Dark Money Has Corrupted American Politics
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What is the influence of dark money in American politics?
Well, happy Friday and welcome to a special episode of the Chuck Todd cast. So today my guest is frankly, one of probably the, uh, when you think of great, uh, documentarians of our times, I think there's really two that stand out. There's Ken Burns and his documentaries on American history. And there's Alex Gipney who has done some, uh, just groundbreaking work on society and culture.
How has Citizens United affected political funding?
And he is out with, uh, frankly two feature-length documentaries almost episodic but they're both two-hour documentaries on hbo on dark money um one is a very specific it's sort of it's very much on sort of how dark money this ability to uh take big money in politics, launder it through an organization you've never heard of, Ohioans for love or Americans that love America. And thanks to Citizens United, and you're going to hear a lot about this, the ability to spend big money on politics, move big money and do so more anonymously than ever has never been easier. And I'll be honest, I'm somebody who's been a bit of a skeptic of attempts to try to reform and get money out of the system. You know, you know, I'm one of those.
I sort of bow at the altar of Jeff Goldblum's character in Jurassic Park when the old man is trying to tell you that he can keep keep those dinosaurs from breeding because he made them all female and everything. And Goldblum is playing the mathematician, the chaos theory guy says life finds a way. Well, I've always felt that about money in politics, right? Money finds a way. And in fact, some of the great reform efforts of our time have actually created the disastrous situation that we're in today. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Feingold is thought of as this. great reform that attempted to take big money out of political parties and out of the system. But what all McCain-Feingold ended up doing is moving the money out of the political parties.
At the time, one of the few places where there was accountability, where they had to file, they had to disclose who their donors were, maybe not in as timely of a fashion as people wanted to see, but they could do it. And yes, there was something called soft money, but these people, you still had to report where this money came from. And so here was this incredible – this legislation that was monumental at the time, and all it did was sort of shift the money out of political committees and out of the politicians' hands and into these third-party groups. Right. Now we call them super PACs. But there was different sort of tax code versions of this, 501C3s, 504Cs, things like that. And it is taken – it is essentially –
Hidden the money in plain sight. Right. You know, we generally know where this money comes from, but we now don't find out when they do it through third party networks and channels. You don't find out about it until after an election. And so we've gone from an election that if you're ready for this in 2000. where collectively, collectively, Gore and Bush spent – this is just 25 years ago. Collectively, they spent about $200 million on their campaign. You know, $200 million is what Donald Trump just raised for his inaugural fund, OK? It is – $200 million is a good first quarter for a general election presidential candidacy. We've now got, you know, and you now can legally give, I think, a million dollars to a party individually these days.
And you couldn't do that before, let alone money you can give to a third party group. Your money in your you never have to disclose it or you can do it through a foundation and et cetera. So the point is, is that we really do have a mess on our hands. Alex Gibney will tell you it's Citizens United. And I think there's no doubt that the unintended consequences of Citizens United has certainly created this. The question is, what do we do about it? Because I do think we're in a situation where money is consuming. Look, my friend Tony Kohnheiser, let's use a read all you listeners of Mr. of Mr. TK out there, as he will tell you, the answer to all your problems is money.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the influence of dark money in American politics?
0:03–0:29
2
How has Citizens United affected political funding?
0:29–8:06
3
What is the Ohio scandal related to dark money?
8:06–14:40
4
How do lobbying practices impact democracy?
14:40–20:11
5
What are the consequences of legalized bribery?
20:11
6
How does dark money shape public perception and trust?
17:03–18:16
7
What insights does Alex share about making documentaries?
18:16–35:02
8
How can voters push for campaign finance reform?
35:02–1:15:19
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Chuck ToddCast
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