Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) connected the dots and explained that by blocking Tom Wheeler’s FCC nomination, Ted Cruz revealed himself to be a Koch fueled threat to democracy.
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Ed Schultz asked Sen. Sanders about Ted Cruz blocking the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be the chairman of the FCC.
Sanders answered,
What Sen. Cruz is talking about is an issue of huge huge consequence. At the end of the day, these guys have gotten Citizens United, and that means that the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and all of these guys can spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns often without any disclosure. They want to go further. What they want to do is they want to make sure that individuals will be able to spend as much money as they want on campaigns, giving money to individuals without any disclosure whatsoever.
So ultimately what they are about is creating a campaign finance system where billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money on campaigns and candidates electing the people that they want. That is not in my view a democracy. That is called oligarchy, where the nation is run by a handful of billionaires, and the democratic foundations of this country are totally subverted.
Now what Sen. Cruz is here talking about, he is really outraged by the fact that the FCC is supporting a rule, which says that if you are putting ads on television in the 50 largest media markets in this country that they’re going to put that information on their website, so that the American people know who is in fact, funding these ads. In my view we should see that, not only in 50 largest markets, but all over this country. Not only on television, but on radio.
The bottom line here is that what Sen. Cruz and his friends want is a campaign system where a few billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money without any disclosure at all. That is what they want, and have we’ve got not only to defeat that, but we need the alternative, which is overturning Citizens United, and which is moving forward toward the public funding of elections.
Sanders explained that the same people who are trying to create an oligarchy also want to cut entitlements. Sen. Sanders pointed out that Ted Cruz would be easy to defeat at the ballot box, but he and his right wing billionaire funded friends are having some success with dragging Democrats to the right on Social Security and Medicare.
It’s all connected. If you want to keep Social Security and Medicare, you need to demand the overturn of Citizens United. If you want a federal government that represents the many instead of the wealthy few, the country needs to move to publicly funded elections.
Ted Cruz is the most dangerous of the Republican Koch puppets because he is attacking the very heart of our representative democracy. Cruz has been a godsend for Democratic fundraising, but he is no joke. The Senator from Texas isn’t Sarah Palin, and by blocking the Wheeler nomination, Cruz demonstrated that he is more than willing to deliver control of the United States government over to a few conservative billionaires.
Dismissing Cruz would be a mistake. Sen. Sanders has it right. The American people must stand up and fight.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
