Did you know that millionaire candidates can fund their own campaigns with unlimited amounts of their own money? Many know Michael Bloomberg self-funded more than a billion dollars for his run in the Presidential election in 2020. But some may not know that every election cycle millionaire elites spend tens of millions of dollars trying to buy their way into the House and Senate.
One Corporate Monopoly to Rule Them All
Both Republican and Democratic politicians are controlled by the corporate monopoly through corporate donations, Super PACs, and personal funding dollars. This means that we’ll have to work extra hard at the People’s Party to support community organizers and candidates who can run against the corporate machine and win.
“Progressive” Buys Win in Florida
In a recent special election in Florida’s 20th district, self-proclaimed “progressive” Democrat and Healthcare industry CEO, Sheila Cherfilus-Mccormick, spent a whopping $3.7 million on her own race and only raised less than $22,000 in small-dollar contributions. Even if candidates like Sheila Cherfilus-Mccormick refuse to take corporate dollars, many of these candidates hold high directorships in larger corporations and own large investment portfolios.
Like a third of Congressional candidates, Cherfilus-Mccormick refused to publish state-required public financial disclosures. The joke’s on voters as millionaire candidates can skip out on ethically reporting any possible conflicts of interests and pay only minimal fines to state authorities.
Despite her self-funding and refusal to disclose, Cherfilus-Mccormick was touted as a “progressive” by endorsing organizations like Brand New Congress. So many of the once “progressive” organizations and representatives that touted robust reforms under the Trump administration have shifted the goalposts to align with the neo-liberal center under the Democratic Party majority and uphold Biden’s toothless policies.
Corporate party influence runs deep and it’s clear that we can’t rely on any Democratic-party aligned representatives, or organizations, to make substantive change. That’s why we all need to come together to form a major new populist party, free of corporate influence.
Let’s Build a People’s Party Together
Voters deserve a truly populist party that will uphold the mandates to end corruption, seat TRUE representatives (not more status-quo millionaire politicians), and FINALLY do real work to pass legislation that will set the bar for the standard of living such as single-payer national healthcare, tuition-free college, housing as a human right, a federal jobs guarantee, a living wage and more! Let’s build a true party of the People. Can you contribute $5 today to help us build in states across the country and start 2022 off strong?
Yours for the revolution,
Zeynab Day
Executive Director
People’s Party
CARTOON CREDIT: Mark Taylor, mark@thecommonercall.org