There has been a strange (some would say suspicious) silence from the Maine media regarding rare candidates: candidates who, like Joey Brunelle for Portland City Council or Zak Ringelstein for U.S. Senate, are part of a growing breed of politicians who are willing to buck the influence of vastly wealthy corporations and political action committees.

Something amazing happened in 2016 that shocked the system of politics. It’s not the fact that a megalomaniac and war enabler became president. No, something actually unusual happened: Bernie Sanders ran for high political office without accepting PAC or corporate money. He did it solely with the help of small campaign contributions and provided a model that defied all expectations of political pundits.

If there has been one deterministic force in post-World War II U.S. politics, it has been the vast capital of corporations and PACs. Citizens United only punctuated a long history wherein U.S. politics has been ruled by moneyed interests.

James Madison, a key framer of the Constitution, was not, in fact, that fond of democracy beyond constrained participation. He originally envisioned society ruled by “a more capable set of men,” those who “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

However, Madison was a pre-capitalist (like Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith). His notion of better men encompassed “the benevolent philosopher” and “the enlightened statesman” – not corporations and investors. Barely a decade later, Madison observed that liberty was subverted by an “oligarchy founded on corruption.”

If we fear the influence of Russian oligarchs spending a nominal sum on our politics, should we not fear corporations spending infinitely more? Don’t the Maine media have a moral obligation to spend their currency of attention on candidates fighting the trend?

Jaigene Kang

Portland

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