Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics

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The never-trumped lies blatantly again (pps.195, 215-217, 260, 274-275, 279) when he regurgitates the left's lie of Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The FBI, themselves vehemently anti-Trump, found no evidence of Russian interference even after 4 years of desperately searching for it. But there again we must remember, the truth does not matter to the left. AMY GOODMAN: You talk about people coming forward and not coming forward. I wanted to turn to former Cambridge Analytica COO, the chief operating officer, Julian Wheatland, speaking on the podcast Recode Decode. Well, except maybe it does not uncover all that much - because reading it I found I already knew much of what it was telling me. The information is already out there about dodgy donations, about how the Brexit party avoided scrutiny in the way it solicited donations, how Cambridge Analytica used Facebook to mobilise people on false premises etc. etc. It was, in fact, a depressing litany of the constituent parts that create the new British democratic deficit.

Digital political parties take a populist message, mix it with a strong leader and the organisational techniques of the Internet age. There are few structures and everyone can participate. Or at least it looks as if they can. The Silicon Valley rhetoric of engagement and empowerment often masks the concentration of power at the top of digital party. Moore warns that our democracy is no longer working as it should. ‘There is a genuine crisis of representation,’ he says. ‘How does democracy actually work in this new era? Right now it’s not at all clear that we know.’ Sunderland was one of the first places to declare on referendum night. Over 60% voted to leave the European Union. It was a result that set the tone for a stunning political upset. Through the night, pollsters struggled to explain a vote that defied their predictive models. The next morning, markets nose-dived. The resignation of the prime minister, David Cameron, was only the third item on many news bulletins. The ensuing years of chaos laid bare the fault lines of modern Britain and have changed Europe forever.

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As politics becomes increasingly voracious of time and occupies more and more space on digital media, the scope for hidden influence through spending outside

AMY GOODMAN: Now, explain that, psychographic groupings, and especially for people who are not on Facebook, who don’t understand its enormous power and the intimate knowledge it has of people. Think of someone you’re talking to who’s never experienced Facebook. Explain what is there.Where corporate-funded think tanks once provided the ideas for a conservative revolution, now they often appears as one side in a ful-scale assault on an increasingly hyperbolic culture war.

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947 The genesis of my book took place somewhere less obvious: Seaburn metro station on the outskirts of Sunderland, on June 21, 2016. Two days before the UK voted to leave the European Union, my editor had sent me to report on what voters thought in Sunderland. It was a warm summer’s morning and there were only a handful of people on the open-air platform. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it looks like Cambridge Analytica was heading to a billion-dollar corporation. The Greens are leading the campaign to reform electoral funding laws because we believe corporate donations taint the democratic process – they allow big business to buy a level of access to politicians that ordinary people can’t afford. History of the Democracy for Sale project BRITTANY KAISER: Yeah, Leave.EU, that panel that I was on, which has now become quite an infamous video, was their launch event to launch the campaign. And Cambridge Analytica was in deep negotiations, through introduction of Steve Bannon, with both of the Brexit campaigns. I was told, actually, originally we pitched remain, and the remain side said that they did not need to spend money on expensive political consultants, because they were going to win anyway. And that’s actually what I also truly believed, and so did they.If you're concerned about the health of British democracy, read this book – it is thorough, gripping and vitally important' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland. Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through a shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond.