Russ Feingold: Never did I think, standing in the shadows of the cathedral here that I would be called a patron saint, but I'll take it. I mean, take me out of it, but they have acknowledged the role of corporate money, of Wall Street, and of Citizens United. I endorsed that movement immediately.

**GQ: It took us long enough. Three years since the subprime mortgage bubble and TARP, eighteen months since the Citizens United ruling. **

Russ Feingold: I voted against all that stuff. I kept thinking, how long are we going to buy the baloney of these corporate interest groups? I'm thrilled to see people standing up.

**GQ: Do you think you lost specifically because of Citizens United? Your opponent, Ron Johnson, had a lot of his own money, and a lot of money behind him. **

Russ Feingold: Oh, not even close. What happened was Barack Obama got elected with the economy in a horrible mess, Democrats had the governorship in Wisconsin, both Houses of the legislature in Congress, the presidency. And people basically said, "you're a good guy, but we're voting against all incumbents." It was as simple as that. We had plenty of money, I can't complain about that. People made up their minds. I knew the minute I voted for the health care bill that that was it.

**GQ: Seriously? It was that bill that did you in? **

Russ Feingold: I couldn't say for sure, but yeah. My sense was that if things were normal I was probably going to lose and I accepted that. I did everything I could, but when the economy is that bad, and when things are rough, it's just normal I guess. I don't consider it odd that people said, "let's just try something different."

**GQ: A lot of that had to do with our country's brief flirtation with the Tea Party. **

Russ Feingold: First of all, where did it come from? A week after Obama is sworn in I've got people coming to town meetings with, like, little tea bags and I'm saying, "Well, what's your complaint? That he didn't wear the right suit at the inaugural? What is the deal? He hasn't done anything." Most of my town hall meetings had always been love fests, and some of my guys used to complain: "I'd like for somebody to yell at you a bit." Sure enough, all of a sudden that's all it was. And my supporters that were in the room were becoming scared. First, they become intimidated to the point where they don't speak. Then they don't show up. So I'm possibly one of the only Americans who was in the room, maybe 150 times, with these Tea Party people, who was not a part of them. I was there. This was clearly a corporate-generated myth and these Tea Party people, many of whom were completely genuine, were taken for a ride. They were completely co-opted by the Republican party, totally bamboozled. Occupy Wall Street is a real movement. The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.

**GQ: You talk about it calmly in retrospect, but surely you must have been infuriated when you realized this "shill" would cost you your job. **

Russ Feingold: I hate to tell you this, but I was intrigued. Instead of being angry I was like, What is this? Why would people react this way, to this new president? Why would people choose this as a way to react to economic difficulty? I wanted to understand. So, no, I was not infuriated.