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Chris Wright is a retired carpenter and licensed social worker from Belfast.
The noise is the constant emails, texts, and TV and social media ads created to sway our votes. We all have good reasons to be angry: a lot is broken and it’s not getting fixed. That can leave us feeling furious and powerless at the same time. But, if we step back from the noise and the emotional roller coasters, if we gather our wits and courage and use our good brains, we can tackle what many Americans believe is the biggest problem with our government: Money.
To start with, our governmental system isn’t the problem. Our founding ideas of equality, religious freedom, and the consent of the governed, were seen by the rest of the world as quite radical, and are a great foundation from which to work. The problem I see is the corruption by those addicted to great wealth and power. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.” The Bible says that the love of money is a root of all evil. Not that money is evil, it’s greed and lust for money that corrupt.
I believe today’s largest corrupters are the tech companies. Seemingly overnight — without our consent — the tech giants have gobbled up our personal information and now, with fantastic riches at stake, they’re rushing headlong into a threat much greater than the atomic bomb: AI ( artificial intelligence).
While Americans agonize between spending for food, housing, heating fuel, and healthcare, lobbyists fight against policies that provide a livable wage, and programs that support families, like childcare and parental leave. We watch from the sidelines as the inequity between the fantastically rich and the rest of us grows, while most wealth distributes upwards towards those looking for yet one more vacation home.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case allows corporations to pour millions of dollars into campaigns through Super PACs. In 2024, it could cost $50 million to $75 million to mount a statewide campaign: much of this from super PACs. There are approximately 25 lobbyists for every member of Congress.
Politicians keep using the word “extreme.” I find it extreme that in the world’s richest country, half of us struggle to meet our bills. I find it extreme that other well-to-do countries pay for healthcare with citizen’s tax dollars, while Americans go bankrupt with medical debt.
If we Americans are not going to shoulder our responsibility to drive money out of politics, I think we might as well just give up and say, OK, run right over us.
Our main tool is our vote. We must pay attention to which candidates in Maine and across our nation are actually addressing the reality that much of our government is controlled by corporations and the super wealthy, and not the people.
I believe we must dismantle the two-party system. Many other nations don’t have the election circuses we do. Presently, the two parties mainly control who gets to run. Do we really have so few people out of 350 million who might lead us?
I believe we must overturn Citizens United, which effectively gives big money much of what it needs to buy our elections using super PACs, which aren’t obligated to tell us where their money comes from. Why in the world would we, as Americans, not be able to tell who is buying our elections? Because it’s been designed and written that way intentionally. All that super PAC money is in addition to the millions that the billionaires are currently spending on their favored candidates.