And both political parties have morphed into giant national fund-raising machines. The Democratic National Committee, like its Republican counterpart, is designed mainly to suck up big money.
So where can Hillary look for the countervailing power she'll need to get the progressive changes she says she wants?
The most promising source of a new countervailing power in America was revealed in Bernie Sanders's primary campaign: millions of citizens determined to reclaim American democracy and the economy from big money. (Donald Trump's faux populism tapped into similar sentiments, but, tragically, has channeled them into bigotry and scapegoating.)
That movement lives on. Organizers from the Sanders campaign have already launched Brand New Congress, an ambitious effort to run at least 400 progressive candidates for Congress in 2018, financed by crowd-sourced small donations and led by a nationwide network of volunteers. Sanders himself recently announced the formation of "Our Revolution," to support progressive candidates up and down the ticket.
Hillary Clinton has been relying on big money to finance her presidential campaign, but she's always been a pragmatist about governing. "A president has to deal in reality," she said last January in response to Sanders. "I am not interested in ideas that sound good on paper but will never make it in real life."
The pragmatist in her must know that the only way her ideas will make it in real life is if the public is organized and mobilized behind them.
Which means that once she enters the Oval Office, she'll need the countervailing power of a progressive movement -- ironically, much like the one her primary opponent championed.
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