What Would America Look Like Without Citizens United?

Imagine an America where elections cost less, voters mattered more, and public policy followed an honest path…

It’s beyond time for some good-old-fashioned truth telling. There’s a singular cancer at the core of our democracy and it shows up in dozens of ways that don’t seem related to most Americans. It’s tearing our country apart, paralyzed our government, and has gutted our middle class.

That cancer is big and dark money in politics.

The story of how we got here is fascinating and I’ll get into it in a minute, but suffice it to say that fraud, lies, and corruption are at the core of every aspect of it.

Its main cause in the present moment is one of the most corrupt Supreme Court decision in history, where 5 on-the-take Republicans on the Court ruled in 2010 (Citizens United) that corporations are persons and money is the same thing as free speech. The wreckage of this decision is all around us.

Without Citizens United we’d have a national healthcare system like literally every other developed country in the world.

We don’t because the for-profit health insurance industry (which doesn’t even exist at this scale anywhere else on Earth) extracts hundreds of billions in profits from us every year and uses Citizens United’s legalization of bribery to pay off legislators to maintain the status quo. Big Pharma and Big Hospital are also in on the game, and massive New York hedge funds are buying up physician practices as fast as they can nationwide, knowing that people will pay almost anything to regain their health or postpone their death.

Without Citizens United we’d have high-quality public schools in every community in America.

Instead, children who live in poorer parts of America regularly score up to four full years behind children from wealthy districts. Teacher pay has been functionally frozen for decades when you consider inflation; they make on average 26% less than people with comparable degrees. Charter Schools drain money from public schools, making the situation far worse for those families who can’t get their kids into private education. National reading and math scores have fallen to their lowest levels in decades, with only about 28% of 8th graders proficient in math. All approved by politicians “incentivized” by “campaign contributions” to shovel more money into the coffers of a for-profit education industry that wants to take over all of America’s schools after first bankrupting them.

Without Citizens United we’d have free or affordable college nationwide.

We’re the only developed country in the world with widespread student debt; about half of the OECD nations even pay a stipend to college students to help with books and rent (like we did with the G.I. Bill) and college is free or affordable in every other country. But rightwing ideologue billionaires object to public education, particularly if paid for with their tax dollars, so we have almost $2 trillion in student debt. When Joe Biden tried to do something about the situation, the big banks who profit from this bizarre situation funded Republicans who took the case before the 6 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, who shot down his efforts.

Without Citizens United we’d have universal suffrage, making it easy for everybody to vote.

The billionaires who control the GOP know that if everybody in America could easily vote like in every other developed democracy in the world their Republican toadies would lose control of both the federal government and many states, so they make it hard to vote. In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, and Italy, there’s no need even to register to vote, because the country knows you’re a citizen because of your enrollment in the national healthcare system or via similar systems. We could easily do the same here via Social Security numbers, which are now typically assigned at birth.

Without Citizens United we wouldn’t have to pay somebody or buy software to do our taxes.

In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Chile, and Japan (with pilot programs in a dozen other countries) the government does the tax calculation and sends you a report on what you owe or what refund you’re getting. If you think it’s wrong, there’s an easy dispute process. They even break down where your tax dollars went by categories like health, military, roads, education, etc. in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway. Here, the multi-billion-dollar tax preparation industry gives millions every year to politicians to prevent anything like this, and Trump even killed off Biden’s “free tax preparation” program that was a start in that direction.

Without Citizens United your electric bill would be substantially lower.

Politicians who receive millions every year from for-profit utilities work to keep prices (and thus profits) high, and Republicans who’re heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry and its billionaires actively work to kill off solar and wind projects which are now the cheapest forms of electricity generation. Citizens United allowed Trump to take hundreds of millions from them and recently paid a French company a billion dollars to cancel a wind farm off the east coast.

Without Citizens United you’d have a decent, living wage.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 and has been frozen there for a generation because Citizens United lets big business pay off politicians to not change it. If the 1968 minimum wage were simply indexed to inflation it would be $15 today. If it were indexed to worker productivity it would be $25, moving large portions of America into the middle class.

Without Citizens United you’d be able to easily join a union.

Unionization is what built America’s middle class between 1933 and 1981, and Reagan’s GOP destruction of our unions has taken the rate of membership from around a third of us in 1981 to around 6% of the private workforce today (and Trump is stripping union rights from federal workers, as some Red states are also doing). Big companies that fight unions, and the billion-dollar union-busting industry make sure Republicans are well paid to fight things like Card Check, and Republicans on the Supreme Court have amplified a 45-year war against unions.

Without Citizens United, we’d have serious federal climate legislation.

Corporate and fossil‑fuel money has been a central roadblock to decarbonization, and Citizens United made it easier to deploy that money at scale. Fossil fuel–aligned actors now spend on the order of 500 million dollars per year on climate‑related “lobbying.” Without that, we’d have had a federal clean‑energy standard and stronger methane and carbon rules years ago — and fewer deliberate rollbacks — if fossil fuel interests couldn’t so easily flood elections and politicians with money.

Without Citizens United, we’d have more aggressive gun regulation and our children wouldn’t be traumatized by regular active shooter drills.

The NRA and gun‑industry money had clout before 2010, but post‑Citizens United super PACs and dark‑money vehicles exploded their ability to threaten and reward federal and state lawmakers. Post‑2010, pro‑gun outside groups have consistently outspent gun‑safety groups in key federal races, with much of that spending routed through 501(c)(4) and super PAC structures enabled or normalized by Citizens United.

Without Citizens United, you’d pay less for virtually everything.

The “monopoly tax” we pay because Reagan stopped enforcing our antitrust laws in 1983 is estimated to be around $5,000 per family per year. Downtowns and suburban malls that were filled with local, family-owned businesses before the Reagan Revolution are now nothing but chains and franchises. Cell phone service that costs $15 a month in France or $12 a month in Australia bills out at an average of $61.85 per month in the United States. High-speed broadband that’s a bit over $31 a month in France or $36 in Germany (with higher speeds and better reliability than almost anywhere in the United States) averages nearly $70 per month in the US. Similar metrics are found with pharmaceuticals, airfares, and medical costs, among dozens of other product and service categories, all because monopolies destroy competition and thus raise prices (and profits).

Without Citizens United, we’d have fewer voter‑suppression and gerrymandering schemes.

Election‑law groups document massive post‑2010 flows from billionaire‑aligned networks into state‑level races (secretary of state, legislatures, courts) explicitly aimed at shaping election rules, redistricting, and administration to prevent “the wrong people” from voting. These funds move through dark‑money nonprofits and super PACs authorized by Citizens United, which then blanket state media markets with ads framing restrictive laws as “election integrity” while punishing legislators who oppose them.

Without Citizens United, we’d have more responsive housing and tenant policy.

Real‑estate and landlord groups have become major players in local and state elections, especially after 2010, often outspending tenant and housing‑justice groups by large margins. Developers, real‑estate PACs, and landlord associations frequently use independent‑expenditure committees to back candidates who oppose rent control or strong tenant protections. Where major tenants’ rights or rent‑stabilization measures have been on the ballot, landlord‑backed outside spending has routinely swamped pro‑tenant budgets.

Without Citizens United, we’d have fewer captured state courts and prosecutors.

Corporate, ideological, and billionaire‑funded groups have leveraged Citizens United–style spending not only in legislative races but in judicial and prosecutor elections. Post‑2010, outside spending in state supreme court races has soared, often funded by business lobbies and ideological networks creating courts that will side with corporate defendants, weaken regulation, or uphold gerrymanders. Similar patterns show up in district attorney and attorney‑general races. Without this, state judiciaries and key law‑enforcement posts would be less skewed toward protecting the rich and trashing the poor and dissidents.

Without Citizens United, we’d have elections that are not being bought and influenced by proxies for foreign governments.

Here in Portland, Israel-aligned AIPAC blew Susheela Jayapal out of the water in the 2024 primaries, using a phony front name to avoid identification. They’ve done the same against progressive candidates from coast to coast and are preparing to play a big role in this fall’s elections. Money is almost certainly also being channeled from other governments (think Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China) through opaque corporate chains. When Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his Citizens United dissent that the decision “would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by ‘Tokyo Rose’ during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders” he wasn’t blowing smoke. It’s here.

Without Citizens United, we’d have somebody other than Donald Trump in the White House.

This one doesn’t take a lot of explanation. A hundred rightwing billionaire families publicly raised a half-billion for Trump’s reelection, and corporations have tossed in at least another half-billion. Nobody knows how much they funneled through dark money operations, but it’s probably even greater amounts. Elon Musk functionally bought Pennsylvania for Trump and bragged about it. While there are a small handful of billionaires (Reed Hoffman, Tom Steyer, George Soros) who support Democratic candidates, they’re not as rich and not nearly as numerous as those supporting Trump and the GOP.

Citizens United came about, in part, because of a corrupt conspiracy between a Supreme Court justice (Stephen J. Field) and the Court’s clerk (John Chandler Bancroft Davis) back in 1886. I tell the story in shocking and fascinating detail in my new book Who Killed the American Dream? The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told. From there it migrated through a series of corrupt 20th century SCOTUS opinions (Buckley, Bellotti, Citizens United).

As we move toward this fall’s election and the 2028 presidential campaign, we all need to share this sort of information as widely as we can.

It is possible to excise this rightwing cancer from our body politic, but it’s going to take a serious effort as all these industries and governments want to maintain things as they are.

Louise’s Daily Song: “America Without Citizens United”

Comments on Tuesday’s Daily Take:

Why America is Falling Apart

America has clearly lost its way. We have been deteriorating for the last half-century. While we can point to the ideology of Republicans as consistent with the change, Democratic presidents have done little to turn things around. Citizens United should have been Obama’s #1 priority. It wasn’t.
~ Tomonthebeach

Musk put the fix on changing votes and nothing is being done to stop it
~ Phillip Hutchings

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My newest book, Who Killed the American Dream?: The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told is now available for presale from bookstores nationwide. It’s a modern-day telling of the “murder mystery” of how, in 1886, a great crime was committed against America by a cynical court reporter and an on-the-take Supreme Court justice that changed the course of American politics and led straight to Citizens United. It also details the massive ongoing cover-up of this crime and what we can do to fight back.