Thanks to Citizen's United, there's an unprecedented deluge of mostly anonymous corporate money flowing into the midterms.
The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms. In that election, the vast majority of money – more than 90 percent – was disclosed along with donors’ identities. This year, that figure has fallen to less than half of the total, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.
As Maddow put it last week: you don't stand a chance. Economy aside, this might be the single most important issue of our time. The voice of the average voter is being unknowingly influenced by propaganda foisted upon it by mega-corporations and anonymous wealthy donors, and political agendas will continue to increasingly reflect this gravely lopsided trend. What happens next is beyond comprehension. I seriously have no idea how this can be stopped. Especially because our growing incapacity as voters is baked into the formula. How do we fight a movement that can outspend us in perpetuity?
It really is Chinatown.
(I promise the next post will be more upbeat.)