Checkpoint: West Wing, How Money Hurts Democracy
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Celebrities, like all the rest of us, have their own opinions on various political and social issues. Some of them can be quite outspoken on those issues, and can even influence their fan base to campaign and vote for platforms that they support. This is nothing new. What tends to really stir up surprise, and sometimes controversy, is when those celebrities wade into the world of politics themselves. One of the biggest shocks of 2020, and there have been many, was the news that rap superstar Kanye West was throwing his yeezys into the ring to run for President.
Since his announcement on July 5, the only person who seems to consider West as a serious contender in the race is the rapper himself. On July 25 he tweeted that he could defeat Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden through write-in ballots. Then on August 21 he tweeted out a list of ten States where he claimed to have gotten his name onto the ballot; Oklahoma, Arkansas, Vermont, West Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Utah, Minnesota, Tennessee and Virginia. Earlier this month he was removed from the Virginia ballot after a Richmond Circuit Court Judge ruled that West had used fraud to get his name on the ballot, although the rapper has since filed an appeal.
It may seem ridiculous to imagine West, known for his eccentric behaviour in the public eye, sitting in the Oval Office, but the suggestion would have been far more inconceivable back in 2016. Donald Trump’s first true foray into politics landed him straight in the White House. Like West, Trump relied on his forceful personality to win him votes, rather than any real political knowledge or ability. There is, of course, another similarity between the two men that has allowed them to try their hands at political careers seemingly on a whim: they are both rich.
Trump’s net worth this year is $2.5 billion. West is worth just over half as much, a not insignificant $1.3 billion. As it tends to do, money has granted these two men opportunities that are simply not available to most Americans. As billionaires, they do not require the donations of like-minded citizens to step up onto the political stage. It is an endeavour they can fund entirely themselves. Money does not guarantee success in an election, but it definitely gets the ball rolling.
The problem of big money in politics does not start or end with Trump and West, however. In Congress nearly half of the sitting politicians are in the top 1% of Americans in terms of financial wealth. The top 10% control a huge majority of both houses, and with Trump in the White house they control the Executive Branch too. Despite the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, this is clearly not a Government “of the people, by the people, for the people”.
On the other side of the divide, there are elected representatives like Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, a progressive young woman who has been repeatedly belittled by her Republican opponents and Conservative activists for her former career as a bartender. Coming from a working class background is presented as an incapacity in the world of politics, synonymous with a lack of education and an inability to understand the complex inner workings of Government. Occasio-Cortez is just one example of why this perception is decidedly false. She attended Boston University and graduated with degrees in Economics and International Relations, and was an Educational Director with the National Hispanic Institute before the death of her father forced her to take up bartending and support her family.
AOC has become incredibly popular across the country, especially with young and working class voters who recognize that the current system is not designed to represent their interests. When Trump announced his Tax and Jobs Act, he insisted that it would be fantastic for the working class in America. The idea could have come straight from the administration of Ronald Reagan, promising that the benefits to large corporations and the top 1% would trickle down to their employees. This has not been the case. The bulk of the $150 billion the tax cut put into the hands of corporations in 2018 went into shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs, both of which line the pockets of the 10% of Americans who own 84% of the stocks. Just 6% of the tax savings was spent on workers.
The solution to the problem of a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich is to bring more working class Americans into Congress where they can accurately represent the American people. Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto, is famous for his writings on the inevitability of class warfare and the revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie capitalist class. However, Marx himself knew that the revolution did not have to be a violent affair. In his most well known work he writes “the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy”. Twenty years later, in a speech at Amsterdam, he said: “we do not deny that there are countries, such as America and England and if I was familiar with its institutions, I might include Holland, where the workers may attain their goal by peaceful means”.
Electoral politics can deliver the more equal and just society envisioned by Marx and his co-author Friedrich Engels, but there are two requirements for it to do so. Firstly, the impact of money must be removed from politics. Men like Trump and West cannot be allowed to enter into the highest office in the land, and take on all the responsibility that entails, simply because they can afford to buy their way in. Secondly, the barriers to working class engagement with politics must be removed. Only by encouraging the participation of the working class in running for office can America create a truly representative democracy. Until these two conditions are met, the U.S. will continue to be a country where the political process is dominated by the whims and desires of the rich.