Curious Donald

My opinion is that Trump is a blowhard, a publicity hound, and pathetic. But one should never underestimate the imbecility of popular opinion (look at Michelle Bachman's fund-raising prowess, and add Sarah Palin).

Trump’s overweening self-confidence is so towering, if you’ll pardon the pun, that he even makes the ego-driven politicians contemplating a presidential run look humble by comparison. But the ability of a putative billionaire to manipulate the press and lead us all around by the nose tells us a lot about running for president of the United States in the 21st century.

Didn't start with the 1960 televised debates?

It is primarily the ideology-driven Republican Party and its Supreme Court majority that has removed any semblance of fair play in what is supposed to be a democratic process and created a one dollar-one vote environment. Presumably, the GOP will rally around one candidate that all the corporations and banks and hedge fund managers can attempt to catapult into office. Maybe it will be Trump, but it might be Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or some other candidate willing to represent the moneyed interests in the White House.

Not to extol the purity of the Democratic party.

• Why do we have no meaningful financial reform? Why are the banks and, in many cases, the very same chief executives who created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, robbed retirees of their savings, drove homeowners out of their homes, and left millions unemployed now bigger and richer than ever?

No one has gone to jail, but plenty have lost jobs and homes.

• Why do consumers, who patently need greater legal protection against the predations of unscrupulous financial institutions, still have no Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

And why do Republicans oppose such a Bureau? They call it anti-competitive, government meddling, even socialist.

• Why does one of our major political parties – the one that is responsible for creating the biggest deficits and debts in our history – pretend it wants to rein in those deficits when all it really wants to do is reduce taxes for the rich, regardless of how high that pushes the deficit?

One can lie to some of the people all of the time.

The influence of money – particularly corporate money – has become so pervasive and brazen in our political system that we would call it rampant corruption if we observed this phenomenon in another country. Here we go by the euphemism of “campaign finance.

Precisely.

Obama and the Democrats are just as much caught up in this web of corruption as the Republicans. Not all of the billion dollars Obama will spend in getting reelected, and probably not even the bulk of it, will come from individual small donors. After all, keeping financial reform so insipid required the active participation of the administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress.

So you’re Donald Trump – you’re smart, you’re rich, you love being in the spotlight. Why not run for president, at least for a little while? You can’t buy advertising that good.

Level playing field?

President Obama mentioned a recent Supreme Court decision that, he asserted, would allow corporate special interests to flood the election landscape with their money. Now, legislation has been proposed to counter that.

The proposed legislation, meant to address a recent Supreme Court decision that eased the rules on political television advertisements, would require groups that run campaign attack ads to disclose the names of the businesses, labor unions and other groups that fund the efforts.

However, that provision cuts both ways: the "left" is opposed, for its own special reasons, or, rather, reason: the money it gets.

advocacy groups on the left, such as the Sierra Club environmentalist group and the Alliance for Justice, a coalition of liberal organizations, are lobbying to weaken the central element of the proposed bill. They worry that it could hurt their ability to raise money.

Dilemma.


The liberal groups, along with conservative and business organizations, are concerned that wealthy individuals and entities wouldn't donate to their organizations if their names had to be disclosed. "It's a significant issue," said David Willett, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. He said that the environmental group was working to change the legislation. It was too soon, he added, to say whether or not the Sierra Club would oppose the bill. Abby Levine, deputy director of advocacy programs at the Alliance for Justice, said the group shared the Sierra Club's concerns.

Wealth should not be able to hide behind anonymity as it seeks to influence policy and elections.