Introduction: privilege resurgent -- This is not what democracy looks like -- The $10 billion election: what it looks like when billionaires start spending -- The architects of dollarocracy: Lewis Powell, John Roberts, and the robber baron court -- The bull market: political advertising -- Media corporations: where the bucks stop -- The rise and fall of professional journalism -- Journalism exits, stage right -- Digital politics: there is no such thing as "too much information" -- The right to vote: beginning the new age of reform.
Summary
Fresh from the first $10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger--especially after the Citizens United ruling--and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation. With groundbreaking behind-the-scenes reporting and staggering new research on "the money power," "Dollarocracy" shows that this new power does not just endanger electoral politics; it is a challenge to the DNA of American democracy itself.
