Tag: Kenneth Vinther

4,702 words

Part 4 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

And even if all financial incentives were totally eradicated from politics, this would not — and could not — exclude non-monetary forms of lobbying and influence, where private entities influence politicians in ways that do not involve any form of financial compensation. In the words of Rep. Maggie Wood Hassan, “When you are in the legislature, it can be hard to distinguish the loud from the many.” The distant nature of political representation ensures that even the most well-meaning politician’s perspective can be biased and distorted by dozens of external influences. (more…)

Hunter Biden sells his own paintings for up to $500,000 apiece, and the buyers’ names are a closely-guarded secret.

4,075 words

Part 3 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 4 here)

Aside from campaign contributions, wealthy donors and special interest groups can also be gateways to extremely lucrative career opportunities after a politician’s time in office. These special interest groups often lace their campaign contributions with extremely tempting and lucrative private-sector opportunities such as book tours, speaking tours, and privileged consulting positions and careers at the apex of the corporate world, which have allowed many politicians to monetize their political careers and become extraordinarily wealthy. (more…)

AIPAC is one example of a lobby that has outsized influence over US elections.

3,709 words

Part 2 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

“The dollar votes more times than the man,” goes the century-old political proverb. Before voters enter the equation, political parties need donors to finance their campaign. This means that political parties will not necessarily adopt the preferences of voters, because “no party can afford to take up the median position that represents the views of the vast majority if investors disagree.” (more…)

3,530 words

Part 1 of 4

Under our constitution it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesmen. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. — Citizens United v. FEC (more…)

2,418 words

Part 9 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 6 Part 1 here)

In a representative “democracy,” “public opinion” is a fiction. The people have no voice. They are never consulted directly on policy matters, and they are not given any mechanism through which they can express their honest opinion. Instead, an illusion of public sentiment is artificially generated by a small minority of private actors controlling institutions with disproportionate power and influence that can circumvent organic social pressures and coerce people into conforming to their artificially-produced social norms. (more…)

On Election Day in 2020 the AFL-CIO, then led by Richard Trumka (pictured), issued a joint statement with the US Chamber of Commerce calling for “all votes to be counted,” signaling a little-noticed alliance against American populism between corporate America and the Left.

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Part 8 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here, Chapter 6 Part 2 here)

All of them portray themselves as defenders of democracy, but they’re attacking liberal democracy from the inside and using its concepts against it. That makes these people both new and potentially dangerous. – Alejandro Castrillón, Contemporary Far-Right Thinkers and the Future of Liberal Democracy (more…)

The National Guard imposes racial integration at gunpoint in Arkansas, 1957.

3,973 words

Part 7 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 1 here, Chapter 6 Part 1 here)

The other most recent example of the progressive top-down technocratic elite transformation of society is the LGBT agenda. As the LGBT scholar Gary Mucciaroni explains, “sexual politics” in America is “a narrative about a heterosexist majority that has used religion and ideology to maintain its cultural and legal privileges.” The literature of the LGBT movement has always self-consciously identified itself as an elite, minoritarian revolution against this heterosexual majority. (more…)

President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act into law, surrounded by his supporters.

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Part 6 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here, Chapter 5 Part 2 here)

When a term has become so universally sanctified as “democracy” is now, I begin to wonder whether it means anything, in meaning too many things. — T. S. Eliot (more…)

Karl Popper, one of the intellectuals who gave rise to the anti-populist conception of democracy that has prevailed in the West since the Second World War.

3,535 words

Part 5 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 4 Part 1 here, Chapter 5 Part 1 here)

Whereas liberal elites had always harbored a cynical and technocratic rejection of the fundamental premises of popular government, after the Second World War “the highly educated [also began] to deplore working-class movements for their bigotry, their refusal of modernity,” and their apparent instinctual tendency towards nationalism and authoritarian leaders. They became openly and dogmatically hostile towards all forms of “collectivism” and solidaristic political movements because they identified popular social organization as fundamentally incompatible with liberalism’s hallowed individual rights and liberties. Post-war elites embraced anti-fascism and anti-populism as two necessary tenets of contemporary liberalism. (more…)

Walter Lippmann, whose anti-democratic skepticism changed the course of American politics in the twentieth century.

3,142 words

Part 4 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 Part 2 here)

Politically, democracy means the sovereignty, not of the average man — who is a rather narrow, short-sighted, muddle-headed creature — but of a matured public opinion, a very different thing . . . In the forming of this opinion the sage has a million times the weight of the field hand. With modern facilities for mind influencing mind, democracy, at its best, substitutes the direction of the recognized moral and intellectual élite for the rule of the strong, the rich, or the privileged. — Edward Alsworth Ross, Changing America (1912) (more…)

The Founding Fathers were not what they are often seen as today.

6,140 words

Part 3 of 9 (Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here, Chapter 4 Part 1 here)

Of the things for which I summoned the people to assemble,
was there one I compassed not? . . .
This is how the people will best follow their leaders:
If they are neither unleashed nor restrained too much. — Solon, circa sixth century BC (more…)

3,552 words

Part 2 of 9 (Chapter 1 here)

In all countries the rights of the majority take care of themselves, but it is only in countries like England, enjoying constitutional liberty, and safe from the tyranny of a single despot, or of an unbridled democracy, that the rights of minorities are regarded. — Sir John A. MacDonald (more…)