“In the Senate, I see every day how power works in the political sphere.…I see the smokescreens put up to distract people so they don’t notice the string-pulling.…What I see all around me these days is immense pressure deployed by the corporate sector in our government.…Their presence in American elections has exploded, indeed become dominant, as the campaign finance world has become virtually lawless.… The corporate propaganda machinery is of unprecedented size and sophistication.… Front groups and lobbying groups are often the ground troops when corporate powers don’t want to get their own hands dirty…. So-called philanthropic foundations are often the proxies for billionaire families…the thing that to me best explains what has gone wrong, is that our politics is no longer “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” © 2017 by Sheldon Whitehouse
Our Founders' Warning: “Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.” (Thomas Jefferson)