The Republican Master Plan

For years in the 2010’s I had two homemade signs in the back window of my car.

One said,

The Worst Problem We Face is Climate Change

The other,

Hey Citizens United — Corporations are Not People!

I didn’t really have a co-worker or friend base to talk these issues over with so I just put them out into the world. Over the years, the two comments I overheard strangers remarking when looking at these signs were, “I guess that person doesn’t have many problems” and “What’s Citizens United?”

As someone who generally cares about others and wants a society that works for all of us, not just the rich, I have followed politics, but not deeply.

During the Reagan years, when I was in High School, I wondered why anyone would believe that trickle down economics would work. However, I was not really aware of the WTO protests that happened in Seattle in 1999. Was I too busy focusing on my teaching career? Getting over a divorce and desperately dating? I’m not sure.

But when the Citizens United decision came down, I was shocked to my core. How could corporations be people? How could real people compete with corporate spending in politics? I didn’t understand how this decision came to be.

Since then, I have learned more. I have learned that I despise Milton Freedman. I have heard of the Powell Memo. I have wondered what the heck was up with the Federalist Society.

I had some of the details, but I never knew the true extent of the Master Plan.

That is until I listened to the Lever’s Master Plan podcast. It helped fill in the blanks, connect the dots, make sense of the baffling decisions along the way to the capitalist but not democratic country we are living in.

In their own words:

Master Plan, the award-winning investigative podcast series from The Lever, reveals how political ideologues and corporate forces have spent years orchestrating a system of legalized corruption in America. We are exposing their scheme.

Before listening to the podcast, I thought the Powell memo was a 2–3-page document. Not 34 pages lamenting loss of power and detailing how corporate America had to take back control after the heady days of the late 1960’s when people — women, gays, people of color, disabled people were gaining long fought wins.

I have told anyone I know, who is even mildly interested in politics to listen to this podcast. It’s not an easy listen. I’ve caught myself frequently needing to take deep breaths and sometimes yelling aloud expletives at the deviousness of the plan.

Over the 10 episodes, you will come to understand how ideological extremists and tycoons have orchestrated the system of legalized corruption in America we have now.

It traces,

the untold history from the 1970s to today, showing how a small group of operatives and oligarchs used vast wealth to manipulate key U.S. government policies for personal gain at the expense of everyone else — a plan that’s coming to fruition in the 2024 election.

The Podcast is full of movie references and humor that makes the bad news bearable. David Sirota, co-writer of the film Don’t Look Up and former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, is the narrator. He is also founder of The Lever, the investigative outlet (dedicated to holding power accountable) that created the podcast.

The tale starts in the 1970’s during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Most people have heard about Watergate, understandably so, but how many know of the ‘milk money’ scandal? I didn’t. Nor did I know how the backlash of trying to improve campaign finance laws would lead to the beginning of the master plan, of the decade’s long fight for total corporate control.

To summarize, in return for campaign contributions from the milk industry, Nixon changed his vote on dairy related legislation and got caught. In a supposed act of contrition, he publicly supported campaign finance reform while the White House planned for corporate forces to pressure congress into blocking it. But the ploy didn’t work and Nixon signed the first anti-corruption law in a half century.

However, unhappy with the direction of politics away from corporate control, ambitious and powerful men were already planning a counteroffensive, a master plan that would reshape American life as we know it. This plan that has lead to ungodly corporate spending on campaigns, dark money, a corrupt supreme court and as they say, ‘the system of legalized corruption’ we have today.

In later episodes I learned about:

• The seemingly moderate, deceptively mild-mannered Lewis Powell, who authored a memorandum laying out the future for corporate corruption — and then ascended to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• A Secret Meeting At Disney World of the “Powell Memo Task Force” part of a 3-day conference organized by the Chamber of Commerce that included a keynote address by future president Gerald Ford and where corporate executives discussed the country’s new campaign finance laws and how they might convince lawmakers to weaken them.
• How the Federalist society worked within the Bush White House to install their most loyal acolytes in lower-level federal courts, where they could issue conservative rulings and ideally be on a path to the Supreme Court.

So far, no one has told me they’ve listened to the podcast. For me, it was such a gift of understanding, that I want to share it with others. But like a gift, part of the pleasure comes from seeing the person eat the food you prepared, drink from the cute mug or wear the beautiful earrings you gave them. So I would love for you to listen to this podcast and tell me what you think.

Andrea

December 2024

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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