The daily beast
The money monster that Mitch McConnell created finally turned him on
Samuel Corum / Getty It turns out that Mitch McConnell doesn’t think of companies as people, or that money is language if those companies don’t speak his language. Instead, he warned them to “stay out of politics” because they “have grave consequences if they become a vehicle for radical left-wing mobs”. Uh huh.Mitch, who then tried to move away from what he said since “I didn’t say that artfully,” is insane because big employers in Georgia have finally gotten around to responding to a voter suppression law that may also have been written by Lester Maddox. The companies came up with the controversial proposal in GOP circles that every American should have the right and the opportunity to vote. And for that, McConnell made no commitment to corrupting our democracy when he waged war for unregulated corporate money “rightly” for the past three decades. As anyone who has followed his incredibly devastating career has suggested, he suggested these companies should like to give Republicans wheelbarrows of cash to relieve them of the burden of actually developing political ideas to improve the lives of Americans and navigating the city. In fact, it is a charisma event horizon. The Christian right-wing mastermind behind Citizens United says it’s good for democracy. That money also helps him buy off Senate Republicans who happen to be the Republican leader’s constituency. McConnell is allowed to have a career in the Senate that could be considered a tribute to Seinfeld as it is about absolutely nothing. Except electricity. As long as companies paid and shared opinions he liked – low taxes, deregulation, free trade – Mitch was more of the guy who advocated fair CEOs. The problem is, our culture began to change, so did companies. Some companies have suddenly been run by executives who believe in concepts as crazy as LGBTQ rights, equal pay and racial equality. Or at least knew how to publicly support these regulations in order to appeal to their customer base. You can spend the night for McConnell on these questions, but just leave your check on the bedside table before you head home. To be fair, McConnell’s principle is that corporate donations are only good insofar as they’re good for McConnell while he’s in politics, as Alec MacGillis elaborates in The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell. In 1973 McConnell published a statement in which campaigns were partially partially publicly funded and spending restrictions were set. By 1987, Senator McConnell supported a proposed constitutional amendment that gave Congress the power to limit independent spending on campaigns and candidates’ use of personal resources by their own races. “(McConnell was far from wealthy at the time.) He pushed for the banning of political action committees until 1990. This happened at a time when the Democrats had control of the US House of Representatives, and gave so, for nearly four decades PACS to Democrats more than Republicans. It happened to McConnell in his first Senate race in 1984. The incumbent Democrat he ousted, Walter “Dee” Huddleston, was favored by PACS, to the chagrin of McConnell. But that was about to change, as soon as Mitch mastered the art of shakedown, opposed any campaign finance reform, challenged FEC rulings, and filed Amicus briefs contesting any contribution restrictions that could potentially land in the Supreme Court. In that way, he was one driving force behind Citizens United. However, if you feel that this is due to thinking about actual corporate language that comes out of your mouth rather than your wallet, think again. From an article I wrote in 2004 about the then Senate whip McConnell: McConnell also knows how to deal with threats. When a group of Republican senators signed a campaign finance reform in the late 1990s, McConnell, in his position as NRSC chairman, informed them that they would not expect electoral support from the committee if they did not change their position. At least one, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Did so after receiving McConnell’s warning. Then, in 1999, when the Economic Development Committee (CED) – a trading group that represents large corporations – announced their support for a soft money ban, McConnell wrote an angry letter on NRSC letterhead to leaders of companies that support the CED, and denounced him in the group’s “sweeping campaign to withdraw private sector participation in politics” asking them to withdraw from the organization. “I hope you step back from IBD,” he scribbled at the end of a copy. Many recipients of the letter saw this as an implicit threat that their companies, if they do not withdraw from the CED and no longer support the reform efforts, would be treated unfavorably by Congress. This brings us back to McConnell’s alleged support for money in politics based on the First Amendment or some other such principle. That’s not it. McConnell has no problem with the MyPillow guy ranting a coup or the Goya CEO supporting riot. But he has a big problem with corporate actors speaking out in favor of voting rights. Because, as 2020 has shown, McConnell’s party speaks primarily to the Fox News “I’ve fallen and I can’t stand up” demographics, not those who stand up against a transgender-banned America and testify to fetuses to create things well-trained workforce, which increasingly means democratic and socially tolerant. And they need to target disposable income consumers who actually buy things. Needless to say, these people typically don’t live in what is known as the “Hannity demographics”. So Mitch doesn’t want these companies to talk to each other. But as Georgia has proven, they’ll do it anyway because the alternative is alienating their customers and not a bunch of crazy GOP tweets suggesting that major league baseball is an offshoot of the “China virus.” who gets his players to read duplicate headers Dr. Seuss will change that fact. It all means that Mitch is finally reaping the whirlwind of corporate speech he was dying to use for our policies when it benefited him and his party. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get Our Top Stories In Your Inbox Every Day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside delves deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
