The unified theory of money in politics

Where to even begin? The only unified piece of the puzzle seems to be putting the money into the right pockets. If Thorstein Veblen is right, money is just a method of keeping score for the leisure class, then separating fools from their money and concentrating it into the right bonuses and contracts really is the unified theory. "The people" in this theory, are only sheep to be shorn of any disposable income that can be extracted. Fear and playing to the particular self-righteousness of conservative sheep will always ensure that the faithful dutifully vote for their betters. Therefore, money in politics is simply business by other means. Or more applicably, speculative and extractive capitalism with the side effect of power.



So it was really no surprise to see an article in Motherjones point out both the speculative and extractive sides of the game playing out in the teaparty patriots. To really understand how this game is played we need to examine how the donations of true believers were repatriated to their rightful owners and how the leaders, who started as volunteers, got a taste for the lucre themselves.

"To underscore the group's clout [role in successfully primarying Richard Lugar in Indiana] (and push back against chatter about the movement's slow demise), TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin revealed to an interviewer that her organization's most recent IRS filing shows that TPP had raised more than $12 million. This impressive figure wasn't exactly proof of TPP's role in dispatching Lugar, but Martin's disclosure did raise a question: Where did all that money go?" [emphasis mine]

Examining an astro-turf organization of the latest psuedo-populist conservative uprising (that just happens to exactly mirror the unsavory values of wall street and big business) seems an appropriate first step. It is apparent from the fundraising techniques that the bulk of donations are coming from regular people, well regular as in people of limited means. An entire industry has sprung up to support special interest pressure groups such as the teabag patriots.

This industry of direct-mailers, telemarketers, event organizers, and so on is at least partially analysed and reviewed in The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation by Thomas Frank. The short history revolves around one Richard Viguerie who pioneered direct mail in the 1970s, at a time when American domination of the world was in doubt and many people were scared for decline. Viguerie started mailing scare letters to registered republicans detailing all the ways America was slipping, blamed it all on Democrats and liberals in Washington, and included a form to mail in a donation to help defeat all of these bad people. Frank laments that no one made a comprehensive collection of these paranoid documents because they would make an interesting history of this period in conservative America.

What all the hubbub was about, of course, was separating fools from their money by keeping them scared out of their wits. Direct mail proved to be a money-making machine and Frank even points out how similar the industry was and is to drug pushing. Mailing firms even provided an advance to startup pressure groups to get them going on fundraising, when the firm often charged more for the service than it actually raised, the group ended up in debt and had to continuously keep upping the fear ante to desperately try to break even. Telemarketing operated similarly. The fundraising firms justify their practices by equating the operation to what business and the political arm of business understands very well: Advertising. Creating a brand for whatever evil scheme the pressure group was selling. True believers operate therefore on a level of doublethink, believing their cause is so worthy that any measures to further it are justified and at the same time understanding the cynical nature of conservative entreprenuership. Most conservative activists hope to move up a rung in the scam machine once they have paid their dues doing grunt work.

TPP cofounder Jenny Beth Martin just skipped that promotion and cashed in at the very firm she helped start, swiping six figures in salary where she used to be a "volunteer." Top con artists extracted $758,000 for work they formerly did for free, along with $587,000 for travel expenses. All while brazenly ladling out millions to fundraising firms, lawyers, and others with their hands out. TPP is listed as a charity for tax purposes, certainly it is charitably giving to the "right" people. Only about a quarter of that dough went to training new agitators to demonstrate on behalf of wall street greed. I guess that is a good thing?

It is fitting that the IRS lumps fundraising and gaming together isn't it?

Stupid? Corrupt? Does it even matter? Just another day of stealing the kiddies lollipops.
All of these shady activities are, at their core, what conservative manipulators do to their own supporters. Before even beginning the analysis of what they do to the rest of us, I would recommend brushing up on Jim Hightower's Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back. Or these two titles, they are a bit out of date but are still extremely relevent to the continuing con of American conservative business politics.

Gloominess on parade.