There is always a back and forth in a healthy democracy. That’s how it should be, so long as elections are fair, and congress is truly representing its constituents and working in their best interest. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for a long time. The beginning of the shift to the toxic partisanship that we see today can be traced back to a dramatic increase in money and lobbyists being allowed to flow into our political spheres on all levels, even the small and local.

Along the way, our political system and the corporations that fund it have realized that a country divided and focused on relatively insignificant issues means that we, the voting public, are much less likely to pay attention to them hoarding all of the wealth for themselves and their cronies. So long as we are busy hating each other because we think we disagree on something (and we usually don’t), they can do as they please, and we don’t even notice.

Between 1949 and 1987, The Fairness Doctrine held media in the US accountable for accuracy and fairness. And it worked. Until it was allowed to lapse in ‘87, and then done away with completely in 2011. Why? Because the political system was learning that a media not regulated for fairness is the perfect tool to divide the public by convincing us that we are polarized on hot button issues, most of which they fabricate. Why is a polarized public good for politicians? Well…it’s only good for their pocket books- it drives donations and keeps us distracted from the real issues, and the fact that we actually agree on almost everything!

For almost 230 years, congress and the supreme court have danced back and forth, approving campaign finance regulation after regulation only to fail to enforce, or nullify them in short order. This gives us, the people, the impression that they’re always trying to make the playing field fair, while they’re really just protecting money’s power in the system.

In 2010 this back and forth in congress sunk to a new low with the passing of Citizens United, which gave birth to the “super PAC,” and an explosion in spending by 501(c) organizations, also referred to as “dark money,” due to the fact that campaigns do not have to disclose the source of these donations. This has paved the way for corporate lobbyists and billionaires to, in all practical purposes, buy elections, both for democrats and republicans alike. Wonder why your representatives in congress don’t vote for what the majority of their constituents want, or fight for what they promised when they were campaigning? It’s because they don’t want to lose funding from corporate and rich private donors- and you’re not even allowed to know who those donors really are.

In this way, we not only have the problem of one side often being financially handicapped, even though they may be the best candidate for the job, we also have a system in which the moneyed winners dictate who else runs the show. A president’s donors and campaign advisors become cabinet members in the Whitehouse, ambassadors, heavily funded senate candidates…etc. Corporate donors enjoy endless tax breaks and permission to pollute your backyard. At what point do we realize that there’s no point even watching the game?