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[–] 12 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

Trump is a buffoon, but we'll miss him when we get his replacement in four to eight years. I know this sounds impossible, but GWB was such a stupid humiliation back in the day; now he seems quaint.

The next "bad cop" in our tired comedy routine will probably be smarter. I mean, come on. He has to be.

Trump is the inevitable result of years of Dollars are Free Speech and Corporations are People ^(tm)^. When a government is for sale, the President is a sellout. We'll get a very brief respite with the "good cop" portion of the show, at best.

(I vote in every election, and you should, too. Because it's funny. The more people that vote, the funnier it gets. The voters play the "straight man" or "comedic foil" part of the bit)

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    Dollars are Free Speech and Corporations are People

    Take a labor union that represents a thousand workers. The owner of the company they work for decides to support an anti-union candidate. She can only donate a few thousand dollars to the campaign, but she can independently spend ten million dollars advertising how great the candidate is because the 1st amendment says the government can't limit her personal political expression. The union doesn't have the protections of the 1st amendment, so it can't run a counter-campaign against her. Each individual has to run a thousand different campaigns.

    Buying a billboard is your personal right. Citizens United says that right doesn't disappear when a group bands together. This in theory helps the common man since otherwise the wealthy are the only ones who can afford to run a parallel campaign.

    The problem we are facing has nothing to do with that. Our problem is that wealth inequality has gotten so bad that the rich can drown out the collective voice of everyone else. The rich were already figuring this out before that decision.

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