vice president Kamala Harris might do if she were elected? Is it safe to say she would just continue the Biden administration's current approach?

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: It's hard to say for sure. She hasn't said a ton publicly about her views on crypto, but obviously she's part of the current administration and so a lot of crypto [00:15:00] insiders are kind of assuming that if she wins, it'll be more of the same that they saw under the Biden administration. With that said, both the Biden campaign and now the Harris campaign have extended something of an olive branch to crypto companies, sort of invited them to come to the table and sort of talk about the policy changes they would like to see. But, the reaction among crypto executives has been pretty skeptical. Essentially it's been 'your talk means nothing to us, we've seen what you've done over the last four years and, frankly, we don't trust you'. 

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: We're talking about crypto here, but there has been in the broader tech world, as well as in the VC world—the venture capital world—this seeming move towards Trump and supporting Republican candidates. Is that all about this concern over too-strict enforcement as they see it? 

DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY: That's really probably the key part of this. You know, even tech people who aren't directly involved in the crypto industry or see what's going on and say, you know, this is an administration that's cracking down on [00:16:00] innovation and there's a fear that there might be a crackdown on the AI companies that are proliferating now. And so that's a lot of what's driving the kind of rightward shift of the Silicon Valley elite toward Trump, but there are other factors as well. A lot of these top figures in the tech world have kind of bought into concerns about cancel culture and wokeness run amok. And so there are some of those kind of cultural issues at play here as well.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: And I'm sure it's also true that billionaires like tax cuts, which Donald Trump is promising more of as well.

Silicon Valley's Impact on the 2024 Elections - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-31-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: Erin, you used this term before the break that I loved. You said 'liberaltarian' was a good way to describe the folks in the tech industry. And, you know, the splintering that we see in Silicon Valley right now has a lot of people speculating on why a powerful liberal, sometimes libertarian, group has gone so far right.

Recently, US secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who's stumping for Vice President Harris, weighed in. We've got a clip that I want to share with [00:17:00] you. Let's take a listen to what Buttigieg said on Real Time with Bill Maher earlier this month. 

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I know there are a lot of folks who say, What's going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with JD Vance and backing Trump? What are they thinking? Silicon Valley is supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to care about climate. They're supposed to be, you know, pro science and rational and libertarians. Normally libertarians don't like authoritarians. What's up with that? I think it's actually, we've made it way too complicated. It's super simple. These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men. 

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: A lot of texts are coming in saying basically the same thing. That it all kind of comes down to money. So, Erin, what are your thoughts on what Buttigieg is saying? It's to what extent is this just all about money? 

ERIN GRIFFITH: I mean, I don't think, I'm not going to argue with that. That's a very, first of all, it's a great message, political message for him to be putting out there on the left. [00:18:00] And I think it's hard to argue with that. And one point that I'll just add to that is that if you look at Marc Andreessen's comments about his political journey and how he switched from having supported almost every Democratic candidate for president over the last couple decades to now supporting Trump. He pointed to this journey that people tend to go on in his industry where you make a lot of money, you're very successful in business, you're mostly left alone by regulators, and then you become a philanthropist. And he even made the point that, like, then you get a lot of praise for giving a lot of your money away. And he was really struck by the fact that philanthropists started getting criticized. And he even pointed out that when Mark Zuckerberg announced his Chan Zuckerberg [00:19:00] Initiative, there was some criticism around it and he was just like really taken aback by that. And so part of it is, I think these guys are surprised to find themselves as the villain and kind of bristling at this criticism.

And so I think there's a little bit of almost sensitivity or 'how dare you' kind of about it, too. And so, I think that's just worth playing into this, that it's not just money, but it's also like they're kind of like ego a little bit. I found that really striking.

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: So, it is not just about money, maybe legacy? Is that fair? Maybe about the ego, the point that they're making in the world. Once you make enough money, what else can you do? So they start looking at politics. Is that kind of what you're suggesting?

ERIN GRIFFITH: Well, yeah. And if you just think more broadly, the tech industry has been really villainized in the media and by politicians on both sides over the last few years. You know, even Trump is calling for breaking up big [00:20:00] tech and putting Mark Zuckerberg in jail, and so I think that kind of villainization is also playing into this a little bit. And I'm not, you know, weighing in on whether or not this is deserved or good, bad, whatever, but I'm just saying this is what I've observed when I talk to people, is that they take it a little bit personally, like, We're innovators, we're building the future for society. And they're a little bit dismayed at the fact that there's this aggressive regulation, there's lawsuits, there's some villainizing going on. So, I think that does play into it a little bit too. 

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And it makes sense timeline-wise, right? Because if you go back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, back to 2010, tech was kind of, in many circles, seen as a panacea, almost. You could fix it if you lathered tech on top of whatever you were talking about. I'm sure moving on from there, 10, 15 years later, it's kind of a little bit of a 180 with AI, crypto, all of these things kind of seen as taking away from society. [00:21:00] Does that timeline make sense there? 

ERIN GRIFFITH: Well, yeah. I mean. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had very cozy relationships with the tech industry. And it wasn't seen as, you know, politically toxic in some ways that it is a little bit now, taking tech money. But that's, I think, partly because of how powerful the tech industry has become. It used to be this kind of quirky thing that happened over on the West Coast. And now it is, you know, a part of every single industry in our economy. It's these companies are among... the top five most valuable companies in the world are tech companies, mostly, and, you know, the tech industry is extremely powerful. And so it has become, you know... there's been a lot of criticism around the tech industry and a lot of scrutiny and a lot of regulatory scrutiny. And so all of that is a part of this. 

Dem Donors Want Harris To Bail On Biden's Best Decision - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-29-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Harris is getting pushed [00:22:00] by folks who are against genocide, who are against a, open air prisons and ethnic cleansing and killing of tens of thousands of children. On one side she's getting pressure in that way, on another side, on a big money and corporations and donors, she's getting pressured to roll back and undermine the antitrust gains that have been made at the FTC with Lena Kahn.

Here is from yesterday, CNN's Matt Egan on with Reid Hoffman, who is the LinkedIn co founder, apparently giving $7 million to Harris. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: And there was one donor who was quoted in the New York Times piece about this who said that they think essentially she'll dump Lena Khan, and the source was one major Democratic donor 

I don't know this for a [00:23:00] fact... 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: This is the point We don't know what she's gonna do. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: We don't know, but it could be him. 

REID HOFFMAN: Trump wants tariffs, which is anti business. Makes this a very strange election indeed, because I think actually vice president Harris is much more of the pro-business candidate than Trump and Vance. 

CNN ANCHOR: But vice president Harris wants to raise the corporate tax rate. The, Biden Harris administration has imposed tariffs, so aren't there some anti-business concerns there as well. 

REID HOFFMAN: I think what's most important for business is stability of a country, unity, rule of law, and a percent difference in corporate tax, or two percent or three percent difference in corporate tax, is far less important. 

CNN ANCHOR: Now the Trump campaign of course has argued otherwise, saying that Former President Trump is the one that's going to put more money in the pockets of American families and blaming the Biden Harris administration for the high cost of living.

Now, even Reid Hoffman conceded that he's not thrilled with [00:24:00] all parts of the Biden administration. In particular, he strongly criticized Lena Khan, the FTC chair. He said that Lena Khan is "waging war on American business," and he went so far as to say that he hopes that a President Harris would replace Lena Kahn at the FTC.

Now, the agency pushed back, telling CNN in a statement that Chair Kahn is honored to work in this administration where she has worked to protect consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs from corporate abuses. And it's worth remembering that Lena Kahn, she's won some fans on the left for her efforts to fight monopolies, to try to Push back against big oil and big tech.

And interestingly enough, she even has a fan on the, 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on the Republican side. I think he was about to say. This is an attempt, by the corporate interests on the Democratic side of things [00:25:00] to influence Harris and lay down a gauntlet, do these sort of like vague, passive, aggressive threats on some level tied him with somebody who's got the 7 million and whatnot, and we'll see what happens here.

 They know, or they think that they know that she's pushable on this. Does that mean that they're gonna succeed? No. This is the same dynamic I think that we're in terms of Gaza and the Biden administration's policies. In fact, I'm not convinced that Elizabeth Warren's coming early in this process and endorsing her, when there was still talk of some type of mini primary wasn't a function of her trying to get there first and make sure that she's in Harris's ear, and maintaining if not building upon the gains that Warren part of the party looking for antitrust is not carried forward. 

Here's IAC Chairman Barry Diller [00:26:00] talking to Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC, this all come from the business press, as to what he would do in terms of lobbying Harris.

 

DILLAR: Everybody flip flops because conditions change. You run in the primary to the left or to the right in order to get it. Then when you get the nomination, you cove towards the center, which is sensible to do. It's all pragmatic. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Let me also just weigh in on this. This is not so, so relevant to this, but this conventional wisdom, it's not really the case as much as it used to be. Joe Biden, when he was in trouble, when he was facing calls to be pushed out, he did not tack to the center folks. He came out and said 5% a cap on rent. He came out and said, expansion of, Medicaid and Medicare. He came out and said...

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: ...canceling medical debt...

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: ...canceling medical debt. These are tacks to the left, not tacks to the center. And [00:27:00] clearly this was him in the general election mode, although it turned out he wasn't in any mode.

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: That's what we were saying, is part of the frustration was he was in a fight for his life for the Democratic nomination, and that's why he was pulling all that out. Harris now is actually in the general election, so it'll be fascinating to see without abilities to influence her throughout a long protracted primary process, who gets their way.

DILLAR: When you get the nomination, you cove towards the center, which is sensible to do. It's all pragmatic. Let's not talk about honesty in these contexts. 

CNBC ANCHOR: But there have been reports that a number of prominent Democrats have been lobbying Harris to drop people like Lena Kahn. Do you think that it's going to happen? And would you lobby? Yeah, I would. You would? Yeah, I think she's a dope. 

EMMA VIGELAND - CO-HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Of course you do. And to your point about Warren, Lena Kahn is the chair of the FTC because of Elizabeth Warren, because Elizabeth [00:28:00] Warren endorsed Biden and dropped out, and was a part of that coalescence of candidates that dropped out to defeat Bernie Sanders. I think those were some of her asks, right?

So if she's as close with Harris as she says she is, perhaps she's an influence on the other side, but the stuff about Harris that's going to be the most, I think, problematic and stuff to watch for is her relationship to antitrust. She's going to be a bit more of an Obama type, closer with Silicon Valley than perhaps Biden is, maybe less willing to be an antitrust, break up big business type of person. And, she's probably closer with Wall Street than Biden has been, at least over the past four years. 

So those are the pressure points they're gonna try to push, but it remains to be seen what the end result is of that pushing, in the same way with the Gaza policy as well.

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: We'll [00:29:00] see. 

Andy Levin, Pushed Out of Congress by AIPAC, Calls for Change in U.S.-Israel Policy - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-21-24

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here in Chicago with Juan González.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: We turn now to look at how AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent millions targeting Democrats who have criticized U.S. support of Israel. In June, AIPAC and the affiliated super PAC spent almost $15 million to defeat New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman. And then, two weeks ago, Missouri Congressmember Cori Bush lost her seat after AIPAC spent $8 million to defeat her.

We’re joined now in Chicago by former Democratic Congressmember Andy Levin of Michigan. In 2022, he lost his House seat after AIPAC spent millions in dark money to defeat him. Levin is a former synagogue president and self-described Zionist. Despite this, AIPAC labeled him as, “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress [00:30:00] to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Andy Levin is a former Democratic congressmember from Michigan. He’s part of a political dynasty. We thank you so much for being with us. 

If you could start off by talking about— when we hear about Bowman, we hear about Bush, you came before them. And talk about the race that unseated you—might surprise many that you were a synagogue president and a congressmember—and how you were driven out.

ANDY LEVIN: Had been a synagogue president until I went to Congress, and I felt I should stop doing that, because you have to devote all your time to Congress. And I had, mezuzahs, the little things that Jewish people hang on their doors, on all my doors in Congress. I’m a really joyous Jewish person.

And, I think they felt particularly threatened [00:31:00] by that, Amy and Juan. The idea—and plus, my dad and my uncle had served in Congress before me—my dad in the House, my uncle in the Senate. My dad was the president of the high school class of 1949 at Central High School in Detroit, right? They were from the bosom of the Jewish community there. And I think that these right-wing-on-Israel people can’t stand the idea that a Jewish person like me, who is fully for self-determination for my people in the Holy Land, was the loudest voice in Congress saying, “Well, that’s not going to be sustainable, and we’re not going to have peace there, until and unless we fully realize the human rights and the political rights of the Palestinian people, too.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I just want to talk about your family dynasty, the political dynasty.

ANDY LEVIN: We don’t talk about it like that. Yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Your father, Sander Levin, the congressmember; your uncle, Carl Levin, head of Armed Services in the Senate —

ANDY LEVIN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: —at the same time your [00:32:00] father was head of Ways and Means Committee?

ANDY LEVIN: Yeah, my—these two Jewish boys from Detroit. And my uncle, who passed away, never left the city of Detroit. They each served 36 years in Congress. They served 32 years together. In the 235-year history of our elected democracy in the United States, they are by far the longest-serving siblings, and even more than three Kennedy brothers, more than anybody. And I’m so proud of them and, their contributions to our democracy.

But, Uncle Carl got crosswise with AIPAC in the '90s, when Yitzhak Shamir was, I think, the secondly couped prime minister of Israel, and he said, “Land for peace? We're not doing land for peace.” And Carl, it may feel naive today, but he was like, “Oh my gosh! That’s the basis for any hope of peace.” And he wrote a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz, I think it was at the time. And he got [00:33:00] 30—on a Friday afternoon, he got, I think, 30 senators to sign this letter. It was supposed to be private. And they sent it to him, saying, “We have to have land for peace. Do something about this,” something like that. And one of the other senators or their staff made it public. Carl had shown the text to AIPAC beforehand. But when it went public, AIPAC went crazy, said, “This can’t be Carl Levin’s letter.” They demanded he retract it. They said, “It must have been the work of some staffer.” Uncle Carl totally stood by his staffer, who helped him write the letter. He said, “No, that’s my letter.” And anybody who knew Uncle Carl knew he went over every line, himself before they sent the letter.

And this is—look, if you are a Jewish person and you really want to be true to your faith, you have to treat the other as yourself. You have to love your—you the stranger, the neighbor. The most oft-repeated mitzvah, or requirement, [00:34:00] in the Torah, I think 36 times, which is a very significant number for Jews, is some version of that. Who is the most important other for us, honestly, if not—OK, a homeless person, someone who looks different than you, yes, treat them well. But, really, I think the acid test for Jewish people is how do we treat our Palestinian cousins. And so, we have to treat them as we would want to be treated. They are from the land. They’re there on the land. And if you come from Michigan, you know so many amazing Palestinian Americans who are your neighbors, your colleagues, your doctor, your friend, and we need to all get along there, and we need to work together here to make that happen.

And I don’t care what AIPAC does. The fact—it’s outrageous that they’re using money from Republican billionaires to decide who wins Democratic primaries. [00:35:00] That’s a problem for democracy, and it’s a threat to the soul of the Democratic Party, even from a kind of a dry political science point of view, right? If you are in a political science class and your professor says, “Well, there’s multiple parties, right? And they each have to choose their candidate that represents that party’s values or beliefs, to go up against some other party, right?”—if any party lets a different party, interest groups from a different party, billionaires from a different party, come and choose its candidates, it’s finished.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I wanted to ask you—you mentioned, obviously, Michigan, where you’re from. Talk about the rise of the “uncommitted” movement and what kind of impact it’s had on the Democratic Party and on the process of choosing a president.

ANDY LEVIN: Juan, I am so proud of this movement. These are young people. This is a true grassroots movement. I remember when I went to a phone bank that they had during the Michigan primary, which [00:36:00] our primary for president was way back on February 27th. The energy in that room, the beautiful rainbow of people in that room, the food that someone had cooked, you know—if you’re an organizer in the social movements of this country, when you walk into a situation like that, you know if something has life, is authentic, has power. And not only did they get over 100,000 people to vote uncommitted in just a few weeks in Michigan to say to President Biden, “We want to vote for you in November, but you’ve got to change course on Gaza to help us do that,” it obviously went national, too.

And I’m so proud of these young people, because I don’t want Donald Trump to get anywhere near the White House ever again, but even now, in late August, I feel like Vice President Harris—I hope that she can reach out more. And it’s difficult as a vice president, right? But I think she has plenty of space to say, “Look, under a [00:37:00] Harris administration, we’re going to follow U.S. and international law on military aid to Israel and all of any other military aid,” right? And she could say—she has a lot of room to say different things that would win the support of the uncommitted movement, which I think it would be very helpful to win Michigan, which is necessary.

Steven Rosenfeld on Election Transparency, Ian Vandewalker on Small Donors - CounterSpin - Air Date 5-17-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Well, I will say when I first saw the headline of your report, Do Small Donors Cause Political Dysfunction? I thought, Huh, who would say that? It turns out it's a number of folks, including author and New York Times writer Thomas Edsel, who wrote, "for 200, a person can fuel the decline of our major parties." And then David Beiler at the Washington Post wrote, "small dollar donors didn't save democracy, they made it worse." So this is not a subreddit, obscure line of thought, so before I ask you to engage it, putting the best face [00:38:00] on it, what is the argument here? 

IAN VANDEWALKER: The argument is this contrarian line that you think small donors are democratizing because anybody can be one, but if you look at who gets a lot of small money, it tends to be people who engage in disruptive antics like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gates. People who try to attract a lot of attention with whether extremist rhetoric or polarizing rhetoric. And so the argument is what small donors are really doing is they're encouraging these people who are showboating and not engaged in serious moderation or governance.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: So the idea, is it that these small donors aren't real, that they're orchestrated, that these, folks are trying to get folks to just give $12 to make some kind of point, and it's not that actually it's people who can only give $12? 

IAN VANDEWALKER: I think there's something here in that the media ecosystem that we live in, both the mainstream [00:39:00] media and social media click bait does gravitate towards outrage and controversy and people screaming at each other. We all get these fundraising emails with all caps, the world's going to come crashing down if you don't send me $12. So I think there are incentives in the media system that say to certain people, I can engage a national small donor fundraising base by saying crazy things. That exists.

Now, one of the critiques is that most small donors don't actually respond to that. Small donors tend to give to competitive races where they think they can help their party win control of a chamber of Congress or the White House. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: So first of all, I like how you're go right to the media ecosystem. I think a lot of folks won't. There's a political system and there's a media system and they're different. You're already saying, no, these things are intimately integrated. 

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yes, campaign fundraising doesn't happen in a vacuum. The internet has been a [00:40:00] huge Beneficial force for fundraising and allows people to connect across the nation to things that they believe in, but one of the other effects of that has been this click bait world of say, the most outrageous thing in order to get the clicks and get the small dollar fundraising. There's a question whether these candidates that engage in this kind of extremist rhetoric, are they doing it for the small dollar fundraising or would they be doing it anyway, given who votes in their district, I think is a question we should also look into.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: There is a reality, there is a foot we can keep on base, and so what do you say in this piece about when you actually investigate, are small donors causing political dysfunction? What did you find? 

IAN VANDEWALKER: So first of all, there's lots of reasons for polarization, people moving farther to the right and left and other kinds of dysfunction. They have to do with gerrymandering and the media ecosystem and the parties making strategic choices about how they're going to engage their [00:41:00] voter bases and things that have nothing to do with campaign finance. As I said, small donors, they give to people they've heard of. So one way to get heard of is to say crazy things, but it's certainly not the only way. Some candidates are trying to find, policy solutions to the problems that face us. And the other thing we haven't mentioned yet is big donors. 

Even though the amount of small money in the system has dramatically increased, the money from big, the biggest donors, people who give millions, 10 million, has increased even faster. So that's actually the biggest part of the campaign finance system. It's this big money and those people give to extremists as well. So it's hard to say, when you look at all those facts together, that small donors are causing dysfunction or polarization, even though there are these notorious examples of extremists who raise lots of small money. 

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: It just sounds weird to say that people who can give less, people who don't have a million dollars, they're throwing in their [00:42:00] money wherever they throw it, is throwing off the system. It makes you ask what's the system? Is the system that only people who can afford to give tens of thousands of dollars should be included? It just sounds weird. 

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yeah, that's right. I think one of the things, the thought experiment I like to do with these arguments is replace small donor with voter, right? If small donors give a lot of money to a candidate because they believe in that candidate, that's just like voters voting for a candidate because they believe in that candidate, and it's hard to say that that's, as you say, a problem with the system itself.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: Obviously every election year is important, but who, boy 2024. Thoughts for reporters who are gonna be engaging this? 

IAN VANDEWALKER: Yeah, I think for reporters it's important to get away from the high profile anecdotes. It's easy to say, oh, Marjorie Taylor Greene raised a bunch of small money, but there's data out there that can show you what are small donors actually doing across the entire system and that's a very different story. 

And it's for reforms. The [00:43:00] Brennan center supports a small donor public financing system that matches donations so it amplifies those amounts from regular people to make them competitive with the big donors, and that changes the way the candidates fundraise and makes them fundraise by essentially asking people in their communities for votes. And so it amplifies those regular people's voices and engages a kind of connection between elected representative and constituent that's good for representative democracy because politicians are listening to the voters in another way. 

We need to move to the public funding of elections - Bernie Sanders - Air Date 8-29-24

HASAN MINHAJ: I believe at times you've been framed in the media as this kind of radical person. 

BERNIE SANDERS: Good point. 

HASAN MINHAJ: But I want to talk about your Guardian article. Because what you did is you conducted your own research and you showed that these progressive policies are actually super popular, ten toes on the ground. This is not a Twitter position. This is not an Instagram stories position. Real IRL Americans care about these issues. 

BERNIE SANDERS: What we did is we said, look, I'm called a far left guy, right? [00:44:00] Trump has decided that Kamala Harris is a communist. I mean, totally insane. So we asked the American people a lot of simple questions about some of the major issues facing this country. Republicans, Democrats, Independents. 

So we said, Do you think that the wealthy and large corporations should pay more in taxes? Shock of all shocks, over 70 percent of the American people said yes, including a majority of Republicans. Should we be surprised? No. No. All right. Yeah, of course. 

Question: Should we raise Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income and extend life by 75 years? In other words, asking the wealthy to contribute more to Social Security. Over 70 percent of the people said yes. 

Should we raise the minimum wage to a living wage? American people overwhelmingly said yes. 

Should [00:45:00] we expand Medicare? Right now, Medicare is a good program. It doesn't cover dental, hearing, and vision. Should we expand it over 70%? In all these instances, a majority of Republicans. 

So your question, I think is, if the American people feel that way, , why a haven't we done it? Why? 

HASAN MINHAJ: Yeah. Why haven't they been implemented? 

BERNIE SANDERS: And the answer, gets back to what I said a moment ago: it's money. The insurance companies don't like the idea. The rich don't like the idea of paying more in taxes. The insurance companies don't like the idea of expanding Medicare. 

HASAN MINHAJ: Is there a realistic path for my generation to remove money from politics? Is this something -- 

BERNIE SANDERS: God damn right there is. 

HASAN MINHAJ: You think so? 

BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah. Yeah. 

HASAN MINHAJ: I'm 30. I have, hopefully I have a long way to go. 

BERNIE SANDERS: Alright. The answer, of course there is. Money has always played a role in politics. But it was greatly accentuated by this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. So we need legislation to get rid of Citizens United, and to move to public funding of elections.

If you do that, there will no more be super PACs, [00:46:00] billionaires will not be able to play the role they're playing right now. And again, not a radical idea. This exists in many other countries around the world.

Note from the Editor on the changing sense of urgency to address money in politics

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with counter spin, breaking down. Super packs. 5 0 1. And so on Robert Reisch looked at big money supporting Trump. The PBS news hour explained to Trump's embrace of crypto. The Brian Lehrer show discussed to the libertarian strain of Silicon valley. The majority report looked at pro democratic yet antibusiness regulation, mega donors. Democracy now explain to the role of AIPAC, the rabidly pro Israel at any cost organization. Counter spin discuss the media's perception of political influence. 

And Bernie Sanders laid out the importance of publicly funded elections. And those were just the top takes. There's more in the deeper dive sections, but first, a reminder that this show is supported by members who get access to bonus episodes, featuring the production crew here, discussing all manner of interesting topics, often making each other, laugh in the process to support our work and [00:47:00] have all those bonus episodes delivered seamlessly to the new members. 

Only podcast feed that you'll receive sign up to support. The [email protected] slash support. There's a link in the show notes through our Patrion page or from right inside the apple podcast app. 

If regular membership isn't in the cards for you. Shoot me an email request. Any financial hardship membership. Because we don't let a lack of funds stand in the way of hearing more information. Now, before we continue onto the deeper dives half, I have just quick thought, we're keeping this episode a little tight and I'll follow that trend. I've just been thinking about the nature of the discussion of money in politics. From the time I started paying attention just after the turn of the century, around the, uh, Iraq war invasion. And back then, I was able to feel pretty cutting edge to be able to identify big money in politics as one of the major sources of our political discontent. 

Then the 2010 citizens United Supreme court decision brought that perspective more into the mainstream. 

There was a [00:48:00] major backlash for the ruling and much hand ringing about the inevitable conservative tilt our politics would take after unleashing billionaires, who themselves tends to be more conservative, to pour effectively unlimited amounts of money into supporting Republican candidates. But with the rise of Trump things. I didn't go exactly. 

As we thought they would not quite as smoothly towards traditional Republican politics. Uh, , or even for the fight against big money from the opposition, but just didn't go that way. And I realized that one of the many casualties of the Trump show has been. A concerted opposition to money and politics. 

It's just sort of fallen off a lot of people's radar. 

Not because people stopped believing that it was an important problem, but because the emergency of Trump was just more pressing. Then the emergency of big money, swamping democracy, something that would have been nearly impossible to imagine in the early 20 teens, before Trump came on the [00:49:00] scene. And the biggest irony of course, is that as we're hearing in the show today, Trump actually used the public's anger at the corrupting power of money. To ingratiate himself with voters claiming to be self-funding his campaign and therefore immune to corruption himself. In order to get elected in the first place. And. What turned out to be laying the initial foundation that would become the cultish belief among his followers, That he is the only person in politics working selflessly on their behalf. And now he'd like to offer you a worthless NFT trading card for a hundred dollars.

SECTION A - THE SYSTEM

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue to the Deeper Dive, on four topics. Next up Section A: The System; Section B: Funding Republicans; Section C: Funding Democrats;, and Section D: Solutions.

Trump and the Billionaires Part 2 - The Socialist Program with Brian Becker - Air Date 7-16-24

NICOLE ROUSSELL - CO-HOST, THE SOCIALIST PROGRAM: I want to bring up. One other thing that I think is another piece of evidence for your argument, essentially, that these are new capitalists funding Trump versus, you know, some of the old capitalists who are [00:50:00] mostly funding the Democratic Party, although I think there's a mix of both, but Project 2025, I think, is another example for me.

This is a right wing elite political program headed by the Heritage Foundation, Which is a very entrenched Washington, D. C. far right think tank. They've been around and they've been supporting, you know, the capitalist elite now for a very long time and we're on the Republican side of things. But different, different parts of the Republican side of things.

And Heritage has put out something like this, something like Project 2025 before every presidential election. But because Trump is so extreme in his willingness to smash people's rights, These, you know, disgusting, repulsive measures that Project 2025 is proposing are getting much more coverage and taking on much more significance.

And, again, just to connect this to what you're saying, some of the measures that they are proposing include abolishing the Department of Education, abolishing the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, getting rid of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, essentially tearing apart [00:51:00] any of the checks on corporate capitalist greed.

And the fact that this, you know, platform is supported by, and you know, Trump has disavowed it publicly, but it's very clear, you know, there's a lot of His former advisors, his former staff who are working at the Heritage Foundation or who are working with Project 2025, you know, it's very clear that they're, that they're tied.

So this seems to me like yet another piece of evidence. But these new capitalists, these billionaires, these venture capitalists, these investors where all the capital is now moving are doing this because it is in their economic favor and that is all they're thinking about. 

RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, I think also, if I may, encourage people beyond getting caught up in the horror of all of this, which is so easy to do, is to take a step back and to ask yourself, Every person listening to this, thinking about the important issues your, your program brings up every week, in any case, take a step back and ask, why would this be happening?

[00:52:00] Why would we be seeing, in 2024, the United States hitting out like an angry bear at China, at the rest of the world, punishing big countries, little countries, or at least trying to? 

Why is this happening? Why is the United States isolating itself from the rest of the world more and more? The rest of the world is currently trading electric vehicles, mostly made in China, because they're the best vehicles at the lowest price, but not in the United States, which has closed itself off and not permitted them to come.

And the same is true with solar panels. And the same is true with all kinds of micro chips and on and on more and more each day. Why are we making statements that insult our allies? It's driving what remains of the NATO alliance closer and closer to [00:53:00] breaking up. The elections in England last month are frightening not only Mr.

Vance, but are underscoring they don't want to go in the direction of the United States. The British just voted the other way, and even more so the French, whose second round of their election on the 7th of July has placed into the governance of France. The most left wing socialists. That's who runs France from now on.

You know, they voted against the direction the United States is taking. We're becoming more and more isolated. What is going on? And the answer, I think, is that we are living through, and we ought to start facing it, we are living through the decline of the American empire. [00:54:00] That which began when World War I destroyed all the other countries and World War II finished the job.

And after that, starting in 1945, the United States was king of the hill. The rest of the world recovering from a war that did not happen on the soil of the United States after the initial bombing. Pearl Harbor. The United States came out on top. That was an anomalous historical situation. Couldn't possibly survive.

It never has in the history of the human race. The dominant position then had to be one that declined sooner or later. And sooner or later has now arrived. We are in decline, and instead of facing it and trying to come to some accommodations with [00:55:00] the rising part of the world, and in case anyone is wondering, the rising part is called the BRICS.

It's India, it's China, it's Brazil, it's all of those places that are now demanding their places in the sun. Or, in terms of the history of human civilizations, they are returning to positions of power and influence they once had and then lost for a while. It's not fun to be in a declining position, but you don't help it by pretending you're not.

By talking as if you were what you once were, but you aren't anymore, and it is shifting from scaring people to becoming laughable. These gestures are the gestures of a declining power. Yeah, you could hurt China if you do that, but it's [00:56:00] gonna cost you as well. That's what an out of control declining situation often gets people to do.

Busy holding on at their own expense without understanding it. I'm pleading here, for the kind of understanding that you get if you take a step back and ask why this theater at this time. You know, we are losing the protections that we spent the last century and a half putting into place. OSHA.

Protections against child labor, protections against extreme inequality, protections against spreading homelessness. We're losing them all because those at the top, who know that the system is declining, are using their wealth and their power to hold on. to the wealth they accumulated. Well, if you're holding on to the wealth and [00:57:00] power of the top, as the whole society goes down, you know who feels the going down the most?

The middle and the bottom. That's what's happening to us. And that's why the vast majority of Americans, in their interest, we should be sitting down with China and India and the others to work out a livable planet. So, they have their room to grow, and we have our space in which to decline without tearing ourselves apart.

If we don't do that, we will decline, we will tear ourselves apart, and the rich who hold on will be holding on to a ship that is sinking. The first class of the Titanic is sinking. also went down when that ship hit the iceberg. We are hitting an incomparable iceberg, and the crazy [00:58:00] thing is that those at the top want to pretend that nothing happened.

They're driving the rest of the people to anger and bitterness. Nothing that Trump and Vance administration proposes can solve the problems of the United States. In fact, things like a 60 percent tariff against the Chinese will make life harder in the United States. It will make the inflation much worse, and they all know it.

And that's gonna make the mass of people realize that going to the right, because this country is floundering, is not a solution. However full the symbolism might make you feel. And then they will discover what that they better find a solution on the left. Because the right has none. And I'm confident in that because that's exactly what just happened in Britain and France.

Steve Macek on Dark Money Part 2 - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-23-24

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: so here come [00:59:00] media.

And we know that lots of people, including reporters, still imagine the U. S. Press Corps as kind of like an old movie, you know, with, you know, the, Press cards in their hat band or, or, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, connecting dots, holding the powerful to account and the chips are just falling where they may.

And you make the point in the progressive piece that there has been excellent news media, corporate news media, you know, exposés of the influence of dark money connecting those dots. But you write that news media have. Missed or minimized as many stories about dark money as they have covered. What are you getting at there?

STEVE MACEK: I absolutely believe that so it is true as I say that there have been some excellent reports about dark money Here in chicago. We had this reclusive billionaire industrialist barry side who made What was most people say is the largest? [01:00:00] political contribution in American history. He donated his company to a fund, Marble Freedom Fund, run by Leonard Leo.

Again, conservative judicial activist. The Marble Freedom Fund sold the company for 1. 6 billion dollars. It's hard for the corporate media to ignore Political contribution of 1. 6 billion. That's a 1. 6 billion trust fund that Leonard Leo, who engineered the conservative takeover of the U S Supreme court is going to be able to use.

He's a very right wing conservative Catholic to put his particular ideological stamp on American elections and on American culture. And so that got reported. Okay. And in fact, there have been some really excellent follow up reports by ProPublica, among others, about how various Leonard Leo affiliated organizations have influenced judicial [01:01:00] appointments and have influenced judicial elections.

So you have to give credit where credit's due. But the problem is That there are so many other cases where dark money is in play, whether or not you can say it's determining the outcome of elections or not is another story, but where dark money is playing a role, and it is simply not being talked about.

Think about the last month of this pandemic. Current presidential election. There hasn't been much discussion about the influence of dark money and yet open secrets just came out with an analysis where they say that contributions from dark money groups and shell organizations are outpacing all prior elections in this year and might surpass the uh, 660 million in contributions from dark money sources that flooded the 2020 elections.

So they're projecting that could be as much as a billion. billion dollars. We haven't heard very much [01:02:00] about this. I don't think necessarily dark money is going to make a huge difference one way or the other in the presidential race, but certainly can make a difference in congressional races, attorney general's races, school board races, city council races.

That's where it can make a huge difference. And I do know that Open secrets, among others, have done research and they found that like there were cases where over 100 different congressional races, more money, there was more outside spending on those races than were spent by either of the candidates, which is a scandal that outside forces, in some cases, do not have to disclose the source of their funding, can spend more on a race than the candidates themselves.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: And it's It's disheartening that the idea that, well, you're swimming in it, like it's too big of an issue to even lift out. It is. And I think 

STEVE MACEK: that's also part of the reason why it's sort of accepted, sort of like the weather. And I think that's part of the reason why. There isn't as much reporting in the corporate media as there ought to be [01:03:00] about legal struggles over the regulation of dark money.

JANINE JACKSON - HOST, COUNTERSPIN: That's exactly where I was going to lead you for a final question, just because that we know that reporters will say, well, they can't cover what isn't happening. But it is happening that legal and community and policy. pushback on this influence is happening. And so finally, what should we know about that?

STEVE MACEK: State level Republican lawmakers and state legislatures across the country are pushing legislation that would prohibit state officials and agencies from collecting or disclosing information about donors to nonprofits, including donors to those 501c4 social welfare organizations that I spoke about that spend money on politics.

So they're trying to pass laws to make dark money even darker, to make this obscure money influencing our elections even harder to track. And I will say there are Republicans in Congress who have [01:04:00] introduced Federal legislation that would do the same thing. Now, the bills that are being pushed through state legislatures, not probably going to be a surprise to anybody who follows this are based on a model bill that was developed by the American legislative exchange council or Alex, which is a policy development organization that is funded by the Coke network of right wing foundations, millionaires, and billionaires, and they need every year to develop.

Model kind of right wing libertarian legislation that then is dutifully introduced into state legislatures around the country. And since 2018, a number of states, including Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia have all adopted some version of this Alec legislation that criminalizes disclosing [01:05:00] donors Two nonprofits that engage in political activity and In Arizona, where this conservative legislation was made into law, in 2022, there was a ballot referendum by the voters on the Voters Right to Know Act, Proposition 2011, that would basically reverse The ALEC attempt to criminalize the disclosure of the names of donors, it would require PACs spending at least 50, 000 on statewide campaigns to disclose all donors who had given more than 5, 000, a direct reversal of the ALEC inspired law.

Conservative dark money groups spent a lot of money trying to defeat this, and yet they lost, and then they Spent a lot of money challenging the new law in court, Proposition 2011 in court, and it has gone to trial, I think, three times and been defeated each time. Now, the [01:06:00] initial battle over Proposition 211 was covered.

To some degree in the corporate media, the New York Times, Jane Meyer in the New Yorker, who does excellent reporting on dark money issues, discussed it. But since then, we have gotten very little coverage of the court battles that continue to this day over this attempt to bring more transparency to campaign spending in the state of Arizona.

SECTION B - FUNDING REPUBLICANS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B: Funding Republicans. 

Silicon Valley's Impact on the 2024 Elections Part 2 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 7-31-24

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: So Aaron, the wealthy group of tech executives who are splintering along the political divide, the folks that you write about are sometimes called the PayPal mafia. Can you tell us more about who they are, how they know one another? 

ERIN GRIFFITH: Sure, and those are certainly some of the most prominent people that are kind of involved in this political infighting, and it has expanded to encompass many others, but the PayPal Mafia is kind of this iconic group of tech founders and [01:07:00] investors who all work with each other.

together at PayPal, you know, formed some very deep and lasting bonds there. And then they all went on to create very successful companies and firms. And they, they're kind of known for investing in each other's businesses. And you know, many of them are ones that you've heard of. I mean, Reid Hoffman is the co founder of LinkedIn.

Um, Elon Musk, obviously. He has created SpaceX, Tesla several other, uh, very successful companies. David Sachs founded a couple of companies that sold for billions of dollars and is now an investor. Peter Thiel very well known in political circles as well, but he, you know, is a founder of Founders Fund, which is a very successful venture capital firm.

And there are many, uh, that you know, Rulof Botha is the head of Sequoia Capital, which is one of the most well known venture capital firms. So it's this very interconnected network, and they've always had, divergent political views, but they still, come together around business and have [01:08:00] supported each other's businesses for many years.

And so, it's kind of crazy to watch them really fighting and their relationship starting to kind of unravel in public as they have around this upcoming election. 

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: There are some names that a lot of people will probably recognize that you just said, there's Musk, Teal, Sax. There's that second part of the moniker mafia.

Where does that come from? Can you unpackage that a little bit? 

ERIN GRIFFITH: I mean, I think this is a term that is now kind of common in Silicon Valley where when you're the alumni of one company all go out and end up starting their own companies and invest in each other. We call it, you know, the Uber Mafia or the Twitch Mafia, which is a company that sold to Amazon that, several of their, uh, founders and alumni have started another successful companies, and so and they all kind of invest in each other, and it's kind of like all interconnected may hire from each other and and it's kind of the way Silicon Valley works.

It's this interconnected ecosystem where they're all helping each other with talent [01:09:00] and money and strategy. And you know, that's part of the magic of this place, so in a way. And so, the mafias are certainly you know, numerous now, but PayPal is the original one. 

KOUSHA NAVIDAR - GUEST HOST, BRIAN LEHRER SHOW: And you write kind of about the splintering that you were referring to before you've written that quote.

Quote, while tech leaders often criticize one another in private, they rarely do so publicly for fear of upsetting a potential deal partner or future job prospect. Erin, can you talk a little bit about some of the higher profile public battles happening? Some things that we could actually point to? 

ERIN GRIFFITH: Yeah.

And a lot of this is playing out on X formerly known as Twitter, but, but yeah, the industry is, Has always been sort of insular where it's like, okay, well, we can, you know, privately have our little debates about business and strategy and we can disagree on things but outwardly, we're going to present a united front because especially in the startup world, it's like we're the underdogs and it's us against the world.

We're disruptors. We're the pirate ship, et cetera. [01:10:00] Um, but, you know, we've seen like the node Kostla, who's, This very famous and successful investor and entrepreneur has been bickering on Twitter with Elon Musk, Kosell is, Democrat or a liberal and has been supporting Biden and now Harris.

And Elon has been arguing with him over the reasons of that. Roger McNamee, who's a well known investor and also has been a very vocal critic of Facebook over recent years came out and criticized Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who are the founders of Andreessen Horowitz a very well known venture capital firm.

And, Ben Horowitz kind of slapped back on Twitter and was like, We've known each other for 25 years and we disagree on this and you're gonna take to Twitter, you know, instead of instead of calling me and David Sachs and Elon Musk have been attacking Reid Hoffman their former colleague and Over his support of Harris and [01:11:00] previously Biden you know, Hoffman and Peter Thiel got into a little spat apparently on stage at Sun Valley, which is the kind of elite gathering of, dealmakers that happened in Idaho recently where, they were accusing Hoffman of, uh, Essentially causing the assassination attack on Trump.

You know, it's it's been kind of ugly 

'The White House is for sale' Mega-rich donors race to back Trump - MSNBC - Air Date 6-8-24

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: In the week since Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 counts in a New York courtroom, some of the wealthiest Americans have come out to announce their support for him. Steve, I really, really want to talk about this because just in the last week, Donald Trump has this new crop of not even your average Wall Street business guys.

I mean, The top of the top, most successful coming out, throwing parties for him, supporting him. And they're even making arguments that aren't true, right? In the last 24 hours, I've heard some of these guys say, well, when Joe Biden passed that last COVID relief, which, you know, killed us in terms of inflation.

[01:12:00] Unemployment had already completely recovered. Right. That's a lie. It's a lie. And an uninformed voter might not realize that. Right. But I'm talking about the most successful guys in business, are pushing Trump lies on their, in a field that's their own expertise. Why is that? 

STEVE LIESMAN: It's quite extraordinary.

I mean, in the most cynical answer, you say they're protecting their tax cuts, right? The corporate tax cuts are going to be on the table in 2025. If you end up supporting Trump, you're most likely to keep those corporate tax cuts and lower tax brackets, because, by the way, I don't think Trump is going to address the deficit at all, either.

The record shows that Perhaps some of the fiscal spending had a part in the inflation, but it was more about supply shocks. The inability to get stuff into the country. The, uh, reduction in the ability to spend on services. So we all this money to buy patio furniture and barbecues and stuff like that.

All of a sudden that shot up and then we had problems with some of the food distribution and that's come off in a very big weight has been extraordinary progress. On the [01:13:00] inflation rate, but not brought down the inflation level. Um, by the way, don't overstate it a little bit step because Biden has plenty of very, very wealthy supporters in the business community, but you're right to point out how extraordinary it is that some of these folks, especially in tech land, are the ones who are out there saying, I'm going to vote for, for Trump or support Trump.

And to read like, for example, David Sachs, uh, tweet today on the economy is just to be, um, amazed that a guy with that much money, uh, is so ill informed. 

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: But here's the thing. I get that inflation is difficult. These people who are now supporting Donald Trump. Have had extraordinary, extraordinary last years.

I mean, Bill Ackman this week, what was it announced? He's worth 8 billion. Sure. Everything president Biden has done for electric vehicles, a huge win for, for, for Elon Musk yet they're railing against this disastrous economy when it's been a perfect one for them. 

PABLO TORRE: Yeah. I think first off like taxes, let's start with that.

And then get to realizing that for these [01:14:00] guys in Silicon Valley, especially, um, shame feels like a market. Inefficiency, right? Like, yo, wait, hold on. If I don't have to care about the judgments of people who are paying attention to the news, maybe I can do the thing that Donald Trump offers uniquely in my memory of American presidents, which is the ability to dictate actual policy, the ability to get favors.

I feel like this is the other part of the Trump administration that goes underrated because we're talking about the bed of nails that is every single scandal. He is for sale. Yeah. Look at the Adelson family. Look at what, I mean, go down the list of donors and what you get. And so if you're a tech billionaire, CEO, philosopher, king, right, that's what these guys really want to be.

They know better. They may think Trump is an idiot, and I think they do, but they also think they can puppeteer him in ways and they can help run the country. And that is something that Joe Biden does not offer them. 

STEPHANIE RUHLE - ANCHOR, MSNBC: The White House is for sale. Then in some way, is this like recreating Putin's oligarchs, [01:15:00] but here?

TOURE: Oh God, you know, I, I'm listening to you and I'm like, I can't believe we're here again talking about Trump again and again chance that he might win. And it reminds me of something I read that criminologists talk about the reason why jail does not work as a deterrent. Because a lot of people do a stint in prison and they come out and they go, Oh, I can do that.

I have, you know, so now I'm going to go back to the street cause like that wasn't that bad. And it's like, for a lot of people, they're like, we survived Trump. Like it wasn't that bad. Like the COVID does not count on his record for some reason. And they're like, we could do this again. And, and it doesn't make any sense.

Can 

STEVE LIESMAN: I give a footnote to the oligarch story? A lot of those guys ended up exiled and dead. And I don't know that all of the people who are supporting Trump understand the, uh, final end result of kleptocracy. 

Faux Populist Trump Promises Rich Donors He'll Cut Their Taxes at Private Fundraiser A Closer Look - Late Night Podcast - Air Date 4-9-24

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has tried to cast himself as some sort of anti establishment, populist outsider, but this weekend, he held a fundraiser with a bunch of rich Wall Street [01:16:00] donors where he promised to cut their taxes. For more on this, it's time for A Closer Look.

When he first launched his campaign in 2015, one of Trump's big talking points was that he was unlike because he could use his own money to fund his campaign, so he would never owe anyone else any favors. 

DONALD TRUMP: Here's the good news. I'm very rich. I don't need anybody's money. It's nice. I don't need anybody's money.

I'm using my own money. I'm not using the lobbyists. I'm not using donors. I don't care. I don't want their money. I don't need their money. I'm turning down millions of dollars for the campaign. Millions. Everybody's offering me money, and I don't want it. So I'm turning down millions of dollars. 

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: I'm sure I've said this before, but really rich guys don't walk around telling people they're really rich.

They say things like, Look Seth, you're not good in sketches. Also, there's no way Donald Trump has ever turned down millions of dollars in his life. If you tied a 5 bill to a Roomba and let it loose in Mar a Lago, it would keep him preoccupied for the [01:17:00] rest of his life. Also, he'd get stuck in a corner. Of course, even back then, it was obvious that Trump's act was all bulls t.

He was a billionaire serving the interests of billionaires who had spent decades immersed in the grimy back rooms of Wall Street and Washington politics. Sadly, the only people who were willing to say that back in 2016 were far left, woke, America haters like this guy. 

TED CRUZ: Donald Trump is not an outsider. He is pretending to be an outsider.

Donald Trump has been supporting the Washington establishment, the Washington corruption. So to all the folks at home who are Donald Trump supporters, who are furious with Washington, I get that. But Donald has been funding and supporting everything you're furious about. Donald is going to cut a deal that favors Wall Street and big business and leaves the working man out in the cold.

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Whoa, I don't have my glasses on. Is that Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow? Ted Cruz looked so much younger when his conscience [01:18:00] was clean. The second he endorsed Donald Trump, he aged like the picture of Dorian Gray. The point is Donald Trump is a creature of the establishment and always has been. He's a billionaire serving the interests of other billionaires.

After he won in 2016, one of the first things he did as president elect Was make a surprise appearance at a fancy Manhattan restaurant where he promised the wealthy patrons he would cut their taxes. 

NEWS CLIP: President-elect Donald Trump seen here alongside his family at his gilded apartment in Trump Tower last night, ditched the press to head to the Opulent 21 Club restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

Keep going. 

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you. Have a good meal. Thank you. Thank you, sir. President-elect. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We'll get your taxes down. 

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Oh, look at that down and dirty populist out there shaking hands with the common clay of America, people who eat 100 steaks on a weeknight with cufflinks on. The only way Trump could have been any happier is if he went table to table and took a bite of everyone's meal.

We'll get your taxes down, hopefully to as low as 5%, which, [01:19:00] incidentally, is the same amount of your cheeseburger I'm now gonna eat. Trump's anti establishment schtick was a scam back then. It's even more of a scam now. Over the weekend, Trump rubbed elbows with some of the richest people in the country at a Palm Beach fundraiser, where he took in 50 million of that money he claimed he would never accept.

NEWS CLIP: Billionaires flocked to Florida last night for a glitzy fundraiser to bolster Trump's campaign coffers. Donors were invited to give upwards of 824, 600 per person. Trump's campaign said it raised a whopping 50. 5 million last night alone. Now, no reporters were allowed and Trump didn't take any questions, but he did address the media before heading in.

DONALD TRUMP: People are just wanting change. Rich people want it, poor people want it. Everybody wants change. Our country is really doing poorly. We're a laughingstock all over the world, and we're gonna get that change very quickly. And this has been some, uh, incredible evening before it even starts. 

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: It's been an incredible evening.

Just look at how thrilled Melania [01:20:00] is to be here. I know she looks super bummed, but trust me, that's her in a good mood. What's a 3 out of 10 happy face for most of us is a 9, 9. 5 for Mel here. Show us a smile, Mel.

I was worried that was going to happen. Also, can we go back to this? People are just wanting change. Rich people want it, poor people want it. I love Trump's little shout out to poor people. Like, he knows he's at an elite fundraiser with millionaires and billionaires, so he throws a little sop to the rest of his supporters.

Let's not forget the poor, especially the mouth breathers who come to my rallies. They could be here, but unfortunately the dress code says flip flops and American flag shorts are not allowed. Trump continued to drone on about the fundraiser. 

DONALD TRUMP: The election is going to be in now a little more than six months, and it's going to be the most important, I believe, election we've ever had.

I think it's going to go down as The most important date in the [01:21:00] history of our country, that's November 5th, will be the most important date in the history of our country. 

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: I think he's saying it's the most important date in our history because he doesn't know any other dates in our history. If you asked him what happened on the 4th of July, there's a good chance he'd say, that's when Tom Cruise was born.

And just to give you an idea of how elite this fundraiser was, check out the food they serve. The evening's menu included an endive and frisee salad. Filet a poivre and pavlova with fresh berries for dessert. That menu had so many foreign words, I'm surprised he didn't have it deported. There's also nothing on that menu Donald Trump would ever actually eat.

Or maybe those are secretly his favorite meals and his love of fast food is just a ruse for his supporters. After all, we've never seen him eat fast food. He just takes pictures with it, like some kind of reverse Instagram influencer. 

And just as he did in 2016, Trump once again promised behind closed doors that his real priority was making sure his wealthy donors could keep more of their money. 

NEWS CLIP: The former president made a policy promise to his donors [01:22:00] last night, tax cuts. But what else? Yeah, tax cuts among other things, Allie. It was a big night for the former president.

Off the campaign trail and into a big night of fundraising in Palm Beach, down the street from his Mar a Lago golf course. He did speak with some of the nation's wealthiest donors, around a hundred of them, saying that he's going to extend these tax cuts. 

SETH MEYERS - HOST, LATE NIGHT PODCAST: Of course he did. When he's talking to his supporters at rallies, he's ranting about bull like voter fraud or windmills killing birds or woke libs turning Christmas gay.

But when he's behind closed doors, with his rich buddies, he knows what they really want to hear. What happened to, uh, I don't want their money, I don't need their money? Trump's gonna have to go back and edit some of those old clips to make them more accurate. 

DONALD TRUMP: Everybody's offering me money. I want their money, I need their money.

SECTION C - FUNDING DEMOCRATS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached Section C, with one clip on Funding Democrats.

AIPAC Spending Truckloads Of Money To Replace Katie Porter - The Majority Report - Air Date 3-6-24

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Other big stories, obviously California, we've talked about that, uh, shift got protested twice. It's a, it's a big loss to both lose Porter and Lee in the house [01:23:00] and to not have them in the primary. Because they need to step down because of California law, but in that Orange County district running to replace Katie Porter, talk about this AIPAC dynamic because AIPAC is going to be the big story in a lot of these primaries.

They dumped like something like four or 5 million into that race. You wrote a piece about 

DAVE WEIGEL: 5 million. Yeah. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Wondering why? I mean, I. I think there is, they, they do stuff to set an example in many respects. And I suspect they chose this one because even though Andy Min didn't necessarily show that he was, uh, Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib about this, they want to like set an example.

We'll come after you. If we even get a whiff that you could potentially be in, in some way, uh, a dissenting view on Israel, but he still won. 

DAVE WEIGEL: He still won. It hasn't been called yet. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Dave Meads, sorry I said Andy. Yeah, Paul. Dave, 

DAVE WEIGEL: oh yeah, I [01:24:00] know who you're talking about, yeah. Yeah, but I was in the district, uh, a week ago, really, with, with Mead and with Joanna Weiss.

And. Min said to me, I, I, I'm not entirely sure why, why he, why they did this. I asked him, what would you say to apac? I said, my first question, why'd you do this? The backstory as I know it is that yes, Minh did not call for a ceasefire. No one did Min's position on the war is basically identical to the Biden position of two weeks ago.

So I would say he's not, he, he might be to. Even talking less about the need for a ceasefire than Biden is right now. But, candidates have questionnaires, they have policy papers and position papers, and AIPAC asked for them, DMFI asked for them, J Street asked for them. My impression is that what Min said about his Israel positions did not check every box for AIPAC, and that worried them.

And that is how, that is how they prefer to operate, is by saying you, you need to, you need to be loyal, on these sets of issues you need to be [01:25:00] completely trustworthy. You're not going to bend on israel to get this kind of pressure So he wasn't out there endorsing bds or anything or you know putting up a leila khaled monument or something he just wasn't as adamant that he was going to support Israel in every decision that the current government made.

And based on that, based on their lack of confidence, they said, well, we have a candidate who is, and they went all in. They also had in that district, uh, Emily's List was supporting Joanna Weiss. So they had a credible Democratic candidate who agreed with them a hundred percent and also had a different story to tell.

Also, Min was, uh, vulnerable on the fact that he got a DUI during the campaign which he was telling me the fact that they spent 5 million mostly on that, on that attack. he thinks maybe inoculated him. He's apologized many, many times for it. He quit drinking after it. Voters have been forgiving of some things, not of others, but his thought was that, yeah, this was crazy that they were doing this, but it might help him.

But the reason AIPAC, etc. targeted him is that he just didn't, he was there on 90 percent of things, not [01:26:00] 100%, and they didn't like that he was. He's also, talking to him, he's a very confident guy. He doesn't genuflect. He might've come off as the sort of person who might, could be independent minded at some point down the line.

And they don't want that. 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: Okay. Here's the most important part of this though. How many losses does APAC have to have until their ability to raise this kind of money? You know, when you've got a hundred million dollars to drop 5 million in one of these races, because the person's a little bit iffy. You're doing that so that you don't impart so that there are other races in the future that you don't have to drop money into because you are disciplining lawmakers in that way.

But the question becomes when they start losing some of these races where they put five million dollars in, I'm thinking, you know, Summer Lee in the last cycle, but if there are three or four or five or six, you know, six Dave Mins out there. Where they lose their ability to [01:27:00] go back to their funders and say, Hey, we need to do this is going to be diminished because people are going to lose faith in them.

Do you have a sense of what that figure is and you know, where the other big races for AIPAC are going to be? 

DAVE WEIGEL: Well, yeah. And you mentioned Summer Lee. She lost, uh, they lost to her last cycle twice, lost in the primary, lost in the general. And she's still being targeted this year. She's actually, if she backed out of a care event.

In part because of pressure from APAC and from local Jewish leaders Saying that that we were they were worried their congressman wasn't was embracing people who'd said crazy things about october 7th so they When I talked to and you talked to the same same folks when I talked to activists on the other side of this They just assume there will be a cornucopia of money that never stops that there's never going to be a point where APAC, DMFI, etc.

Say You Oh, we're tapped out and we look kind of embarrassed because of this, this one loss this cycle. They're not saying they're going to beat everyone who has called for a ceasefire [01:28:00] taking out one or two members of Congress and Jim Bowman, Jamal Bowman in New York, uh, inquiry Bush in Missouri.

It looked like the most vulnerable for again, external reasons. These are both people who, um, have had. You know, in bonus case, the fire alarm story and Bush's case, you know, spending money on, on, on their family and security. These are stories that have hurt them locally, kind of like what happened with Dave Mint.

So they, they look for the member that is beatable for other reasons. With a credible candidate in the district. They've got that in new york, too They've um, it's it's debatable if they have that with with summerly I don't think that if they're lost if their win record is three for a hundred that's still three people that they took out.

I mean the justice democrat Not to make a i'm not making a one to one comparison obviously, but justice democrats lost most of its races in 2018 but It elected four squad members and it beat Joe Crowley and it beat Mike Capuano. You don't need to have that many shots connect.

And I, so I've not detected and talking to Mark Melman of DMFI and people over in this orbit, they're not [01:29:00] worried. If they, if they put money in a race and lose, that people know, look how much money we can, we can burn on a race without winning. It doesn't mean we're going to stop. You can, you can not stop.

This strategy so yeah, it's a good question. I don't I don't think they are actually looking at their budget and looking at their win loss record Will we notice a win loss record certainly, but if you're a member of congress just in a vacuum Would you prefer to have five million dollars spent against you or not have five million dollars to spend against you prefer to not?

Have it at all and just the threat of it remains really potent Even if they don't win everything 

SAM SEDER - HOST, THE MAJORITY REPORT: on some level losing and then being able to continue to spend is is almost more terrifying than winning in a couple instances

SECTION D - SOLUTIONS

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally Section D: Solutions.

How Citizens United Got Us Trump - Robert Reich - Air Date 12-30-2019

ROBERT REICH - HOST, ROBERT REICH: We're coming to the end of what might be called the anti democracy decade. It began January 21st, 2010, with the Supreme Court's shameful decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, opening the floodgates to big money in politics, with the absurd claim that the First Amendment [01:30:00] protects corporate speech.

It ends with with Donald Trump in the White House, filling his administration with corporate shills and inviting foreign powers to interfere in American elections. Trump is the consequence, rather than the cause, of the anti democratic surge. By the 2016 election, the richest one hundredth of one percent of Americans 24, 949 extremely wealthy people accounted for a record breaking 40 percent of all campaign contributions.

That same year, corporations flooded the presidential, senate, and house elections with 3. 4 billion of donations. Labor unions no longer provided any countervailing power, contributing only 213 million. That's 16 corporate dollars for every 1. Big corporations and the super wealthy lavished their donations on the Republican Party because Republicans promised them a giant tax [01:31:00] cut if they won.

As Lindsey Graham warned his Republican colleagues, financial contributions will stop if the GOP didn't come through. The political investments paid off big. For instance, groups supported by Charles and the late David Koch and their Koch Industries spent over 20 million promoting Trump's tax cut. which will save them and their heirs between 1 billion and 1.

4 billion every year. And courtesy of the tax cut, the number of companies paying 0 in federal taxes doubled in 2018. Corporate profits are now at an all time high, but almost Nothing has trickled down. Companies have spent most of their extra cash on stock buybacks and dividends. Stock buybacks alone hit a record breaking 1.

1 trillion in 2018. This has given the stock market a sugar high, but left little for workers. Not even a sizzling [01:32:00] economy could match these returns. The anti democracy decade has been hard on American workers. Despite the longest economic expansion in modern history, real wages have barely risen. The share of corporate workers Corporate profits going to workers still isn't back to where it was before the 2008 financial crisis.

Never in the history of economic data have corporate profits outgrown employee compensation so clearly and for so long. The so called free market has been taken over by crony capitalism, corporate bailouts, and corporate welfare. No wonder confidence in political institutions has plummeted. In 1964, just 29 percent of voters believed the government was run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.

But by 2013, 79 percent of Americans believed it. Enter Donald Trump. Big business, elite [01:33:00] media, and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent, Because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. That was what Trump proclaimed in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention in 2016.

And then he rode the rigging all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn't have to be this way. Even if Citizens United isn't reversed by the Supreme Court or defanged by constitutional amendment, a principled Congress and decent president could still rescue our democracy. House Democrats have already begun with their For the People Act, the first legislation introduced when they gained a majority.

It expands voting rights, stops partisan gerrymandering, strengthens ethics rules, and limits the influence of private donor money by providing 6 of public financing for every [01:34:00] 1 of small donations, up to 200, raised by participating candidates. A new Senate And a new president could make these reforms law.

On the other hand, a second Trump term could make the anti democracy decade a mere prelude to the wholesale destruction of American democracy. Trump himself couldn't care less. As he said in 2016, I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.

And that's a broken system. These might have been the most honest words ever to come out of his mouth.

Credits

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always, keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at (202) 999-3991 or simply email me to [email protected]. 

The additional sections of the show included clips from The Socialist Program, [01:35:00] CounterSpin, The Brian Lehrer Show, MSNBC, Late Night with Seth Myers, The Majority Report, and Robert Reisch further details are in the show notes. 

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks Judy, on Clark and Aaron Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our transcriptionist quartet to Ken Brian, Ben, and Andrew for their volunteer work, helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today at BestOfTheLeft.com/support, through our Patreon page, or from right inside the Apple Podcast app. 

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So, coming to from far [01:36:00] outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay! and this has been the Best of the Left Podcast coming to twice weekly thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.com.