3 minutes reading time
I spilled a perfectly good cup of filter coffee on my shirt this morning because a campaign jeep nearly ran me off the pavement. It had giant loudspeakers strapped to the roof, blasting promises of salvation to the tune of a terrible film song. The fellow inside tossing out pamphlets wasn't spending his own cash. Some corporate patron in an air-conditioned tower paid for the diesel, the driver, and the noise pollution.
When I finally reached my desk, still smelling of roasted beans and damp cotton, I read the latest brilliant solution cooked up by the armchair intellectuals of our great nation. Some think-tank genius, probably wearing a handloom kurta and thick-rimmed glasses, had published an op-ed demanding the state funding of elections. The logic, if you can call it that, is that if the government simply hands out campaign cash, our politicians will stop begging billionaires for alms and start working for the people.
It is truly a magnificent delusion.
The ultra-smart middle class loves this idea. They sit in their gated communities, imagining a pristine world where campaigns are run on taxpayer money, free from the dirty stain of corporate bribery. They honestly believe that if you give a pyromaniac an official allowance to buy matches, the house will suddenly stop burning down.
Let us look at the bare mechanics of this proposed miracle. If you remove private money, who decides how the state funds are distributed? The government. And who forms the government? The incumbents. The very people who already own the casino are now being asked to write the rules for handing out the chips.
Do you really think the national party cartels are going to hand a blank check to a fresh-faced independent candidate? Please. They will attach conditions. They will distribute funds based on "past performance" or "existing vote share." This means the big parties will just use your tax money to build an even larger steamroller to crush any opposition. It is the ultimate monopoly, subsidized by the very citizens it oppresses.
They want to use your hard-earned tax money to fund the billboards that block your view, the loudspeakers that ruin your sleep, and the pamphlets that clog your drains. Why should the billionaires have to foot the bill for the circus when the ringmasters can just force the audience to pay for their own brainwashing at gunpoint?
State funding of elections isn't a cure. It is just a way to nationalize corruption. It takes the legalized bribery we already have and removes the middleman, replacing him with the terrifying efficiency of the tax collector.
If you want to fix the mechanics, you don't pour more water into a leaky bucket. You replace the bucket. Until we shatter the First-Past-The-Post nightmare and implement proportional representation, throwing public money at these politicians is like handing out fancy restaurant menus to a starving crowd. It is nothing more than a grand, empty spectacle.