“ Think about it . One of America ’ s two political parties has been in cahoots with Europe ’ s most authoritarian government , to allow global corporations based in the United States to avoid paying ever more of what they owe the United States .”
This is not democracy , or “ rule by the people .” It ’ s oligarchy , aka “ rule by the rich .”
As President Jimmy Carter told me seven years ago when we were discussing the Supreme Court ’ s corrupt Citizens United decision :
“ It [ Citizens United ] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system . Now it ’ s just an oligarchy , with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president . … So now we ’ ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors , who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election ’ s over .”
Which brings us to the nub of the issue , the true crisis facing America today :
Once a democracy has transitioned into the middle stages of oligarchy — as it appears America has done since those five Republicans on the Supreme Court sold us out to the morbidly rich men who helped put them on the Court — is it possible to recover our democracy ?
Does it take left-wing billionaires to counter the right-wing billionaires ? Is that the solution ?
Sure , there are a few progressive billionaires who are willing to invest some of their money in promoting democracy rather than simply enhancing their own wealth : Illinois ’ Governor JB Pritzker , Michael Bloomberg , George Soros , and Tom Steyer are the best-known examples .
But they ’ re so massively outnumbered by right-wing billionaires whose main interest is in keeping their taxes and regulations low that their impact is small and diminishing daily . As noted earlier , 27 right-wing billionaires account for about half of all the money raised by the two main Republican super PACs this year . There has to be another way . America has fought this battle before and beat the morbidly rich back by with the power of an informed and energized electorate . President Franklin D . Roosevelt stood up to the oligarchs of his day , raising taxes all the way up to a top 91 % rate on the morbidly rich and calling them out :
“ They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs . We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob .
“ Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today . They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred .”
The morbidly rich of his day backed down , and FDR , Eisenhower , and LBJ all passed massive programs that improved the lives of average Americans : Social Security , Interstate Highway System , Medicare , Unemployment Insurance , Medicaid , Civil Rights , Voting Rights , Peace Corps , National School Lunch Program , Head Start and others .
But in 1976 ( Buckley v Valeo ), the Supreme Court opened the door to political bribery by declaring , for the first time in American history , that rich people could , on a limited basis , own politicians . In 1978 ( First National Bank v Bellotti ), they extended that privilege to corporations in a decision authored by Lewis Powell himself .
The tsunami of money from the rich and America ’ s largest corporations floated Reagan into office in 1980 , and Congress hasn ’ t passed a single major program to exclusively benefit America ’ s working people since .
In 2010 the Supreme Court ’ s five bought-off Republicans tripled-down on embracing billionaire money , their Citizens United decision expanding how extensively billionaires and corporations could own politicians and even allowing foreign money into American politics for the first time .
Can we overcome the damage the corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have done to our nation with their twin doctrines of corporate personhood and money-as-speech ?
It turns out that Supreme Court opinions aren ’ t carved in stone . Congress can change and regulate the Court ( as I detail extensively in The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America ), a big lift , but it can also simply pass laws that , in most cases , can reverse Supreme Court decisions .
It ’ s within the power of Congress — if it can overcome the corruption injected into it by Republicans on the Court — to undo much of the damage of Citizens United and the Court ’ s preceding decisions that set the stage for it .
Our best recent shot at doing it was the For The People Act , which would have reversed large parts of the Citizens United decision and publicly funded federal elections . But billionaires poured their cash into the coffers of Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin — and every single Republican in the Senate — and the legislation , which passed the House , died to a GOP filibuster in the Senate .
Democrats have two months before they lose control of the House of Representatives . It ’ s absolutely essential that they do everything possible to stop this cancer of big money and dark money in our political system .
If we fail in undoing the damage corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court have inflicted on this country , America will almost certainly devolve into a full-blown oligarchy like Fox ’ s beloved Hungary , and our democratic experiment will be suspended for another generation and perhaps irretrievably .
The stakes have never been higher . If ever there was a time to engage in politics , this is it .
52 x The Trial Lawyer