My face when I read Luke Wachob’s absurd op-ed in the Washington Post.

In the era of Trump, I feel like I’ve become fairly jaded to surprising news. Rarely does a headline make me genuinely shocked, angry, or upset anymore.

However, the other day I read a headline in the Washington Post’s opinion section that sent my blood pressure skyrocketing before I could google the author and figure out what opaquely funded, big-money think-tank bankrolled this propaganda piece.

The headline read, “Danica Roem’s win proves it: We don’t need to restrict campaign contributions.”

Before I delve into a rant about the absurdity of this article and attack the credibility of the person who wrote it, I feel obliged to provide a bit of proper context. As a young trans woman who works in local electoral politics, it would be an understatement to say that I idolize Danica Roem.

Her campaign to represent Virginia’s 13th district in their House of Delegates was everything I fantasize about when I wonder how someone like me could ever win an election — let alone in a district that had been represented by a bitter bigot for decades.

As someone who has also seen firsthand the effect that massive, unregulated campaign contributions and third party spending have on a local level, it would also be an understatement to say that I support campaign finance reform.

Make no mistake, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC to afford corporations the free speech protections that come with personhood and treat money as speech was a tragedy for our democracy.

With little meaningful transparency, accountability, or limits to the funding of political campaigns, we have allowed our public institutions to rot to the core and slid further into oligarchy. Which is why I was so shocked to see someone making the case that somehow, Danica Roem’s victory in Virginia shows that this broken system is working.

The author of the op-ed, Luke Wachob, works for a conveniently renamed, opaquely funded nonprofit that is part of a larger network of right-wing think tanks and opposes several bipartisan campaign finance reform efforts in Congress.

Wachob’s short-sighted argument goes something like this: conventional wisdom suggests that money in politics rigs the game for established, corporate interests. This is wrong because, as we see in the case of Roem’s win, a lack of campaign finance regulations can enable unique candidates to nationalize local races and vastly out raise their opponents.

While it is true that Roem had the support of some deep-pocketed LGBTQ activists and benefitted from an army of door-knockers and phone-bankers, her victory is the exception that proves the rule.

The ideal way to increase civic engagement, and elect a government that represents its constituents isn’t by relying on a few large donors to flip districts, it’s passing campaign finance regulations that give grassroots candidates a boost by matching their small donations and lowering the barriers to entry to run for office.

We have steadily de-regulated campaigns for public office over the past several decades, and the results speak for themselves: stagnating median wages, increased corporate welfare, and elected officials that represent their donors instead of their constituents.

By cherry-picking a candidate like Roem who appeals to liberals and raised a lot of money, Wachob is trying to pitch the specious notion that allowing unregulated money in politics somehow improves opportunities for progressive candidates. He knows his audience too, venturing out from his normal platforms of the Federalist and the Washington Examiner

Not only is Wachob doing exactly what he is paid to do, he is attempting to co-op the powerful narrative of a grassroots candidate who lived and worked in her district for years before running for office in the process. This, in my opinion, is what makes his article so pathetic.

Danica Roem’s election proves that this country is capable of coming together around grassroots candidates who represent the best of our values to unseat hateful incumbents who give us a bad name. Danica Roem’s election proves that after decades of hard-fought battles, the LGBTQ community finally carries a fraction of the political influence we’ll need to achieve true equality.

Roem’s election does not prove that we don’t need to restrict campaign contributions. It did, however, prove that if Democrats run charismatic, intelligent, dedicated, candidates who can energize a national coalition and use their platform to highlight local policy issues, we might stand a chance against incumbent Republicans.

Luke Wachob should be ashamed of himself for appropriating Roem’s hard-earned victory to promote the Koch brothers’ agenda, and the Washington Post should hold itself to its slogan that “democracy dies in darkness” by shedding light on the original funding sources of the op-eds it publishes.