If you have finished the whole series and have read the book, you either already know the answer to your above questions, or you have extremely poor or very selective comprehension skills. You should know, by now, if you continued through the series and have read the book that Whitehouse criticized Democrats other than Powell for the use of super pacs and dark money. He is unhappy with the fact that some Democrats, desperate to counter the wins Republicans achieved by dishonest use of dark money, have too often resorted to trying to mimic the same tactics that seemed to be winning for the Republicans.
Besides that, attempting to excuse Republicans for using such tactics by claiming some Democrats have also used them is both hypocritical and immature. It is like a 12-year-old attempting to escape punishment for a misdeed by claiming others have gotten away with doing the same thing. How would you react to one of your children trying to talk their way out of punishment in that way? You have disgraced yourself by merely trying to use that tactic.
One might also consider the motives for doing what they do. It is not the Democrats who are proposing gargantuan tax cuts for wealthiest of the wealthy at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans. It is not the Democrats who are advocating massive cuts in social security and Medicare. It is not the Democrats who are denying the scientifically established facts and probable consequences of human caused climate change. It is not the Democrats who are doing their darndest to suppress voting in minority districts. It is not the Democrats who are opposing any and all regulations intended to protect the health and safety of consumers and workers. It is not the Democrats who oppose any attempts to mitigate and prevent health and even life-threatening environmental pollution.
Do you believe that businesses should have no obligation whatsoever to minimize environmental pollution or ensure safe and healthy working conditions for their employees? If you think that, you are an unconscionable, immoral idiot! And if you think that is not one of the main aims of "The Scheme" that Whitehouse has meticulously documented in his book, you have not understood the book nor the compelling evidence supporting it.
Some examples: From Chapter 7 of the book page 65:
THE FRONT GROUP ARCHIPELAGO DESIGNED TO CAPTURE THE Court for dark money donors did not spring into existenceo out of thin air. It had a history. A bad one. Years ago, the tobacco industry set up front groups and "astroturf" organizations as the health dangers of smoking became more apparent. These groups did a lot of lying. By the 1960s, legal pressure on the tobacco companies culminated in a federal court determination that the tobacco companies "engaged in and overarching scheme to defraud smokers and potential smokers for more than 50 years." This shut down the tobacco fraud operation.
Put more colloquially, and less legalistically, over the course of more than 50 years. Defendents lied, misinterpreted, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as "replacement smokers," about the devasting health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke, they suppressed research, they destroyed documents, they manipulated the use of nicotine so as to increase and perpetuate addiction, they distorted the truth about low tar and light cigarettes so as to discourage smokers from quitting, and they abused the legal system in order to achieve their goal--to make more money with little, if any, regard for individual illness and suffering, soaring health costs, or the integrity of the legal system.
These same groups responsible for the above have now been enlisted by fossil fuel companies to promote similar doubts and misinformation climate change and environmental pollution, as explained by the rest of the chapter. Now, they are actually getting government subsidies for their effort as described on page 69!
These covert campaigns don't just help fossil fuel groups feed at the public spigot, they do lasting, drive-by damage. The tobacco and climate-denial "think tanks" first questioned the research showing that tobacco causes cancer and that climate change is a real and urgent threat. Then they went after individual scientists who spoke out about these truths, including my friend Michael Mann, whose work produced the "hockey stick" that shows the sudden spike in global warming in the twentieth century. Then they attacked the entire concept of science and expertise itself.
This is where we are now. Trump is attacking the entire concept of science and expertise by his attitudes towards climate change inspired by massive donations from fossil fuel companies and industrialists like the Koch Brothers and Elon Musk, and by his replacement of highly qualified scientists in HHS, EPA, NOAA, CDC, National Weather Service and other scientific agencies by bureaucratic hacks whose only qualification is extreme loyalty to Trump.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
