In the rush to declare “winners and losers” of the Republican National Convention, the city of Cleveland came out overwhelmingly on top in the headlines. “We were promised a riot, we got a block party instead,” wrote the Washington Post, while the L.A. Times documented the post-RNC “victory lap” taken by Cleveland’s business and political leaders. “Mistake on the Lake no more,” Cleveland.com grandly proclaimed. And the New York Times hailed the “loud exercise” of First Amendment rights on the newly renovated Public Square, causing The City Club of Cleveland to swoon on its Facebook page: “We [heart] free speech.”
If it weren’t for questions about a five-million-dollar fundraising shortfall in covering convention-related costs, and the loss of regular business by establishments located outside the eye of the RNC hurricane, it would be impossible to say that hosting the convention was a bad thing for the city in and of itself. The Trump campaign’s orgy of demagoguery had to be broadcast from somewhere, and was otherwise mostly contained by the walls of Quicken Loans Arena. Downtown Cleveland looked as good as ever and the streets had an undeniably positive feel, even despite the at-first-jarring presence of massive security fences and armies of police imported from all around the nation. (“[The RNC] is like ‘It’s a Small World’ for cops,” noted one visiting journalist.) All else equal, it’s nice to leave your troubles behind, get dressed up, and have folks pay some attention to you every once in awhile. In this sense, Cleveland was properly dressed to the nines and painted the national consciousness red.
But what about the other 98 years per century when a major political party won’t host its national convention here? And what’s so good about free speech on Public Square when it has little to no chance of influencing the public policy set by those inside the arena? Here, the layers of security that radiated from the convention floor, effectively isolating protesters from the convention’s participants, served as an apt metaphor for the resounding success of the Republican Party’s sustained effort to replace the vote with the dollar as the fundamental unit of American democracy. With limits on campaign spending having been obliterated by the Republican project, the barriers between citizens and politicians, politicians and accountability, have never been so impenetrable.
And now that only the most expensive speech is “heard” in any politically meaningful sense, words mean less than ever in the political context. As the cost of political speech skyrockets, its availability and diversity naturally plummets, and a billionaire demagogue can be increasingly sure that the few with the means to counter his emotional appeals with logic will be increasingly less inclined or less able to do so effectively. Which explains as well as anything Trump’s rise to the Republican nomination, culminating in his display in Cleveland last week.
“The crime and violence that afflicts our nation today will soon come to an end.” “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” “We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration.” “I’m going to bring our jobs back to Ohio and to America – and I am not going to let companies move to other countries without consequences.” “We are going to Make America Great Again.”
The implausibility of Trump’s claims mattered much less than the context in which they were proclaimed and the feelings they aroused as a result. As Nathan J. Robinson recently pointed out at Current Affairs, “global inequality has risen to the point that nearly all wealth is controlled by a tiny minority of the super-rich, and labor power is in decline.” Yet, the Democratic Party—as beholden as ever to this “tiny minority”—has been largely confined in responding to Trump with an argument that “America is already great.” In the absence of “a compelling alternative vision and program,” says Robinson, “of course people will be susceptible to demagoguery about crime and immigration.” While “Trump … may have a racist and delusional explanation for the cause of the world’s troubles, [at least he has] an explanation.” And in today’s profoundly warped market for political speech, any old explanation might do.
In Donald Trump’s America, you can [heart] free speech all you want, but the speech that really counts is anything but free. And in the absence of meaningful speech, feelings will naturally take over. Regardless of whether Hillary Clinton can figure out how to stir enough emotion to beat him in November, if the barriers to meaningful political participation remain as constructed there will be plenty worse to worry about than a President Trump.
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2016.
Excellent reflections, Peter, on the problem of our system of legalized bribery in which campaign donations are less “contributions” than “investments” with an expected return and the voices of those with money drowning out the voices of those without. So long as money is considered constitutionally protected “speech,” not much will change. The same goes with corporations being anointed by the Supremes with constitutionally protected rights of real human beings — as corporations have the authority independent of investing in elections to shape laws and regulations and shield themselves with 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment protections from We the People.
There is a solution to these twin hijackings of what’s little left of our representative government — the We the People Amendment, HJR 48 — a constitutional amendment that would affirm that only human beings, not corporations, possess inalienable constitutional rights and that money is not free speech and, therefore, can be regulated from all sources in elections. More than 600 communities across the country have taken a position — via municipal resolution or ballot measure — in support. Whenever it reaches the ballot, it wins 100% of the time. This effort has been sparked and nurtured by Move to Amend, https://movetoamend.org Twenty communities in Ohio have taken a stand (12 resolutions, 8 ballot measures), facilitated by the Ohio Move to Amend Network, https://movetoamend.org/ohio
A similar initiative will be on the ballot this November in Shaker Heights, S. Euclid and, hopefully, Cleveland (sufficient signatures have been turned in, just now waiting for City Council to act).
FYI, simply overturning the 2010 Citizen United decision as some advocate only returns us to the glorious democratic panacea at that time. Remember those good ‘ol democratic days prior to 2010 when our voices were authentically heard, needs met and communities helped? Money as speech dates to the 1970’s while corporate constitutional rights originates in the 1880’s.
Elections matter. But supporting a growing national “legalizing democracy” movement matters just as much, if not more.
To become involved in working to pass any of these initiatives or elsewhere in Ohio, email ohio@movetoamend.org.