Reform: It Wasn’t Just Trump—It Was the System That Fed Him

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Reform: It Wasn’t Just Trump—It Was the System That Fed Him

Donald Trump didn’t emerge from a vacuum. He’s the product of systems—­corrupt, corroded, and increasingly anti-democratic, yes, but systems nonetheless—­that made his rise not just possible but inevitable. If we only focus on removing Trump without addressing the deep corruption of Citizens United and other events and systems that produced him, we’re simply setting the stage for the next authoritarian, who may be smarter, more disciplined, and ultimately more dangerous.

As a result, the deep question that our media almost never mentions is this: can democracy survive when it’s for sale?

Our campaign finance system has effectively legalized bribery through the Supreme Court’s disastrous all-Republican-appointee 5–4 Citizens United decision, which unleashed unlimited corporate and billionaire spending in lobbying and across our elections. As Justice John Paul Stevens warned in his dissent, the court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.”11 That prophecy came true with frightening speed as, post-2010, campaign spending exploded.

Billionaires have pumped fortunes into creating an infrastructure that supports authoritarianism, from think tanks that draft corporate-friendly policies, to well-paid media stars and outlets that spread lies and disinformation, to dark money groups that fund right-wing extremist candidates and initiatives.12 These oligarchs and their corporations aren’t investing out of patriotism (although that’s always their claim); they expect returns in the form of tax cuts, deregulation, and policies that increase their wealth and power while attacking dissent and gutting the power of government, workers, and unions.

The result is a political system that only responds to the GOP’s donor class and is openly hostile to the needs of ordinary Americans. As researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page demonstrated in their landmark study, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”13

I’ve been running a contest on my radio show for twenty-two years: the winner will identify any one piece of legislation since the 1980 Reagan Revolution that was written by Republicans, passed Congress with a majority of Republican votes, and was signed into law by a Republican president that primarily benefits average working people or the poor instead of corporations or the rich. Nobody has ever won the autographed book I’m offering as a prize.

This system of legalized corruption reaches far beyond mere campaign contributions (although it’s massive there). The revolving door between government and industry lets legislators and bureaucrats who write regulations “fail upward” to extremely well-paid jobs in the industries they once regulated. The growth of this Supreme Court–certified lobbying industry—which now spends over $3.7 billion annually—guarantees that corporate interests are dominant in every policy debate, while people advocating for the public interest are vastly outgunned.14

Media consolidation has compounded these problems. In 1983, fifty companies controlled most of America’s media outlets. Today, just six corporations—­several explicitly right-leaning—control 90 percent of what Americans see, hear, and read.15 This concentration hasn’t just kneecapped journalistic independence; it’s invented “news” designed to maximize profit rather than inform citizens. The result is that facts have become optional, conspiracy theories flourish, and outrage drives decisions made in media boardrooms and editorial production meetings.

Our judiciary, meant by the Framers as, in part, a check on the president’s political power, has instead become a partisan weapon. The billionaire- and corporate-funded Federalist Society has transformed a good number of our federal courts into bastions of pro-corporate, anti-worker jurisprudence. Right-wing judges have gutted voting rights, stripped us of labor protections, and shielded the morbidly rich from accountability, all while spouting bogus, pious claims that they’re merely “originalists” and simply mind-reading the Framers—who were as disparate a group as any you could find today—as they pretend to “interpret” the Constitution.16

When Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, he wasn’t just making routine appointments like most presidents before him who depended on the American Bar Association for guidance; instead, he and Mitch McConnell were completing a decades-long project to capture our nation’s judiciary on behalf of corporations, the rich, and the ideologues of the authoritarian right. These aren’t Trump’s judges, as they’ll long outlive him; they are, instead—since Trump stopped giving the ABA advance notice of nominations in 2017—the billionaire-funded Federalist Society’s judges, vetted and approved by the same dark money networks that have systematically dismantled so many of our democratic guardrails.17

Reforming this system isn’t about winning the next election; it’s about ending our drift toward fascism and returning to the democratic principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This work we’re undertaking requires undoing years of democratic backsliding with fundamental structural changes to revive our democracy. We must

· Overturn Citizens United through constitutional amendment or court reform (or both), ending the fiction that money equals speech and corporations have the same Constitutional rights as people.

· Implement public financing of elections to ensure candidates respond to voters, not donors. Seattle’s “democracy voucher” program offers a promising model, where each voter receives four vouchers worth twenty-five dollars each that they can donate to candidates who agree to lower contribution limits.18

· Break up media monopolies to restore the vibrant, diverse, and independent press that we once enjoyed and democracy requires. In particular, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which enabled massive media consolidation and let social media sites turn into unregulated propaganda mills, must be replaced with legislation that promotes local ownership, social media responsibility, and journalistic independence.19

· Require algorithmic transparency in social media by reforming or killing off Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act so people can see for themselves exactly how they’re being influenced and by whom.

· Reform the Supreme Court through term limits, enforceable ethical standards, and potentially expansion, restoring its role as a neutral arbiter rather than a partisan weapon.

· Strengthen anti-corruption laws to close the revolving door between government and industry while limiting the influence of big, dark money in lobbying.

These reforms aren’t partisan. They’re pro-democracy. And they’re essential if we want to prevent the next Trump, who will almost certainly be far more effective at dismantling our democratic institutions than Donald, JD, and Elon have been.

The choice before us isn’t between left and right but between democracy and authoritarianism. As the famous conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig recently warned, “America is at war with itself over our democracy” and facing “the most perilous moment for our democracy since the founding of the United States.”20

Democracy can’t survive when it’s for sale to the highest bidder. These reforms aren’t optional; they’re existential.