Our National Televised Sideshow

The Koch Brother's "Bait & Switch"

By Michael Bradley

Sometimes national events coalesce in a manner that enables other domestic forces to move their own political goals, and that is what has apparently happened this year as we endure an ongoing Republican Sideshow.

Anyone who is involved in or who closely follows national politics understands it is not hyperbole to say there is now a powerful interlocking of right-wing interests. These interests are playing a dynamic role in America during this election year, although many factors came together to create this situation.

America has not had such a partisan majority on the Supreme Court in many decades, perhaps extending back to the years leading up to the Civil War. Nor has it had a Congress filled with members willing to grind the nation to a standstill in order to fulfill agendas that only vaguely reflect the actual interests of their constituents, and certainly don’t represent the majority of Americans.

But there is a loose and interconnected network of fabulously wealthy, reactionary-minded Americans who not only applaud in the background, but seek to facilitate the results in the foreground. It is realistic to see their efforts behind the many months in which political news has been all about the GOP, thanks to the amazing Sideshow the Republicans continue to present.

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      Vote in our POLL !It has been a parade of the bizarre, following in the footsteps of that strange GOP groundbreaker, Sarah Palin, who set the stage by declarations like this one in an interview with Katie Couric. Explaining why Alaska’s ‘proximity’ to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, Palin said: "As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border."

But now we have the following words of wisdom from our national Sideshow, which is brought to us largely by the hidden hands of wealthy plutocrats who are enjoying the carnival more than the rest of us because it suits their interests, their desires and their long-term goals.

• Michelle Bachmann: “What we should be teaching are the problems and holes, and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not. “
• Rick Santorum: “Candidly, I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government.”
• Ron Paul: “Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had Capitalism.”
• Newt Gingrich: “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty…I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much.
• Herman Cain: “And I'm here to tell you, the reaction that I'm getting around the country, people are sick and tired of this word in Washington; compromise. This is why nothing ever gets done.”

None of this bizarre Sideshow, this political carnival, would take place if it weren’t for hidden money. Some if not all of these candidates likely don’t understand just where and how their financial support is provided, because thanks to the Supreme Court in its ruling on “electioneering communications” through the Citizens United case, corporate entities now have the rights of citizens. Those with vast fortunes and/or the ability to develop Super Pacs, can now pour money silently and virtually invisibly into a variety of campaigns. And today, as usual, it is the wealthy hard-right that has the greatest ability to exploit such an opportunity, adding it to their more traditional systems, foundations.

Enter the Koch Brothers

People like David and Charles Koch, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their various supported foundations – The Cato Institute, FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute – can find common ground with the John Olin Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and others in using the Supreme Court decision to put quiet muscle behind the current Sideshow. This means that the media, most especially the electronic media, will have something to focus upon constantly in talking about national politics, and that something will promote the Republican brand and dwarf the coverage of whatever the current Democratic Administration may be accomplishing.

It doesn’t matter that the coverage often reflects the strange and bizarre, because it keeps the brand in play while exposing the electorate to a serious discussion of far-right concepts that might otherwise be laughably dismissed.

Yet what will happen when its time to get serious? That’s also simple: by early 2012 the carnival will be over and the Sideshow will be dismissed in favor of a ‘serious’ Republican candidate, someone who will look all the more presidential by contrast to the Sideshow candidates that have been paraded unquestioningly in front of the nation by General Electric, which owns NBC, and Walt Disney Corp., which owns ABC, and by National Amusements, Sumner Redstone’s conglomerate that owns CBS and Viacom. And then of course there is Fox News and the Rupert Murdoch influence.

The residue of the Sideshow, with its bizarre viewpoints, will remain, seeping further into the conservative bedrock even as more ‘presidential’ voices come to the fore. But who are these ‘more serious’ Republican candidates?

Mitt Romney of course has already been the stalking horse for GOP seriousness. But flip/flopping Mitt, always seeking to find the firmest ground in the GOP political swamp, inadvertently also served the interests of the right-wing plutocrats; in so doing, Mitt likely missed his opportunity to become the Republican candidate facing Pres. Barack Obama.

Mitt has become a vision of the GOP’s middle ground, alienating the Koch brothers funded Tea Party. Mitt has also been the one who sustained the scrutiny, vitriol and prejudice of those who fear a Mormon president; he has taken all the hits. In so doing he’s served well the goals of people he may or may not even know, but he will nonetheless be dispensable.

The "Switch"

But the GOP has another candidate, one whose impeccable resume, solid stance and reasonable voice differentiates him from all the others; he has been largely kept behind the curtain during the Sideshow’s public run.

“I was criticized at some level within the Republican Party by those who say government should not be in the economic development business at all. My response is that the only country I know that doesn't have an economic development plan is Papa New Guinea,” Jon Huntsman, Jr., recently said.

He is the hidden dark horse that the promoters behind the Sideshow have wanted to see ignored, held back. He is the man with the sterling reputation, the truly presidential ‘look’ and the calm, common sense rhetoric who has been conveniently ignored by the major media and its focus on the Sideshow.

Jon Huntsman has been steadily plowing the ground in New Hampshire, and it is very likely he will emerge victorious from that all important, early primary, after which the Sideshow will be forgotten and all the media attention will be on this serious, prestigious Republican candidate.

Such is the silent and hidden power of the GOP plutocracy as they move toward their dream of a fully realized oligarchy in the U.S., and they have been helped immeasurably by the Supreme Court’s decision to grant corporations citizen status, allowing money to flow unobstructed behind the scenes, coloring American politics red.

Mike Bradley is a longtime newspaper editor and publisher who lives in Bourne and publishes The Bradley Report.
He is a former publisher of the MPG Comminications South Group of five newspapers, the Marion Sentinel, the Mattapoisett Sentinel, the Wareham Courier, the Bourne Courier and the Sandwich Village Broadsider.