I should add that I don’t think outlawing this kind of activity and replacing it with public (that is, government) financing of political campaigns would be a good solution. The government would end up pulling the candidates’ strings, whereas the best political campaigns, the most sincere ones, are the ones funded by private citizens far from Washington, real grassroots outsiders. There are campaigns, especially for newcomers to Congress, funded by small communities, members of Boy Scout troops, baseball leagues, and so forth.
Sustainable, passionate movements of any kind always have private individuals willing to invest in them, and that should continue. The tragedy is that the big corporate donors have enough sway to make the whole process more like prostitution, or as if both parties are competing for boring gigs as valets. I used to think my party, the Republican Party, was at least a valet for better special interests than the Democrats’, but I no longer think it makes much difference. The same entrenched interests give money to both sides.
The rising stars of the influence-peddling game are Big Tech, who don’t seem to get sued or regulated a hundredth as much as you’d expect to see in any other industry that does some of the creepy things Tech does. They warrant their own chapter below.
President Trump represents a real change in some of these patterns, though. He may be rich, but he’s also a perfect example of someone whose campaign thrived on small donations and the passion of individual voters. Trump is a geyser of small-dollar contributions. You don’t produce rallies like his by hosting a couple of stiff corporate luncheons. That man is a real movement, and he’s movement in the right direction, away from some of the undemocratic ills I’ve described.
Sure, money talks, but talking talks too. But you have to have something to say. And it’s depressing how few do. President Trump knows that raising a ruckus raises your profile but can also raise an army of patriots. Message, movement, money, mobilization. In that order. He knows that is how you build a brand. Brands need slogans that feel real because they are real. “Yes, we can” gave us “Make America Great Again,” both delightfully vague and subject to interpretation. Just who is the “yes” directed to? We “can do” what? To whom? Who is doing the making? What is great? And why again? Isn’t America always great? Like an inkblot, Americans project their private hopes onto these slogans and make them their own in their own individual way. The moms and grandmas who were hand-sewing masks for loved ones during the coronavirus were making America great again. So too were the patriots who donated to the We Build the Wall crowdfunding campaign.
While President Trump pledged to build the wall, Bill Clinton promised to “build a bridge to the next millennium.” (He neglected to mention that the Chinese and millions of illegal aliens were already coming across it.) I have my own infrastructure-themed slogan—#OpenGaetz—that comes from my days as an attorney, suing governments to open records for public review. Every gate needs a sentry, keeping a watchful eye on who comes and goes. Openness means honesty and awareness, not exhibitionism or naivete.
It’s important, if you’re an unpretentious, psychologically normal person, not to let yourself think Washington is full of people who want to be your friend—or even want to debate policy ideas with you.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was the chair of the House Republican Caucus when I arrived, and she surprised me by calling me up and inviting me to dinner. I was honored! I thought the dinner was going to be something small, but there were fifty donors and lobbyists there—which was supposed to be the attraction, I now realize. At the door, the hosts handed out name tags, so the donors could spot us and chat up the legislator of their choice.
I am seated at a table that doesn’t even have Rep. McMorris Rodgers at it, but, what do you know, her speech to the crowd refers to me as her special guest, and she points me out to the crowd as if I’m supposed to be grateful that they can all now flock to me and I can harvest cash from them. I now understand why many frosh in Congress are truly grateful to be pimped out like this! And if they rake in a lot of donations, one way or another they’re supposed to bounce it right back to party leadership.
It’s not just the Republicans, of course, and it’s not just Washington. There are so many layers of lobbying that private companies hire lobbyists to pressure state legislators to take messages to that state’s delegation in D.C., as an indirect way to get Congress to do what the companies want.
In other words, in America today, the lobbyists now lobby other lobbyists, and so on up the chain, without the voters weighing in at any point along the line.
Irrespective of which party is in power, then, the real winner in Congress is often the special interest that shuttles the most money to political campaigns. Committee assignments and leadership opportunities are doled out to members most indebted to special interests, not true leaders. Congressional staffers even use the orientation process to tell new members exactly which PACs and special interests will donate based on which committee assignments you get and how much influence you’ll wield.
Not everything PACs want is bad. Sometimes they’re trying to get rid of the same regulations that annoy me. But the PACs don’t exist to do good. That’s incidental, if it happens at all. They exist to give big business what it most seeks—power over
