Citizens United

I haven’t blogged at all about the Citizens United ruling because I literally cannot fathom people defending a law that bans groups of people who have banded together from uttering political speech. I mean, it’s mind boggling. If someone had come up to me a decade ago and said “Hey, we’re going to pass a law that outlaws political speech before an election,” I would laugh in their face and say “Oh really?” And then the damn thing passed! And it only recently was overturned by the Supreme Court! It blew my mind. Will Wilkinson seems similarly perplexed:

The anguished cries of left-leaning folk over the Citizens United ruling seem to me to be emanating from an alternate universe, so bizarre are they. This was a case about whether the state can suppress the distribution of an unflattering documentary about a powerful political candidate produced by a small group of private citizens. The crazy thing to me is that anyone ever thought that such a rule was not in blatant violation of the First Amendment. The extra-crazy thing is that four Supreme Court justices evidently think this kind of state censorship of political speech is hunky dory. I’m going to chalk up some of the freakout to this week’s spectacular pileup of disasters for progressives. Sorry guys. I know it’s been rough