In 1976, the SCOTUS ruled in Buckley v. Valeo that political campaign spending limits are unconstitutional.
In 1978, SCOTUS Chief Justice Lewis Powell penned the First National Bank of Boston vs. Bellotti decision that states corporations are "persons", money is "speech", and corporate political bribery--what used to be illegal--was now to be considered an "expression of [corporate] free speech".
In 2014, the McCutcheon v. FEC case further solidified the damage by determining unconstitutional any limits on individual contributions to federal candidate committees and national parties over a two-year period.
A cadre of wealthy elites controlling the levers of government is called "oligarchy", something none other than former president Jimmy Carter believes we have officially become, as he stated on the progressive talk radio show The Thom Hartmann Program nearly a decade ago.
"Now it's [our system] just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president," explained the president who served from 1977-1981. He continued:
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.
Thom Hartmann wrote earlier this month:
We just watched the final fulfillment of a 50-year plan. It was a plan to turn America over to the richest men and the largest corporations. It was a plan to replace democracy with oligarchy. A large handful of America's richest people invested billions in this plan, and its tax breaks and fossil fuel subsidies have made them trillions. More will soon come to them.
The 2020 presidential election was the most expensive in US history-- $14.4 billion.
Until now.
The 2024 election saw a whopping $4.5 billion in outside spending, half of which came from "dark money" donors not required to disclose their identities the SCOTUS says are just exercising their "free speech".
So, naturally, with whom is the slum-lord former host of Celebrity Apprentice just re-hired for his old job surrounding himself and appointing to cabinet positions? Wealthy donors, business executives, and a few Fox so-called "news" personalities.
Thom Hartmann further explained:
We'll soon again have a billionaire president-- helped to power by the richest billionaire on the planet [Elon Musk]-- with his election campaign funded in large part by at least $2 billion in direct, reported donations from roughly 150 billionaire families.
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