Oh Caesar, you’d love the US these days. The masses are as entertained by the lions as they were back then. And money shifts from the Forum to the Magistrates and vice versa as freely as bets before the big Gladiator match.
Ezra Klein describes:
It's hard to wave away the news that special interest groups have increased their spending fivefold since the 2006 election, particularly given that fewer than half of them are disclosing their donors. And yes, that money is going pretty much where you'd expect: Democrats have been outspent 7:1 in recent weeks.
That's a lot of cash. Gamechanger cash, in fact. And it highlights one of the Democrats' odder difficulties going into the election. They've passed a lot of high-profile laws that were about restraining corporate behavior -- but those laws required long negotiations and compromises with the very interests they were attacking. The health-care reform bill, for instance, and financial reform. TARP, of course, was passed by George W. Bush, but most voters blame the Obama administration for it. The GOP has effectively attacked them for this, arguing that the Democrats have sold out to various corporations. At the same time, those same corporations hate those laws, small concessions to them notwithstanding, and are now pumping millions of dollars into the GOP's 2010 campaign.
So the Republicans are simultaneously able to stand against corporate interests and get funded by them, and in the post-Citizens United world, there are few limits, or even disclosure requirements, able to shine light on their play.
In case you’re wondering what this means at the local level, New Hampshire is soaked in cash. The US Chamber of Commerce alone has pumped in $1.3 million to buy its Magistrate. This chart shows the other hordes who have come knocking at New Hampshire’s door.
Even the policies of the Republicans play into our Romanas. Shall we cut the deficit and give tax breaks to everyone while increasing (miraculously through the Roman Gods) silver to fight the Gauls. Hail Caesar! Shall we deny a hard working Carthaginian whose lived in Rome all of his life and whose your parents came here to find work the right to be a Roman. Hail Caesar! Shall we fund the aqueducts and the Apian Way. Let it crumble! The Senate votes No, no, no!
With so much corporate money at play and with the masses feeding at the trough of Fox News, its not surprising Democrats are fleeing Rome. Aqueducts be damned, let bread and circus reign. Pulsat vulgus.
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