Public Employee Press

Editorials
Buying the future?

Failed casino operator, reality TV host and presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to make a lot of noise as the media gobble up his willingness to say almost anything for a headline.

But his noxious noise about Latinos, women and pretty much anyone who doesn't agree with him likely ensures his failure to garner support anywhere outside of the most extreme right-wing of the Republican Party.

But Trump's campaign is a sideshow, a distraction from the treacherous realities that face working- and middle-class families this election season.

A recent article in the New York Times pointed out that fewer than 400 families are responsible for almost half the money raised so far in the 2016 presidential campaign. And the biggest spenders are billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, aka the Koch brothers, who are expected to run through $900 million during this election cycle.

They are the owners of Koch Industries, the second largest privately run business in the United States with an estimated wealth of over $135 billion. Among their many holdings are oil refineries in Texas, Alaska, and Minnesota.

Here in New York, the Koch brothers are hailed in some circles for their large donations to cultural and charitable organizations, including Lincoln Center, the Museum of Natural History and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

But for years now, the anti-government Koch brothers have also spent millions to oppose the Voting Rights Act and environmental regulations while supporting right-to-work-for-less laws that hurt working families.

They have been able to buy politicians and elections since a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision, known as Citizens United, prohibited restrictions on political expenditures by corporations and made it easier for them to pump money into elections.

We will never be able to compete with their pocketbooks, but we can beat them at the voting booth with people power. In the words of former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: "If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy."