Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t mean to oversell this column, but I have come up with the greatest idea to benefit our democracy since the late great Bob Saget allowed average Americans to vote on which video of a guy getting hit in the groin was the funniest.
It all started while I was thinking about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, something I do with increasing frequency and vitriol just lately.
Over the last year, it’s been reported that Justice Thomas has been receiving lavish gifts from wealthy “friends” for decades. Friends like billionaire real estate mogul Harlan Crow, a major conservative donor who has provided Thomas with a large number of gifts that Thomas repeatedly failed to disclose. To provide just a few examples, Crow has provided Thomas with flights on private jets, trips on his superyacht, free stays at private resorts, and even gifted him a $19,000 Bible formerly owned by Frederick Douglass, a man who, were he alive today, would likely beat Clarence Thomas to death with his bare hands and then deliver an inspiring speech about the experience.
Thomas would have us all believe that these gifts from Crow are just kindnesses from a dear old friend who has in no way been courting Thomas since he got onto the bench, and that the fact that Thomas consistently votes in ways that make Crow very happy is purely incidental.
Clarence Thomas is hardly unique, however. Ever since the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case (which Thomas cast the deciding vote on, which is surely a coincidence) it’s easier than ever for wealthy donors and corporations to put their thumbs on the scale in federal, state, and even local elections and coerce politicians into voting to support their interests.
The situation might seem hopeless for little folks like you and me, but all is not lost. You see, I have observed something about our jurists and elected officials, and it can be summarized in two words. The first word is “cheap.” The second word isn’t printable in a newspaper, but I’ll give you a hint: there’s a best little house of them in Texas.
Yes, our elected officials can be bought and paid for with a surprisingly small amount of money. To pick a random example, Texas Senator and world’s largest invertebrate Ted Cruz is an outspoken critic of gun control, voting regularly against any and all common sense gun law reforms. And over the course of his career, do you know how much money he’s received from the National Rifle Association?
$176,274.
To me, $176,274 is an inconceivable amount of money. In the grand scheme of things, however, it’s nothing. Do you know how much it costs to open a McDonald’s? I looked it up; it costs between $1.4 and $2.5 million, depending on the location and the size of the restaurant. If you wanted to open a McDonald’s, it would cost you, at minimum, eight times what it costs to pay Ted Cruz to fight gun reform. Suddenly, politicians seem pretty affordable!
With all of this in mind, I proudly present my handy guide to a new system I have invented that will allow average Americans to steer this country back on the right track.
I call this plan “Taxes II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold.”
Step One: Create some kind of tech corporation that makes a lot of big, vague promises about changing the way America does business. We will need an angel investor to pay the rent on the office building, but that will be the only major expense because this company will accomplish nothing of value except release the occasional statement talking about quantum computing and “the internet of things.”
Step Two: This vague tech corporation will then fund a political think tank. I propose the name “United Private Individuals Gifting Servants,” or UPIGS for short. It’s important to note that these first two steps merely serve to give this plan the thinnest veneer of legitimacy, just like a real corporate political donor.
Step Three: The sole purpose of UPIGS is to run a website that lets every American citizen vote on topics they would like to see our elected officials support. If a topic gets enough votes, UPIGS then creates a GoFundMe page.
Step Four: Everyone who wants to can donate as much as they want to that GoFundMe page. For example, if UPIGS creates a page asking for support for universal healthcare, anyone who supports universal healthcare can throw some money at the cause. If half of all Americans threw a single dollar in the pot, that would add up to about $166 million, enough money to guarantee a basic human right or build 118 McDonald’s.
Step Five: Once the GoFundMe ends, UPIGS will construct a giant wooden slop trough in the halls of Congress or within the Supreme Court, depending on the nature of the situation. The amount of money raised by the GoFundMe will be converted into small bills and dumped into the trough. A message will be etched onto the trough for the benefit of our elected officials, something like, “Vote to support universal health care! Eat up, UPIGS.”
Step Six: America enters a new golden age, democracy reigns supreme, and Clarence Thomas buys the Elephant Man’s skeleton or whatever.
