Bernie Sanders Exposes How The Koch Primary Is Undermining American Democracy

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) isn’t letting the Koch secret meeting go by unnoticed. In a statement, Sanders connected the dots between Citizens United and the Koch brothers primary that several potential repugican candidates are taking part in this weekend.

Senator Sanders said, “Americans used to think Iowa and New Hampshire held the first caucus and primary in the nation every four years. Not anymore. Now the ‘Koch brothers primary’ goes first to determine who wins the blessing and financial backing of the billionaire class. This is truly sad and shows us how far Citizens United has gone to undermine American democracy.”

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Scott Walker (r-WI) are all speaking a secret Koch conference this weekend to make their pitch for the millions of billionaire dollars that will required to fuel their 2016 repugican presidential campaigns. The connection between the Koch agenda and governing became obvious when Mitch McConnell cut off debate on the Keystone XL pipeline so that repugican senators could get to the Koch meeting.

Campaign finance is a very complicated issue, but what isn’t complicated is the direct connection between the wingnut billionaires campaign contributions and the way the repugicans run Congress. The outsized influence of billionaires on the right is bad for our electoral process, and there is a direct relationship between the Koch money and repugican policies. The Koch brothers have bought the repugican cabal.

The impact of their purchase is that it won’t be repugican voters who decide which candidate will represent them in 2016. The Koch brothers and a handful of billionaires will pick their nominee in secret conferences and meetings. Once the Kochs have a nominee, the choice for voters will be between the Koch agenda disguised as the repugican cabal and the Democratic candidate.

America is quickly moving towards a system of governance where voters choose between a candidate funded by oligarchs and the Democrats. This is a sad state of affairs for the country’s representative democracy, and the biggest reason Citizens United must be overturned.