Barbara Mezeske: The seduction of power
"On Nov. 3, the American electorate finally saw, understood and rejected the idea that the powerful (and rich) can do anything with impunity. The American electorate did, in fact, vote as if Donald Trump were on the ballot," columnist Barbara Mezeske writes.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.
The Midterm Election in November was a referendum on power. Specifically, it was a referendum on power amassed for its own sake, and then used for self-interest.
The story has many roots, but we can pick a beginning point in 2010 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. In that ruling, the court removed limitations on corporate political spending. Corporations, it ruled, had the same rights to free speech as persons. That meant money donated to political causes by corporations, labor unions and other organizations was protected speech.
That ruling paved the way for the rise of Super Political Action Committees (PACs) that dramatically altered the amount of money funneled into campaigns. In 2000, a presidential election year, $3.08 billion was spent on federal elections; in 2024, another presidential election year, $14.8 billion was spent.
The influx of money did two things: It drowned out the voices of individual Americans, giving out-of-district interests a way to shape local elections. (Why did the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pump money into Michigan’s midterms?) It also enabled money to flow into politics without a clear way of knowing who was behind each PAC.
That explains a phenomenon like Elon Musk, who spent an estimated $450 million on the recent midterms. A citizen has a single vote. An oligarch has an ocean of money with which to sway the electorate.
As a side note, consider just for a moment how many of the nation’s real issues like improved infrastructure, FEMA relief for disasters, housing, and healthcare, could benefit from such huge investment. What if $450 million were spent on new hospitals and schools, rather than on buying politicians? Who would benefit most — the American people, or just wealthy people?
In any case, the link between massive amounts of money and power in American politics was forged. It had always existed, of course, but Citizens United injected money directly into the bloodstream of American political life. Money bought power. Power amassed money. The restraints were off.
Western culture and history are full of caution about money. The Greek philosophers of the Fifth and Fourth centuries BCE noted that money itself creates power. Thucydides went further and said that money corrupted political behavior. Move forward into the Christian era, and one finds The Beatitudes blessing the poor and the meek, not the rich and powerful. The Book of Matthew says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to attain heaven.
In T.H. White’s "The Once and Future King" (1958), Merlin teaches the young Arthur to think about Might vs. Right. Arthur concludes:
“I don’t think things ought to be done because you are able to do them. I think they should be done because you ought to do them.”
Money, however, enables the powerful to do pretty much what they want.
And the next step is, of course, using money and power to profit oneself and one’s friends.
That, as much as anything else, was on the ballot this time. The corruption of the Trump family and Trump associates in the past two years has been so blatant, so obvious, and so shameless that it couldn’t be ignored.
Here are just some highlights:
- Qatar’s gifted Boeing 747
- Behind-the-curtain deals on oil, and resort property
- Cryptocurrency regulation
- Pardons-for-cash
- Insider stock trading
- Removing inspectors general
- Breaking ethics guardrails
- Monetizing Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties
Power insulates from consequences. As a result, Trump has paid no price at all for demolishing the East Wing, for gutting the EPA, for weaponizing and unleashing ICE on our cities; for kidnapping brown and Black people, relocating them to third countries, placing them in concentration camps.
Trump and his cronies have been brazen — seduced by the idea that money and the power it conveys have given them the right to do whatever they want. They act the way they do because they can get away with it.
They have gotten away with it for two years.
On Nov. 3, the American electorate finally saw, understood and rejected the idea that the powerful (and rich) can do anything with impunity. The American electorate did, in fact, vote as if Donald Trump were on the ballot.
— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.
