A double oops.
First, Ted Cruz admits that what we've got here is a system of legalized bribery.
And then this Philip Bump idiot takes to the editorial pages and soft-soaps the shit out of it, suggesting Cruz didn't really say what he said, and taking the opportunity to pivot away from the real point in order to pretend he's really just trying to caution the GOP and blah blah blah.
WaPo: (pay wall)
I hold the minority view that elected officials don’t make policy based on campaign contributions — not directly, anyway. Instead, those contributions buy access, time with legislators and their staff in which donors can make the case for what they want to see happen. It’s a subtle distinction, but a useful one: Many elected officials can be persuaded on minute policy points, if you can just get in front of them.
The catch, of course, is that money is the easiest way to achieve that goal.
There’s research that supports this point. In 2014, a team from the University of California at Berkeley conducted an experiment in which they sought meetings with members of Congress to discuss legislation. The team had volunteers email requests for meetings, half of which mentioned in the subject line that the meeting was requested by constituents and half of which mentioned a meeting with donors. Of the “donor” emails, about a fifth resulted in meetings with the legislator, the legislator’s chief of staff or a deputy chief of staff. Of the emails that only mentioned “constituents,” only 5 percent earned a meeting with such senior officials.
We can use another example. Donald Trump would often solicit advice from random people that guided his decision-making as president. This was problematic on many occasions for obvious reasons, but it was at least somewhat democratic. The complicating factor, though, was that so many of the people surrounding Trump outside the White House paid for the privilege, from donors at Mar-a-Lago to random people at political action committee fundraisers.
Again: I recognize that this is not a popular opinion and that it is somehow considered naive to introduce nuance beyond “politicians are bought and paid for.” Fine. You can’t write about politics for more than 15 minutes without someone somewhere taking offense; so be it. I’m used to people objecting to and seeking to undercut my views.
However, I am not used to elected officials suggesting there is a direct line from contributions to policy.
In an essay for the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) got about as close to that as you’ll see. He was writing to articulate his objection to what he calls “woke corporations,” a term that was lifted from the further-left sections of political discourse to serve as a more hip version of “politically correct.” It’s a bit like how middle-aged guys kept talking about things being “jiggy” for two years a few decades ago.
Cruz’s argument is predicated on the objections offered by various corporations in response to Georgia’s new rules about elections — objections that are likely to soon be common in his own state. The senator presents an idealized version of what the changes in the Georgia law do, like expressing bemusement at the idea that mandating identification will necessarily make it harder to vote. But the thrust of his argument is that he will simply sever his relationship with corporations — not on policy, necessarily, but on the money they give him.
“Corporations that flagrantly misrepresent efforts to protect our elections need to be called out, singled out and cut off,” Cruz wrote. “In my nine years in the Senate, I’ve received $2.6 million in contributions from corporate political-action committees. Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues at all levels to do the same.”
Think about this line for a second. Normally speaking, if you tell someone you won’t take their money, how do they respond? Are they mad at you? Or are they more likely to say, oh, cool. Cruz is suggesting that by accepting the corporations’ money, he’s doing them a favor — a favor that will now come to an end.
If perhaps you missed that subtle point, Cruz went on to make it unsubtle.
“When the time comes that you need help with a tax break or a regulatory change, I hope the Democrats take your calls, because we may not,” Cruz said. “Starting today, we won’t take your money either.”
A senator is not only suggesting that he may ice out an affected constituency when developing policy, but also that he understands that both access and contributions can be used as leverage against them. It’s like the guy who runs the sausage factory taking out an ad on television to ensure everyone knows the manufacturing process.
It’s important to recognize that some of the motivation for the corporate response to the Georgia law and the attempt to upend the 2020 presidential election (that Cruz also supported and that led to some corporations halting their contributions to him) is a simple capitalist calculation. Younger Americans skew heavily Democratic and embrace corporate activism. Businesses that want young people as customers at times see politics as a way to build that loyalty.
What’s more, the working-age population itself skews more heavily Democratic. If we roughly combine data on the distribution of the workforce by age with the 2020 presidential exit polls, it suggests workers tend to be more than five points more Democratic than Republican. This makes sense, given how much more Republican older Americans are. (Also notice how lopsidedly Democratic that younger portion of the workforce is, outlined in gray.)
There’s research that supports this point. In 2014, a team from the University of California at Berkeley conducted an experiment in which they sought meetings with members of Congress to discuss legislation. The team had volunteers email requests for meetings, half of which mentioned in the subject line that the meeting was requested by constituents and half of which mentioned a meeting with donors. Of the “donor” emails, about a fifth resulted in meetings with the legislator, the legislator’s chief of staff or a deputy chief of staff. Of the emails that only mentioned “constituents,” only 5 percent earned a meeting with such senior officials.
We can use another example. Donald Trump would often solicit advice from random people that guided his decision-making as president. This was problematic on many occasions for obvious reasons, but it was at least somewhat democratic. The complicating factor, though, was that so many of the people surrounding Trump outside the White House paid for the privilege, from donors at Mar-a-Lago to random people at political action committee fundraisers.
Again: I recognize that this is not a popular opinion and that it is somehow considered naive to introduce nuance beyond “politicians are bought and paid for.” Fine. You can’t write about politics for more than 15 minutes without someone somewhere taking offense; so be it. I’m used to people objecting to and seeking to undercut my views.
However, I am not used to elected officials suggesting there is a direct line from contributions to policy.
In an essay for the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) got about as close to that as you’ll see. He was writing to articulate his objection to what he calls “woke corporations,” a term that was lifted from the further-left sections of political discourse to serve as a more hip version of “politically correct.” It’s a bit like how middle-aged guys kept talking about things being “jiggy” for two years a few decades ago.
Cruz’s argument is predicated on the objections offered by various corporations in response to Georgia’s new rules about elections — objections that are likely to soon be common in his own state. The senator presents an idealized version of what the changes in the Georgia law do, like expressing bemusement at the idea that mandating identification will necessarily make it harder to vote. But the thrust of his argument is that he will simply sever his relationship with corporations — not on policy, necessarily, but on the money they give him.
“Corporations that flagrantly misrepresent efforts to protect our elections need to be called out, singled out and cut off,” Cruz wrote. “In my nine years in the Senate, I’ve received $2.6 million in contributions from corporate political-action committees. Starting today, I no longer accept money from any corporate PAC. I urge my GOP colleagues at all levels to do the same.”
Think about this line for a second. Normally speaking, if you tell someone you won’t take their money, how do they respond? Are they mad at you? Or are they more likely to say, oh, cool. Cruz is suggesting that by accepting the corporations’ money, he’s doing them a favor — a favor that will now come to an end.
If perhaps you missed that subtle point, Cruz went on to make it unsubtle.
“When the time comes that you need help with a tax break or a regulatory change, I hope the Democrats take your calls, because we may not,” Cruz said. “Starting today, we won’t take your money either.”
A senator is not only suggesting that he may ice out an affected constituency when developing policy, but also that he understands that both access and contributions can be used as leverage against them. It’s like the guy who runs the sausage factory taking out an ad on television to ensure everyone knows the manufacturing process.
It’s important to recognize that some of the motivation for the corporate response to the Georgia law and the attempt to upend the 2020 presidential election (that Cruz also supported and that led to some corporations halting their contributions to him) is a simple capitalist calculation. Younger Americans skew heavily Democratic and embrace corporate activism. Businesses that want young people as customers at times see politics as a way to build that loyalty.
What’s more, the working-age population itself skews more heavily Democratic. If we roughly combine data on the distribution of the workforce by age with the 2020 presidential exit polls, it suggests workers tend to be more than five points more Democratic than Republican. This makes sense, given how much more Republican older Americans are. (Also notice how lopsidedly Democratic that younger portion of the workforce is, outlined in gray.)
If workers skew more heavily Democratic, companies will often listen. Combine that with a corporate leadership that itself is more likely to skew left than in years past and you get a business community that’s less interested in aligning overwhelmingly with the GOP than it had been in the past.
All of this is ancillary to Cruz’s main point: that Republicans have “allowed [big business] to ship jobs overseas, attack gun rights, and destroy our energy companies” despite those officials having so generously taken their campaign contributions.I still think it’s the case that policy influence happens one-on-one. But the senator does make a compelling counterpoint.
Unbelievable crock of pure bovine scat.Cruz admits openly to the simple fact that he's a willing participant in a system of institutionalized graft and corruption, and WaPo pays this Bump clown to put some lipstick on the pig.
And this: "...Republicans have “allowed [big business] to ship jobs overseas, attack gun rights, and destroy our energy companies” despite those officials having so generously taken their campaign contributions."
What does that even mean? I see words - some of which are verbs and some nouns, and others all in a nice neat row - and none of it makes any sense in the context of objective reality - in the context of what the GOP has actually, deliberately, been doing to fuck us with our pants on for 50 years. But WaPo let that slide - tacit approval.
fuckin' press poodles, man.
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