ArcaMax

Many people feel that America's political campaigns have become vapid PR hustles with little connection to the real-life concerns of workaday people. Luckily, Adam Swart says he has the fix for such voter malaise: Just add a more professional level of vapidity to the process, he says, and you can reduce the need for having actual voters involved in campaigning.

Swart is a for-hire politico who's been hailed as a "visionary" and a "business rockstar" for launching an outfit he calls Crowds on Demand. His entrepreneurial concept is as simple as it is devious. Rather than the tedium of strategizing and organizing people into grassroots campaigns, just pay his COD team to stage a "movement" -- you know, like Hollywood would do. Indeed, Swart's operation is even headquartered in the center of Hollywood make-believe, Beverly Hills.

But let him sell his own product. He says he can create and staff a turnkey political front group for clients. "We provide everything," exclaims COD's website, "including the people, the materials, and even the ideas. ... We can help you plan the strategy and execute it."

How happy -- if you're a corporate schemer needing to win or defeat a proposal, but you don't have any grassroots base of support, Crowds On Demand promises to fake it for you. "We can set up protests, rallies, demonstrations -- and even create non-profit organizations to advance your agenda." It's basically an AstroTurf campaign operation, but with even less turf and more plastic.

If there is one thing the American majority would agree on today, it is that the last thing our political system needs is more PR trickery, issue fakery and political hustlers. How about we give a little more honesty a try?

BEZOS BOMBS IN HIS ROLE AS NEWSPAPER OWNER

In bold type, nearly every newspaper urges readers to "VOTE! TAKE A STAND!"

But in this year's truly momentous national election, we saw such giants of corporate media as The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today cower from taking their own stand on the presidency. Worse, the papers shamefully insisted that ducking their duty was itself a principled stand. Readers are smart enough to make their own decisions, they barked piously. Well, yes, but are you?

And who, exactly, are "you"? Take The Washington Post, a paper with a rich history of courageous journalism. But it wasn't the paper's knowledgeable reporters or editorial staffers who elected to be silent this year. Rather, one guy -- Jeff Bezos -- unilaterally chose to mute the paper's voice.

Bezos, the gabillionaire founder of Amazon, bought the Post a decade ago, promising not to impose his financial self-interest over the staff's journalistic integrity.

But that was then. Today, the notoriously weaselly Bezos is drawing some $13 billion from federal taxpayers, and he's eager to get more. So, realizing that the next president can determine who gets those piles of money, Bezos abruptly stopped his paper from endorsing Harris, putting his financial principle above journalistic principles. The Post would've exploded, however, if he had dictated a Trump endorsement, so Boss Bezos tried the backdoor maneuver of no endorsement.

The Post exploded anyway. Star reporters either resigned or howled at the crass sellout, while more than 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions. As one reader posted about the billionaire's self-serving manipulation: "If you don't have the guts to run a newspaper, don't buy one."

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

----

Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate, Inc.