Jason Bisnoff - Fake Politics: How Corporate and Government Groups Create and Maintain a Monopoly on Truth

To my wife and parents, family and friends, your continued support made me believe I could write a book. I am eternally grateful.

Copyright 2019 by Jason Bisnoff

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0547-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0548-7

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

P olitics is messy. Individual votes dont always have an impact, depending on the political leanings of your jurisdiction. There can be an out-of-touch nature to representation, as elected officials spend the majority of their time wooing donors and speaking with other politiciansin capitals or Washington, DCfar from the main streets and townspeople who put them in power and to whom they are beholden.

Politics is also the mechanism by which so much good can come and so many essentials of a dignified existence are met. The US Government grants billions in research money to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS on an annual basis. Federal aid is given to the most vulnerable citizens in the wake of a natural disaster and those who are vulnerable year-round in impoverished regions of the globe. Thousands of children with disease are treated on the government dime through the Childrens Health Insurance Program (more commonly known as CHIP) and there are thousands of children and elderly people who live in government subsidized housing.

With all that is at stake resulting from the seventeen trillion dollars in gross domestic product that is the United States government, manipulation of any means can be dangerous.

Grassroots movements represent the pinnacle of the democracy our founding fathers designed, that our citizens deserve, and that benevolent politicians work toward. From those who boycotted buses in Montgomery to those who marched in Selma, grassroots actions in Alabama were integral to the civil rights movement. From tea parties to demonstrations that led to the Boston Massacre, the grassroots actions of a few rebels in Boston helped spark a war that would give the United States its enduring independence. Far more polarizing events are undoubtedly valiant in their commitment to representative democracy. The Bernie Sanders campaign, in the 2016 Democratic primary for president, served as a prime example. Sanders only accepted small donations, amassing seven million individual contributions to his campaigns coffers at an average donation of $27 to give him the bankroll other candidates on both sides of the aisle often raise from major donors at swanky cocktail affairs in the beltway.

These grassroots movements are on unprecedented display in the time since Sanders conceded. In response to the election of Donald Trump, activists on both sides of the aisle (since Trump is uniquely disliked by sects of both Republicans and Democrats) have taken to fighting his agenda with grassroots tactics.

On the left, his fiercest opposition, organizations such as Swing Left, Indivisible, and Knock Every Door have looked to capitalize on an unpopular president and unprecedented engagement evidenced by the Womens March the day after his inauguration among other manifestations to push a fifty state, every district top-to-bottom approach to digging the Democratic party out of the historically deep hole it currently sits in. The results were at first promising with substantial gains to show for efforts in Virginia, New Jersey, and Alabama special elections. They later led to one of the most lopsided midterm defeats in American history in 2018.

Meanwhile, left of Trump and right of center, the defunct campaign of John Kasich has seemingly continued operations unfettered after conceding the Republican nomination to the eventual president.

Right of Trump, and virtually as right as possible, the Trump presidency and specifically figures contained within, including former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have emboldened neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups to ramp up their grassroots movements aimed directly opposite of progress. They have been encouraged out of the shadows of the discourse to be proud and heard in their distasteful beliefs. When the powerful attempt to co-opt and purchase the mobilization and tactics of the grassroots, or a movement altogether, its referred to as astroturfing.

AstroTurf is one of those terms, like Kleenex or ketchup, that has entered the lexicon as the name for a product while in fact having roots as a branded item. Used interchangeably with the name for what it actually is, artificial turf, it refers to short-pile synthetic turf. The prevalence of artificial turf, and the most well-known make, AstroTurf, on athletic fields nationwide, from MetLife Stadium to local high schools, continues to grow as a cheaper and more easily maintained replacement for natural turf or grass.

The original product was invented in 1965 by Donald Elbert, James Faria, and Robert Wright and patented under the original name ChemGrass. After its first major exposure at the Houston Astrodome in 1966, it was rebranded to AstroTurf. The technological advancement was a product of the massive agricultural corporation Monsanto. The company is politically polarizing and a major lobbyist along with being a multinational agricultural biotechnology and agrochemical company.

With grass, there is astroturf, a product made specifically to look and feel like real grass while not requiring the care and effort to maintain and sustain. With grassroots movements, there is astroturfing, the practice favored by those with a political agenda to falsify an organic movement by making their whims and preferences seem like common opinion and desire.

Astroturfing is not only a device used by political campaigns and parties: it is also used by major corporations and big business to push their interests. Very often, astroturfing in politics and in the private sector intersect much more than anyone may realize.

Whatever the cause, astroturfing remains a viable strategy for those in power to foster support that does not in fact exist in hopes of seeing through an agenda. Recently the Wall Street Journal uncovered some indicators that could point to ongoing use of the dishonest practice. Former Senators Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) had their identities stolen for comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in the lead up to a vote last year by the agency on removing net neutrality rules, according to the Washington Post. This led to a subsequent investigation into the comments by then-New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, finding that up to two million comments were forged. Among the fake identities usurped by whoever posted the comments were a man who had died of cancer and a thirteen-year-old, according to the Post story by Hamza Shaban. As of now that fight remains up in the air with some in Congress hoping to override the FCC through a resolution. That being said, the process by which net neutrality is set to be revoked has been tainted.