I left organized Democratic politics almost exactly one year ago. I left mostly because I am a little bit of an activist in a very conservative, quiet, somewhat remote corner of Connecticut. A beautiful town, one I’m blessed to call home, filled with great people, but still very conservative. Also, to be honest, I was more than a little nonplussed by my first hand views of the interesting machinations of “Corporate” politics. I should note than when I say activist I mean activist in terms of wanting to get things done. Now. Quickly. Things like getting people to move back to Connecticut and our town. Fixing infrastructure, schools, social services, health care, encouraging business growth, raising wages, the whole endless list. And if anyone stands in the way of that I’m all in favor of running them over.
To that end I started We the People with the goal of shining a spotlight on the one single area that I think has corrupted politics more than any other: campaign finance. It’s been an interesting year, to say the least. Here are my brief observations from that first year:
First, social media is a scarily powerful, awesome, frightening, and probably easily corruptible engine for both societal change for the better and also for the worse. From absolutely nothing one year ago, We the People has grown to the point where we had over 100,000 direct social media impressions last week, and close to 1 million, yes, 1 million, indirect impressions. With no presence on anything other than our website and Facebook, our reports are now shared through Instagram and Twitter as well, and in many countries around the world. This was done with an investment of less than $10,000. Imagine for one split second what Russia or any other foreign adversary can do with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal.
Second, while there are certainly a group of hopeless cause “deplorables” on the right as well as hopeless cause “communists” on the left, the vast majority, the overwhelming majority, of the population is made up of people in the middle who share almost exactly the same belief systems. Some call themselves Republicans and some call themselves Democrats, but they all share concerns about jobs, their income, their kids, their country, they love the military, they largely respect the police while being concerned about abuses of police power, they support gun rights while knowing that we need better gun control laws, they know America is built on the backs of immigrants while also knowing we need a secure border. But their voices are consistently drowned out by the radical fringe. That fringe is more interesting, more colorful, and it helps the media “sell” better.
Third, Everyone wants to believe the best about their own party’s candidates, human nature I guess. Republicans absolutely refuse to acknowledge Trump’s failings, whether it’s his role with the kids in cages, his bizarre support for the world’s worst dictators, his lack of business acumen, or the many, many charges of misconduct against him. Democrats are no different. When faced with incontrovertible proof that Elizabeth Warren owns private prison stocks in her portfolio, Democrats defend her rather than asking her to divest. When faced with evidence of the questionable use of campaign funds by Jim Himes, Democrats deflect. It’s as endless a list on the Democratic side as on the Republican side.
Fourth, Wag the Dog should be the catchphrase for this entire generation of American politics. Take Alex Acosta. In recent weeks the media has exploded into a firestorm of fury about the role that Alex Acosta, Trump’s just “resigned” Secretary of Labor, played in the favorable treatment afforded convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. There is absolutely nothing new about this story. It’s been widely known for years and years. Every Senator that questioned and ultimately confirmed him knew about the role he played in the Epstein saga, and all refused to even question him about it during his confirmation hearings. Then suddenly, thanks to renowned reporting by Miami Star Herald reporter Julie Brown that made the story impossible to ignore, those very same Senators unilaterally expressed outrage, OUTRAGE, over his conduct and called for his termination. Or take Trump’s press conference at the “dangerous” border wall in Calexico where, surrounded by military, police, and ICE agents all there to protect him from the dangerous Guatemalan hordes preparing to swarm the wall, he declared that “America must be protected from these criminals.” If the camera had panned 20 feet to the right we all would have seen that he was standing in the parking lot of an outlet mall, blocking parking spaces for people wanting to go shop at Nike. All politics is theater. Somewhat disenchanting but very true.
Fifth, Being nonpartisan is really hard. We the People is organized as a 501 C4, a non profit category that requires an almost complete ban on partisan political activity. Our goal is to “educate the voting public on issues of national importance, primarily related to campaign finance but also extending into areas of potential misconduct on the part of elected officials and other items of national import”. This means that not only do we cover Mitch McConnell and Devin Nunes, but we also cover Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin. Our tips hotline now gets suggestions for reports for all sorts of things, and sadly almost all of them check out, regardless of the party.
The comments we get back are a deep dive into the psyche of the American voter, a real time social experiment that for me is as interesting as the work that we’re doing. Given our non-partisan nature, it’s fascinating that on every piece people assume we’re an agent of the opposition. We the People wasn’t formed by a billionaire from Russia. Nor did we get financing from George Soros. It isn’t “fake news”. We’re not Russian bots. Everything we write is carefully sourced, and the actual source documents are referenced in every piece.
The next year will also be interesting. I know now why there is so little independent reporting today. If you listen carefully to MSNBC, FOX, CNN and read almost any daily news site, you will note that they are all really just aggregators of material prepared by only a couple actual news organizations: largely The New York Times, the Washington Post, and a few others. Listen to how often Rachel says “according to reporting by ______”. This is because everyone is terrified of liability, and that terror ends up stifling the truth. Hence everything we do is fact-based, somewhat dry, except for a few first hand reports like the one from the border wall. It’s also clear how hard it is to do this on a small scale, and that will also lead to some serious decisions. Will be start raising money? Yes. If $10k can do what we’ve done then we need to be able to do more. Will we need more volunteers? Absolutely. The only limit to how much research into how many candidates we can do is time, and time only comes from volunteers. So if anyone is interested in picking a candidate to follow please reach out.
What Trump has mastered better than perhaps any other politician is memory is the idea that if you say something often enough it becomes accepted as true. Take the most outlandish lie, for example that Trump rushed to Ground Zero after 9/11, or that Muslims were celebrating in the streets of New Jersey during those same days, or more scarily that “grab them by the …” is fake news, a doctored audio. Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, and people believe it. And ultimately that’s all that matters during this particular period of political strife.
Onward to year 2. – Kevin Comer
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” –George Orwell, 1984