Chris's Story of the Week asks who is Sheldon Adelson and what does it mean for democracy when a billionaire investor and casino owner like him can give a Newt Gingrich-associated super PAC $10 million?
-Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell) is video and web producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes.
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Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.
How did we get here? With "Twilight of the Elites," Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.
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Although I can see why its not brought up, one way to counter unlimited pac funds is to require free time on the broadcast media for candidates. This would negate the unfair pac money being spent for attack adds.
David Cay Johnson's comments were so insightful on this. In order to get a voice into the debate, to espouse a particular opinion, and impact public opinion, these billionaires can now fund one of these candidates. Just one billionaire backer is enough to "qualify" for a place on the debate stage.
In truth I am even more worried about the inevitable effect at the State and Local levels, because there is much less attention and reporting about what happens there. These billionaires are destroying our democracy.