The movement to get money out of politics will take a very long time. I know people don’t want to hear that. My guess is, in the best case scenario, we’re looking at 20 years. Best case. If it makes you feel any better, the movement to get money into politics took 181 years so by that measure, two decades to unravel what took 181 to build isn’t all that bad. Either we’re committed to playing the long game or not. The assholes that got us here were.
Chapters
Intro: 00:00:33
Chapter One: Non-Negotiable #4. 00:01:11
Chapter Two: The Long and Winding Road to Citizens United. 00:07:05
Chapter Three: Media Complicity. The Revolution Was Already Televised. 00:16:46
Chapter Four: Defying Its Creator. The Tale of Mitch McGolem. 00:20:43
Bring it Home, Max: 00:28:47
Post Show Musings: 00:37:13
Outro: 01:11:09
Resources
OpenSecrets: Money-in-Politics Timeline
Brennan Center for Justice: Since Citizens United, a Decade of Super PACs
Cambridge University: Dark Parties: Unveiling Nonparty Communities in American Political Campaigns
De Gruyter: Television Advertising in the 2022 Midterms
De Gruyter: Digital Advertising in the 2022 Midterms
Bowdoin College: Government Scholar Michael Franz on Impact of Ads during the 2024 Election Cycle
Brennan Center for Justice: Life Tenure for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Is a Global Oddity with Clear Costs
Ballotpedia News: Looking ahead at 2025 ranked-choice voting legislation
Justia: Citizens United v. FEC | 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
Senate: Saving American Democracy Amendment
Constitution Center: Interpretation: The Twenty-Seventh Amendment
Book Love
Adam Jentleson: Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy
Kermit L. Hall: The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States
UNFTR Episode Resources
Building a Civilian Labor Corps: Bracing for the AI Job Apocalypse.
What’s the Deal with Peter Thiel?
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