Dark Money

My wife and I watched this marvelous documentary at the Sundance Film Festival last night. It is extremely well done and it presents a compelling narrative about the role of "dark money" (political funds that cannot be traced to their source) in contemporary American politics. Flawed campaign financing laws lie at the heart of many of our difficult political problems. Kudos to Kimberly Reed and everyone involved in producing this gem.

I went into this movie expecting to be educated and entertained...in this age of political correctness and constant skepticism that we live in I'll watch anything that will help shed some light into this darkness. What I got was an unexpected nap...

AVOID!

I'm annoyed by partisan documentaries which aim to help their side's cause to the detriment of being enlightening or informative. This is definitely one of them. It (rightly) blames the disproportionate affect that money has on elections, and how it hinders the vote of the common people. I agree 100%.

Unfortunately it only looks at it from the perspective of the left, and attacks corporations. It makes the Koch brothers (and Adelson) boogeymen. It's extremely partisan. And that is about as informative as when the right blames everything on Soros and labor unions. Guess what? Rich politically active donors have a massive impact on elections, whether it is left or right. Organized single party interest groups provide substantial support to candidates, whether it is right (guns, pro-life, religion, etc) or left (atheists, minorities, LGBT, unions, pro-choice, etc.)

The topic of campaign finance reform is even more pressing in 2020 when Bloomburg has spent over $100 million dollars before even the first primary was held. Yet, the left won't criticize him for this because he's on their team. Yet I find it as distasteful as when Trump with his enormous wealth enters politics and drowns out the voices of regular people.

In summary, if you're looking for an honest and objective documentary that exposes the problems of campaign finance, you better keep looking. If you're looking at a shallow documentary that supports your side, which you won't learn much from, this is it!

I'll just get this out of the way: I believe that 'Citizens United' in effect suppresses the free speech of real citizens. So yeah, I am biased. Having said that, this is not a review of the subject but a review of the documentary itself. And, all things considered, "Dark Money" is honestly a pretty middle-of-the-road documentary.

Here's what I liked about it: I don't live in Montana so it was interesting to learn a little about the state's history and about their local politics. I also have to commend the filmmakers for taking on a decidedly non-sexy issue that is easy to overlook. The film also speaks to individuals with a range of political backgrounds and ideologies, although there's limited representation of the "dark money" interests themselves for obvious reasons (interest which, it must be said, are often not corporations directly but wealthy individuals with strong corporate leanings).

Here's what I didn't like: the film drags in many spots. The same ideas end of being restated multiple times. The numerous individuals and organizations involved can be difficult to keep track of. The documentary would have been stronger by focusing in on just a few individuals rather than trying to tell a universal story. The film's term "dark money" also combines a number of related yet distinct concepts, such as: campaign finance, political action committees, disclosure, corporate influence, campaign coordination, and good old fashioned political corruption. Again I feel the film's argument would have been stronger if they have focused on a specific case instead making more nebulous, universal arguments.

Overall, I also just don't think this documentary will change anyone's opinion. Those who dislike "dark money" will like the film because it confirms what they already believe. Those who view "Citizens United" as a win for free speech, will dismiss this film as biased. And the depressing truth is that those citizens who can be swayed by random political mailers are never going to watch a rather boring documentary, no matter how important the subject it covers is.

Given the polarized nature of our nation at the moment, maybe the sad truth is that it's just too much to expect any documentary to change anyone's mind. Still, I can't help but feel a more deft documentary on the subject of "dark money" could have, at the very least, gotten a few more people thinking about these issues and what they mean for our democracy.

Even Open Secrets shows less than 10% of "Dark Money" is corporate. More of it is from unions and the MOST is from foundations and supposed charities that are actually highly political. This is lousy reporting leaving out 90% of a phenomena because the data show the large majority of corporate money goes to Democrats.