High Court Ruling Allows Corporations To Buy Elections More Easily

“Thanks, Supreme Court!”

Thanks to today’s predictable 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, corporations will now be able to buy elections directly, without having to go through the inconveniences of adhering to, and trying to circumvent, state and federal campaign finance laws. This decision means that the corporations may now spend as much as they want on behalf of their preferred candidates. In other words, if Goldman Sachs were to come up with an algorithm that would enable them to spend $∞ (infinity dollars) in support of a candidate, they could, because according to the Supreme Court, (1) Corporations are persons; and (2) Money is speech. Hence the rather Orwellian conclusion: All Americans have a right to free speech, but some have more speech than others.

The ruling applies to unions and other organizations as well, but given the vastly deeper pockets of corporate America, the implications of the decision are clear. This development should be ridiculed by liberals and conservatives alike, because frankly, this decision takes yet another step towards fascism—a merging of state and corporate power in nation of citizens that can be whipped into a patriotic frenzy on a moment’s notice, and thus, be conditioned to ignore the gradual destruction of their democracy.

Writing the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy penned one of the most buffoonish lines ever to appear in a Supreme Court decision—a line that will go down in infamy along with some of the doozies from Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, and Korematsu v. United States:

“Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence.”

By itself, there is nothing wrong with this line. It is akin to something one might find in the papers of Jefferson. However, since it is being written to justify giving private tyrannies the ability to spend indefinite amounts of money in order to achieve a desired electoral outcome, this remark makes a total mockery of the First Amendment. Apparently it does not occur to Kennedy that even though corporations are “persons,” their interests may differ greatly from those of natural persons. In the overall context of this case, Kennedy’s phrase “accountable to the people” reads like a sick joke.

Naturally, the business world is ecstatic. From the Wall Street Journal: the court decision “rips the duct tape off the mouths of the American people.” It’s an “unequivocal victory” for people “who believe in free speech and the rights of organizations…to promote [their] point of view,” no matter how destructive they are to liberty, equality, and other elements of free society.

The Republican leadership in Washington, which consists mostly of fake conservatives, welcomed the ruling as well. While Democrats are also the beneficiaries of corporate money, the GOP is expected to reap more of the fruits of the court’s decision.

“The decision may boost Republicans as they aim to recapture congressional seats in the November election. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was among those urging the court to lift the corporate spending restrictions, while the Democratic National Committee backed the limits.”

Business Week

The American philosopher John Dewey once said, “Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business.” What an understatement that has turned out to be.

- Max