This morning brought yet another expose by The New York Times of the insane amounts of money being funneled through conservative groups for anti-Democratic campaign advertisements. It's a powerful and important story, one that deservedly gets a lot of coverage here on DKos, but there's a serious problem with the narrative: the description by The Times and others of the funding as coming from "anonymous donors." They're not anonymous or donors. They're flat-out purchasers, hiding their identities from the public but not their chosen candidates. The difference is huge.
Anonymous donation is the hallmark of true charity, with philosophers including Maimonides ranking anonymous giving, to anonymous recipients, among the highest forms of philanthropy. The reason is clear: with anonymity on both sides, the recipient will not feel embarrassed in the face of his benefactor, and the donor is proven to be acting for others rather than her own aggrandizement. Anonymity is also a value protected by our First Amendment, since individuals are not truly able to express their views freely if doing so could put them into physical or economic jeopardy. Anonymity allows suggestion boxes, the pseudonyms used for The Federalist, and whistleblowing against corrupt government practices.
There is nothing resembling these ideals of anonymity in today's PAC-funded campaigns. The midterm elections are being bought on behalf of specific candidates through the huge corporate donations facilitated by the Supreme Court's activist Citizens United decision. The public has no way of knowing who is paying for the ads (and even investigative journalists can't always find out)...but you can be damned sure that the candidates being helped have been or will be told exactly to whom they are beholden if they win. There's no anonymity here, no humility, no putting-others-before-self. It's retail politics in the truest sense: corporations buying elected officials. Unfortunately, the public can't examine the receipt. Whether the "secret" donors are foreign or domestic companies, they are able to buy influence in a way that the vast majority of Americans can't, just like secret mystery buyers purchase fine art the rest of us can't afford at Sotheby's or Christie's.
At this point, there's not a lot we can do about the travesty of corporate influence; the ads have been bought, and so have the candidates. We can, though, strike back against the narrative, even from those who purport to criticize the current practices, when it includes the misleading term "anonymous donors." No such thing. Those who are paying for these ads are cowering behind the bulwark of the United States Chamber of Commerce or Rove's Crossroads GPS, metaphorically screaming insults at the principles of our democracy like John Cleese's French Knight to King Arthur while they wait to start claiming their purchases: our government.