“The Claim that the Media is Rigging the Election–and Citizens United”

Ned Foley:

Now for the relevance of Citizens United: insofar as the attack on that decision rests on the premise that corporate-funded speech will distort the electoral process by persuading voters of its message, it seems the same sort of argument that Trump and Pence are making with respect to the media’s capacity to influence what voters think.  To be sure, there might be different types of arguments for attacking Citizens United–that corporate money, for some reason, should be off-limits in the process of persuading voters what to think.  But if one rejects the idea that CNN and the New York Times are capable of rigging the election because the messages they send to voters about the competing candidates, then presumably to be consistent one should equally reject the idea that Citizens United and other corporations are capable of improperly distorting the electoral process because of the messages these other corporations send to voters.

Conversely, defenders of Citizens United should be taking the lead in condemning the Trump-Pence claim that the media is currently rigging the election because of its messages about the candidates.  The First Amendment reasoning that underlies Citizens United rules out the Trump-Pence position on this issue.

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