A triumphant candidate who defeated incumbent Richard Lugar’s race for the Senate in Indiana said recently, “Bipartisanship will be when all Democrats agree with the Republicans.” Maybe he was joking—but it wasn’t amusing. When does the good of the country trump politicians’ self-interest? What happened to flexibility and compromise? What happened to representing the middle?

Much has been written about the hijacking of the middle by extremists; the hijacking of the system by vulgarities of special interests and obscene amounts of money; the disgust and disaffection of voters now desensitized to greed, corruption, and the playing of the system; and the politicians’ willingness to cut sometimes life-saving assists to the most vulnerable members of society.

The conflict between self-interest and altruism is very old, and the love of self and “mine” over country and all others runs very deep. But if the evidence shows that knowing when and where and how to cut is what yields the best results, then perhaps the extreme position of simply, reactively cutting—from the old, the young, and the poor—is not the answer to reducing the deficit.

In fact, the recent meeting of the G8 countries suggested that austerity itself may well not be the solution for stimulating the global economy; rather, that jobs, investment in innovation, education, and imagination for our smartest, betting on their contribution to society and the economy, is a better short-term investment in a long-term payoff.

Why are we shooting ourselves in the foot, so we cannot dance or walk? Why are we made uneasy by money in vulgar amounts, and by the shadowy world of who is spending it and to what end? We are uneasy because secrecy and cover-ups are incompatible with the intended transparency of representative government. So when a secret is revealed and a cover-up exposed (and they almost always are), the individuals responsible are severely punished. Former President Nixon was not forced to resign because of the misdeeds of Watergate but because of their cover-up. More recently, former Senator Edwards’ and former Governor Schwarzenegger’s careers and reputations were not destroyed by their “misbehaviors” (other public figures have survived worse) but by their attempts to hide them. Yet, powerful people continue to behave as if they are above the law and nobody is looking.

Now corporations are trying to get away with something similar. Emboldened by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, corporations are flooding political campaigns with anonymous contributions. They think they can influence elections outside the public view—and for a time they might, but negative public reactions to that attempt are only beginning. Occupy Wall Street was the first protest, with many more to come. Move to Amend is a serious challenge to the court’s flawed decision. And more and more people are remembering that the ascendancy of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolph Hitler in Germany was aided and abetted by corporations both foreign and domestic, leading to the disaster of World War II.

Corporations, beware the power and the wrath, of public opinion!