Follow the Money

When, in the dark of night, the Republican Senate voted to end the rule of law in America, it was hard, even for some cynical, long-term observers of Washington politics to understand.

Todd Blanche is so grossly unfit to be the United States Attorney General that one had to wonder how anyone with a shred of integrity or respect for their oath of office could vote to confirm him. He is a mob lawyer. He is a man who has already committed himself to transforming the U.S. Department of Justice into a tool of retribution, obstruction, defending criminals, and attacking the innocent. He has cast his lot with professional fraudsters, pedophiles, traitors, insurrectionists, sex abusers, racists, and enemies of the United States.

Not only were there countless reasons to vote against his confirmation, but there were no reasons to vote for him.

Yet, voting for him is precisely what all but two Republican Senators did. Even those who hesitated momentarily, like Senators Cassidy and Tillis, revealed that their reluctance was an act, like offering up a prayer in church before going to commit a crime. They hoped it would absolve them a bit, reduce their culpability even a little for the crimes they had to know that Blanche would commit or defend or permit to be committed or permit to be defended.

On social media, I saw many reactions from critics that condemned them for cowardice.

But it was not cowardice. It was complicity. They knew that they were voting for corruption and debasement of our system of justice. They chose, once again, as they have throughout Trump’s presidency, to support the greatest enemy of the rule of law this country has ever seen…to actively be a part of the greatest effort to be a part of the most devastating attack on our legal system and our values and the concept of justice in America this country has ever seen.

The question, especially in the case of people like Cassidy and Tillis who are leaving the Senate and doing so because Trump turned against them, was “why?

The answer is simpler and more pernicious than you might think.

It is also linked to most, if not all, of the grave ills that have brought our system of government and our society to this bleak chapter in our history.

An Old Lesson

For some reason, at the end of college, I decided to go to graduate school in journalism. Like almost everything I did at the time, it was not a terribly well-thought-out decision. I went to Columbia as an undergraduate. I walked by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism every day. It had a good reputation. I liked to write. My ambivalence about the whole undertaking was manifest in the fact that I applied to only one graduate school, that one, and when I got in I went more out of a sense that I needed to do something next than out of any commitment to a higher purpose.

In the end, for all the above reasons, I dropped out after one semester. It was only a two-semester program, and I had already written my master’s thesis. So, it was really an assinine move on my part. But honestly, the more I learned about journalism, the more I thought I’d rather do things than write about other people doing them. And so, I rationalized my way out and into a job working for a kind of a nutjob from Wall Street who promised he was going to buy a magazine and then I could be in charge, and I would skip all the intervening steps of hard work that a normal journalism career would entail.

That’s not how it worked out. But I thought I should mention it in the interest of full disclosure and to allow you to share in my own disgust at my short-sightedness four and a half decades later.

That said, it is not that I did not learn anything in journalism school. I became much better at typing, for one thing. I made a couple of movies that I shot and spliced together that were kind of cool. And that was about it.

With one exception.

The teacher I was assigned for the core introductory class was a guy named Melvin Mencher. He was a legend at the school and in certain New York journalism circles. He was very short. Had a beard. Had a very acid tongue. And he did not suffer fools gladly. Many in the class were intimidated by him. I felt right at home.

He began the class by telling a story. It was about a young photographer who was sent out to shoot a soft feature. He was sent to a local zoo. It was his job to put together an amusing shot for the paper. He saw that at the zoo they had a giant tortoise. So he decided to get one of the zoo’s chimpanzees, dress him in a cowboy outfit and take a picture of him riding the big turtle.

It took a while to get the cowboy suit, and then when they put the chimp on the tortoise, he would hop off, or the tortoise would withdraw into its shell. They tried and they tried and they couldn’t get the shot. The light was fading. There was a deadline looming. The cub photographer was feeling the pressure.

So, he told the zoo, this was their last chance. They put the cowboy hat on the chimp and they put the chimp on the tortoise. Because the light was fading, the photographer got out his flashgun and put a bulb in it. “Ready!” he said to the zoo’s handler. The chimp was set down on the back of the tortoise.

He took the shot. The flash went off. And the chimp was so freaked out by it that he reached down and grabbed the head of the tortoise and twisted it right off.

Mencher looked around the room. A couple of us laughed at the shocking “twist” in his story. Most people just sat there kind of grossed out.

Mencher said, “The three of you who laughed will become journalists. I don’t know if the rest of you have the temperament for the job.”

Then, he settled in to deliver the main message for the class. He said it pertained to almost every story we would do. He said it was the one thing we should remember.

He said the secret to every story is, “Follow the money.”

He gave examples from Watergate to local school board meetings. He emphasized that most reporters don’t have the appetite or the skills to wade into balance sheets, budgets, and receipts and do the kind of forensic economic reporting that is necessary. He underscored that those skills were every bit as important to being a journalist as the ability to laugh at the decapitation of a tortoise.

He was, of course, right.

I didn’t get much else out of the graduate school experience…which, I have to be honest, does not reflect well on me. Columbia Journalism School is a great institution, more valuable than ever today. One of my daughters even went there and, just to show up her father, actually graduated and has turned what she learned into a great career.

But, as I have passed through other phases of my life, and especially during the past thirty-five or so years in which I have been immersed in the world of politics, national security, and foreign policy, I have to say, nothing I learned in any school ever was quite as important as Mencher’s Maxim.

Follow the money.

There’s a Reason a Dollar Sign Looks Like a Snake

Why do Senators who are leaving the Senate and who have been abused by Trump still toe the line and support his twisted and dangerous agenda? Is it because in their hearts they are also corrupt and morally adrift?

Well, that’s part of it, of course.

But the other part of it is that our political ecosystem has been utterly and completely corrupted by money. This covers everything from political campaigns to how Supreme Court Justices, members of Congress and senior administration officials operate.

In the case of Cassidy and Tillis, if they wish to make a living after they leave the Senate…or if they wish to cash in as members of our legislative, executive and judicial bodies often do when they leave office…they are going to turn to law firms and consultancies and Wall Street houses and corporations to hire them. And, as we have seen, Donald Trump very early on in his term in office, especially this time around, sent a clear message to all such organizations that if you cross the administration you will be blacklisted, lose government contracts, lose business from Trump cronies, be bumped off the gravy train.

Were Cassidy or Tillis to stick their thumbs in Trump’s eye by rejecting Blanche, the word would go out. They would become unhirable…or the number of options they would have to make money would be seriously reduced. (Sadly for them, suckers that they are, it’ll probably happen to some degree anyway. What law firm or lobbyist is going to brag about hiring Cassidy when someone in the White House is going to penalize them for their questionable judgment in doing so?

In other words, the way our system works is that if you want to survive outside of government, you have to toe the line inside government.

It is, in my mind, one of the most pernicious aspects of corruption in DC.

Money is a Toxin that is Killing Our Body Politic

Look at current headlines, and there are countless other major stories in which corruption plays a central role. Look at the $1.5 trillion proposed defense budget. How could such an unnecessary monstrosity be passed in a country with huge deficits and other screaming needs? Because the most powerful lobby in Washington is the military-industrial complex that ends up getting paid that money. They, in turn, spread out the cash among the think tanks and others who will write lengthy articles validating the unnecessary spending. They will donate to political campaigns that will help send the same message and they will punish politicians who oppose the increases. They have a revolving door like the one described above to ensure that there are legions of former government officials…and a vast reserve of future ones…to ensure that their interests are met because these companies are the past and the future and the retirements and the beach houses of this army of folks who talk a good game about national security but sell it out regularly to their own self-interests.

And some of those defense contractors are owned by the president’s kids. And some are owned by the kids and family and friends of cabinet members. And some are owned by the broligarchs who are the real powers behind this administration.

That’s how you end up with programs being taken seriously that should not be—like Trump-class battleships or the “Golden Dome” that is technically unfeasible but will pour oceans of cash into a handful of companies for years.

We also know that while presidential pet projects like the White House ballroom are also ways to buy the favor of President Trump, they are part of a pattern of activities that suggest the biggest White House renovation of the Trump years was transforming the building from a residence and workplace into a giant tollbooth. Never in our history have we seen such overt, brazen pay-for-play activity as we have under this rent-a-president who has sent a message to the world that not only can he be bought, but that other factors that influenced his predecessors, like U.S. national interests or basic human decency, will not in any way shape his decision-making.

It’s all about the art of the steal, baby.

Of course, Trump is not only not alone in this, but his obliteration of any guardrails that once constrained corrupt behavior has resulted in a new Golden Age of Corruption that has touched many in both political parties nationwide. Officials with modestly paying jobs are often leaving them with millions upon millions because of sweetheart deals, insider trading, bribes that come in the form of real estate deals or other legitimate-looking transactions.

Look at guys like Texas Senatorial candidate Ken Paxton. He makes $153,000 a year from his current government salary. Yet, somehow, he has managed to amass a real estate empire worth $9 million, and that encompasses 15 properties in at least five states. Look at the obscene income growth of members of the Senate and House and the Supreme Court.

Every dollar they made came from someone to whom they are now beholden, whether the transactions involved were technically legal or not.

Furthermore, of course, we have the influence of big money in our political campaigns. I have written here often before about the nauseating realities of living in the post-Citizens United era, an era in which the money of billionaires and millionaires dictates who candidates are and how elections turn out again and again. And if it is not their money, it is the money of super PACs and special interests.

Furthermore, the economics of campaigns and political organizations work in such a way that consultants and think tankers defend our corrupt campaign finance system because it is paying for their kids to go to school and their new swimming pools.

In fact, why do you think there are so many “corporate” advocates on both sides of the aisle? Because trickle-down economics works? Ha. We all know it does not. Because a country with massive deficits can in good conscience continue to offer big tax breaks to the richest among us?

Good conscience has nothing to do with it.

A recent New York Times story talked about how moderates were organizing to oppose left-wing Democrats. Could it be that they may see their positioning as a good way to collect donations from corporations who want their interests protected no matter which party wins control of the houses of Congress in November? Could it? M

You bet.

Nullifying Citizens United, Part II

As I wrote last week, voters can fight back by not succumbing to the well-financed pitches of candidates who are willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder…or who rise to the top of political prospect lists because their interests or beliefs actually align with those who are the big check-writers.

We saw how this could work in Michigan, where big AIPAC money backing Haley Stevens did not win her the Democratic Senate nod. We saw how it worked in Wisconsin when Elon Musk spent millions trying to win a state supreme court seat for a sympathetic candidate and was rejected.

These are positive signs.

But we must go a step farther if we wish to create more such stories and begin the work of cleaning the money out of our system. We must support candidates who both walk the walk and who talk the talk.

That is, as I noted last week, the real significance of victories like that of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. Because if he had one overarching message to voters that resonated…as it has in countless elections across the country this year…it is that he is committed to getting the money out of politics. It is a message that will play a central role in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary that will take place on Tuesday. Francesca Hong, the progressive who is leading by big majorities in recent polling, has run on a similar platform.

Needless to say, it is driving some establishment Dems crazy.

But it is a healthy message. Voters are tired of politicians who offer them tired formulations about caring about their issues but when push comes to shove, prioritize advancing the interests of their big donors…of the rich and powerful.

It has been very heartening to see the Democratic Party in Michigan unite so quickly behind El-Sayed. He is an excellent candidate who is focused on government that works for people rather than the guys who write the big checks.

Sadly, as an aside, we have already seen his opponent Mike Rogers and President Trump (just today) unveil disgusting, racist attacks on El-Sayed, and, since they have nothing else to offer in the way of political achievements, it seems likely that such vile tactics will continue from them into the Fall.

But voters are smart enough to see what is happening and disgusted enough with how their interests have been subordinated in recent years that I predict the Trump and Rogers tactics will not work. I believe El-Sayed will win. Hong too. Just like progressive Democrats who eschew dirty money, big money, and traditional money in politics will do well. Just like all politicians who reject the forces that have corrupted our system will make headway.

That may seem naive to some of you.

I know you will say we can never beat money in politics. It has always played a role.

But it is also true that from time to time, as at the end of the Era of Robber Barons or in the wake of the Great Depression, the electorate demands a reset.

I believe that the egregious nature of Trump’s corruption, his failure to serve average Americans, and the track record of the past forty years of having big government largely serve the few at the expense of the many will very likely trigger another such reset in the years ahead.

Maybe it is just wishcasting…as one of you accused me of last week.

But I think it is taking a realistic look at the cycles in American politics.

One Last Point

I once was the editor of something called CEO Magazine. One time I was talking to a chief executive about what he did, and he said something that echoed Mencher’s admonition. He said, the only thing a CEO can do is asset allocation. He said the job is to figure out how to prioritize the use of the company’s assets to maximize possible returns.

Setting aside the moral and ethical issues that such an approach might raise, the business leader I was talking to understood a point. In life, the most precious asset we have is time. What we as people can do with our lives is basically, as he described, focus on making the right choices to get the maximum return on however much of that asset we have left. In this case, of course, the return is not just economic. It is in terms of all life has to offer—spiritual, emotional, etc.

Politically, we end up having to ask the same questions. With the assets available to the government—people, time, economic and other resources—we cannot solve every problem or seize every opportunity. So we must set priorities. We must decide what to do first, who to help first.

Typically, in most societies and most political systems, all the factors discussed above lead to actions that reveal that the interests of the most powerful are prioritized. Elaborate arguments are created to justify this. If we help them, they will create the jobs and the wealth that will benefit everyone.

That is, of course, largely a lie. Because while they may produce some net benefits to society, they tend to work to ensure that the majority of benefits accrue to them, their shareholders, and those who can benefit them in the future.

Call that capitalism or markets in action. Call it what you will.

It is not just.

The measure of the quality of a society is the degree to which it prioritizes aiding and uplifting the most vulnerable among them. This too has benefits to a nation as a whole. It makes it more resilient. It increases the number of people who can contribute to its future. It establishes the society as a moral leader.

Currently, because of the corrupting influence of money in our society, our “democracy” does not serve all the people. It serves those who control politicians' lives and dictate their futures—in other words, the rich and powerful.

This has a corrosive effect, however. It leads to division. It leads to people not trusting our institutions. It leads to the embrace of any alternative view that promises change because those who are in power have simply not delivered what the people had every right to expect.

The reason Mencher argued we should follow the money is that it is the source of power and the driving force behind what happens in the lives of the people. He also felt that if people understood how it was flowing and to whom, it would give the people the power they need to rise up and demand changes.

He was right. The more we dig into how our society has been corrupted by money…in all the ways described above and more…and the more we listen to the calls of those who demand that we rethink and actually and meaningfully change the role money plays in our politics…the more we can have a chance to reset our priorities in way that actually comports with our values and our aspirations for the kind of society in which we hope to live in the future and that to which we might hope to bequeath to generations to come.

Conversely, a failure to follow the money and recognize the corruption and take action to demand and produce change will consign us to ever greater division, conflict, pain and decline,