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SCOTUS Hammering Another Handful of Nails Into the Coffin of Democracy
Calling the justices ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’ is not accurate. Calling them ‘motivated’ and ‘mission-oriented’ would be more precise.
The United States Supreme Court has been hammering away at our democracy for a dozen years or so. It began in earnest with the Citizens United decision in 2010. Citizens effectively transmogrified corporations, turning them into people. As “people,” citizens and corporations were given the same rights granted to all of us in the Constitution: the right to express ourselves freely and to contribute to political campaigns.
The Citizens United ruling unleashed a flood of corporate money into our political system, distorting the voices of ordinary Americans. If you need proof of how this decision has reshaped public opinion, just attend a Trump rally. However, it’s important to note that Citizens United was just the tip of the iceberg, and to be fair, it alone wouldn’t have been enough to completely sink our democracy.
In 2013, the US Supreme Court gutted the pre-clearance requirement in a landmark case called Shelby County v Holder. In a 5–4 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Voting Rights Act’s formula for determiningwhich cities and states had…
