By Christian Schneider
Thursday, June 11, 2026
The prescient final scene of the 1978 movie National
Lampoon’s Animal House informs viewers that “Bluto” Blutarsky (John
Belushi), the peeping Tom, acoustic
guitar enemy, and master of the food fight who proudly carried a grade
point average of “zero . . . point . . . zero,” would eventually go on to
become a U.S. senator. And yet Bluto’s academic rigor might surpass that of the
senators of 2026.
Last week, 39-year-old Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of
Georgia gave a speech in which he decried the amount of money in politics.
“American politics is coin-operated,” Ossoff
preached. “Money goes in, favors come out, and that’s why spectacular
wealth buys an ever-greater share of power over our national affairs, while the
mere citizen is treated with contempt.”
A commonsense voter might conclude that this is why it is
unwise to give government figures so much power over our lives. But forget it, Ossoff was
rolling. He then pivoted to a game of Progressive Mad Libs, in which
Democrats drop in random crowd-pleasing phrases:
“Citizens United was the most destructive court
decision in modern American history. It’s unleashed a flood of secret money,
corporate money, billionaire money on both sides.”
At this point, intentionally misunderstanding what the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2010 Citizens United decision is a
requirement for Democratic politicians, but Ossoff’s mendacity is especially
breathtaking.
In the Citizens United decision, the Court struck
down a federal law that allowed the government to regulate the content and
timing of political speech leading up to an election. In this specific case,
the law barred a film critical of Hillary Clinton from being released in the
months before the 2008 presidential election. In fact, the 2002 McCain-Feingold
campaign finance reform law had criminalized certain types of group
political speech outside the times set forth in the law.
There are plenty of reasons to be outraged by the current
president’s myriad corrupt schemes, including his acceptance of a $400 million
luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar’s royal family — a gift that could cost taxpayers
over $1 billion to retrofit to presidential security standards and that Donald
Trump has reportedly arranged to keep for personal use after leaving office.
But none of that has anything to do with Citizens
United, which governed campaign speech, not foreign gifts to sitting
presidents. Trump’s Qatari flying palace and his shady dealings with Middle
Eastern nationals pouring billions of dollars into the Trump family’s
cryptocurrency accounts have nothing to do with campaigns or political speech.
They are completely outside Citizens United’s remit.
Nevertheless, for liberals, the words “Citizens United”
have become shorthand for everything wrong with government, leading shameless
populists like Ossoff to cite the case even when it’s irrelevant. That’s
because even Democratic bigwigs don’t know what the Court actually ruled. Actor
and political operator George Clooney once called Citizens United “one of the worst laws
passed since I’ve been around,” evidently unaware it was a matter settled by
the judicial system, not Congress.
But imagine what America would look like if
McCain-Feingold were still fully the law of the land. Liberals, confident that
the government has our best interests at heart, rarely stop to consider what
happens when malign forces control the opposition. Yet go ask a group of
progressives whether they think Donald Trump should be in charge of regulating
the timing and content of their political speech leading up to federal
elections.
Over the past year, Democrats have offered a torrent of
public criticism over Trump’s attempts to punish comedians like Jimmy Kimmel
and Stephen Colbert for telling unflattering jokes. Campaign finance laws like
McCain-Feingold would give Trump the ability to put these comedians in jail if
they criticized him before an election. A Trump-controlled Federal Election
Commission could deem a late-night monologue or an unflattering network story
about the president to be an election communication meant to influence the
vote, with his obeisant Department of Justice taking the wheel of the
political-speech paddy wagon.
Late-night comedians and news anchors, after all, speak
on behalf of corporations, which, per Citizens United, enjoy the same
First Amendment rights as individuals. Yet liberals have spent decades mocking
the idea that “corporations are people.” Justice John Paul Stevens argued that
because corporations have “no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts,”
and “no desires,” their “personhood” often serves as a “useful legal fiction.”
But corporations use their First Amendment rights to
affect politics quite frequently. Back in the peak-woke era of 2021, Major
League Baseball — a corporation — chose to move its All-Star game out of Atlanta to protest a bill in the
Georgia legislature that tightened some voting rules that had been loosened
during the pandemic. In 2019, the National Basketball Association moved its
All-Star game out of Charlotte to protest a bill requiring people to use the
bathrooms intended for their sex. Not surprisingly, there were no criticisms
from progressives when these corporations used their First Amendment rights to
speak out on political issues.
(Around that same time, Gillette ran an ad during the Super Bowl that decried “toxic
masculinity,” and Citibank boasted that it had signed an amicus brief in the Masterpiece
Cakeshop case, in which Colorado baker Jack Phillips was harassed for
refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Phillips won at the Supreme Court,
and Citibank issued a press release stating that it was “very disappointed” with
the outcome.)
Needless to say, neither Jon Ossoff nor any other
Democrat has condemned these corporations for exercising their First Amendment
rights to advance their political activism. Ossoff also seems to have forgotten
to criticize the $38.1 million in independent expenditures made in his
behalf to help him win his last Senate election. (For progressives, labor
unions and other pro-government groups that pour money into politics don’t
count as “special interests.”)
The irony, of course, is that Citizens United is
one of the few legal bulwarks protecting Americans — including Ossoff’s
preferred comedians, journalists, and activist corporations — from a government
that might prefer they stay quiet. Yet Ossoff rails against the decision even
as his own party has benefited enormously from the independent spending it
enabled, and while the very corporate speech he theatrically disdains has
consistently advanced progressive causes. Ossoff is clearly positioning himself
as a presidential candidate in 2028, presumably believing he can finance a
national campaign with hugs.
Denying either citizens or collective groups of citizens
the ability to engage in political speech is stealing from them their most
basic right to engage in civic life. It’s a lesson even Senator Blutarsky could
understand.
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