Trump, Putin, Hitler & Citizens United

The election of 1940 functioned as a referendum on US participation in WWII and the willingness of the US to defend western democracy as well as capitalism itself. FDR staked out a powerful anti-Hitler position. The rather farsighted measures he implemented to assure US survival prior to that fateful election include: 1) the Two Ocean Navy Act, the largest naval procurement act in US history which assured US naval dominance throughout the war and was signed into law on July 19, 1940; 2) the first peacetime conscription act which FDR signed into law on September 16, 1940;  and 3) agreeing in September of 1940 to trade 50 old navy destroyers to Great Britain (already at war and suffering daily bombing from the Luftwaffe)  in exchange for bases around the world. Hitler had no doubt that FDR was a foe to be reckoned with.

Consequently, Hitler possessed a strong incentive to try to influence the election of 1940 and history proves he did exactly that. William Shirer reported from Berlin at the time that the Nazis “ardently wished” that the GOP would triumph in the election of 1940 giving them time to overrun Europe before America could reverse the tide as they did in 1918. Due in part to recent books on the topic, we now know that Nazi operatives in the US solicited Hitler’s government to fund ads in the New York Times to persuade American voters to stay out of the European conflict that was at full boil after the invasion of Poland in September 1939. Such ads ultimately appeared in the Times during the GOP convention in June of 1940. Further, Nazi Germany funneled $160,000 ($2.7 million in 2016 dollars) to defeat pro-Roosevelt democrats and to stop Roosevelt himself at the Democratic convention through William Rhodes Davis. Fortunately, Hitler’s effort to defeat Roosevelt in the election of 1940 failed and the US once again destroyed the irrational autocrats of Europe.

This Nazi effort in 1940 counsels us today to exercise vigilance over the possible foreign influence over our elections and democracy. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court essentially gave all money–domestic or foreign–the green light to subvert American democracy in the Citizens United decision which today figures as a major Achilles heel in our national defense. Justice Kennedy basically invited any foreign autocrat to spend unlimited funds (through domestically domiciled corporations) to defeat our nation, which even Vladimir Putin admits cannot be defeated on the battlefield.

As a direct result of Justice Kennedy’s decision to throw his weight behind big money we now need to fear foreign threats as never before. Autocrats like Putin no doubt understand that Justice Kennedy’s ruling allows foreign dictators to use Citizens United to turn the Constitution into a suicide pact. They simply funnel their cash through a US corporation that does not coordinate with a candidate’s campaign and they can spend unlimited funds to install a friendly government in Washington DC. Justice Stevens predicted all of this in his dissent in Citizens United highlighting that the majority’s opinion in Citizens United opened the door to foreign controlled corporations.

“The overwhelming consensus among American political and national security leaders has held that Putin is a pariah who disregards human rights and has violated international norms in seeking to regain influence and territory in the former Soviet bloc. In 2012, one year before Trump brought his beauty pageant to Moscow, then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called Russia the United States’ top geopolitical threat — an assessment that has only gained currency since then.”