Trump v. Koch Brothers Is a Battle From Citizens United Hell

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

31 July 18

In which the Supreme Court provides lesson in how politics works in the world of real human beings.

s another day dawns, and El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago opens trading on the Nutball Exchange by tweet-storming the Koch Brothers, who can buy and sell him back two generations, we offer for your breakfast perusal a particularly apt passage from the dissent filed by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on January 21, 2010. Stevens pointedly commented that the majority in this case had absolutely no idea about how politics work in the real world of actual human beings.

If taken seriously, our colleagues’ assumption that the identity of a speaker has no relevance to the Government’s ability to regulate political speech would lead to some remarkable conclusions. Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by “Tokyo Rose” during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders. More pertinently, it would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans: To do otherwise, after all, could “ ‘enhance the relative voice’ ” of some ( i.e. , humans) over others ( i.e. , nonhumans). Ante, at (quoting Buckley , 424 U. S., at 49). Under the majority’s view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech.

I can’t imagine why he would have been concerned that, by their reasoning in this case, his colleagues in the majority would be opening the floodgates to foreign influence in our elections. It’s beyond my comprehension.