After the Supreme Court’s democracy-mugging decree that let corporations dump unlimited amounts of money into our elections, a guy named Larry sent me an email that perfectly summed it all up: “Big money has plucked our eagle!”
Thanks to the court’s freakish Citizens United ruling, the Koch brothers have already amassed an unprecedented $900-million electioneering fund for the 2016 cycle, making them the godfathers of tea party Republicanism.
Thus, such presidential wannabes as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker are shamelessly scurrying to kiss the Koch ring and pledge fealty to the brotherhood’s extremist plutocratic agenda.
But big money isn’t only corrupting candidates. It’s also greatly diminishing voter participation in what has become a made-for-TV farce.
The biggest chunk of cash spent by Koch, Inc. will go right into a mind-numbing squall of nauseatingly negative ads. They won’t explain why we should vote for so and so, but instead will trash the candidates the Koch syndicate opposes.
Worse, voters won’t even be informed that the Kochs paid for this garbage, since the Supreme Court says they can run secret campaigns, laundering their money through front groups to keep voters from knowing what special interests are really behind the attacks.
We saw the impact of secret, unrestricted corporate money in last year’s midterm elections. It produced a blight of negativity and a failure to address people’s real needs.
All that made for an upchuck factor that kept nearly two-thirds of the people from voting. Worst of all, it gave us a Congress owned by corporate elites.
The Koch machine spent about $300 million to get those results. This time, they’ll spend three times more.
Our most important fundraising appeal of the year
December is the most critical time of year for Truthout, because our nonprofit news is funded almost entirely by individual donations from readers like you. So before you navigate away, we ask that you take just a second to support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation.
This year is a little different. We are up against a far-reaching, wide-scale attack on press freedom coming from the Trump administration. 2025 was a year of frightening censorship, news industry corporate consolidation, and worsening financial conditions for progressive nonprofits across the board.
We can only resist Trump’s agenda by cultivating a strong base of support. The right-wing mediasphere is funded comfortably by billionaire owners and venture capitalist philanthropists. At Truthout, we have you.
We’ve set an ambitious target for our year-end campaign — a goal of $119,000 to keep up our fight against authoritarianism in 2026. Please take a meaningful action in this fight: make a one-time or monthly donation to Truthout before December 31. If you have the means, please dig deep.