Can Our Elections Be Made Even More Vapid? Some Are Banking On It.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown

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.

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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 turn-key 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?

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