In the fresh TV talk Kevin Roberts, manager of the Heritage Foundation (to a large degree liable for the second word of Trump extremist Project 2025), threatened that if Americans did not let utmost right-wing forces to transform the United States from a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, blood would spill on the streets:
"We are in the process of taking over our country. [...] They [a lioness] get apoplexy, MSNBC presenters, for example, go crazy all day due to the fact that our website wins. That is why I return to my starting point, and I want to assure you, unwarrantedly, that there is simply a second American revolution that will be without blood, if the left will let it."
It's hard to disagree with him. America has changed as a consequence a number of decisions Corrupt Republican judges (only: they were not supported by any justice appointed by Democrats) who transformed the legal and political strategy of America itself.
On the another hand, mainstream media is either not aware of the problem at all, or they are not able to decently present how the United States has radically changed and how far the ultimate Court-making Republicans have dissuaded us from both the visions of the founding fathers and the norms and standards of the functioning modern democratic republic.
First of all, thanks to a number of decisions – the first of which was made by a celebrated corporation, justice Lewis Powell – Republican judges led to the actual legalisation of bribes to politicians and judges by grossly rich large corporations.
It began with Powell's 1978 opinion on Bellotti, which opened the (already repealed) door to the doctrine that corporations are not only "persons" within the meaning of the Constitution, but besides that they have the human rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the American Constitution).
On the basis of this premise, Powell stated that the first amendment, concerning freedom of speech, covers corporations as much as wealthy private individuals. However, the justice went much further, ruling that corporations have no mouth, so they talk through the way they spend money – this means that support for politicians or the pushy promotion of candidates for offices approaches freedom of speech and cannot be subject to state control.
Judgment in Citizens United, another series of decisions issued by Republican judges with decisive vote Clarence Thomas (after he accepted millions of bribes), he only extended the scope of this doctrine to millionaires and corporations: he led to the creation of systems utilizing alleged dark money, through which wealthy donors and companies can hide their activities for circumstantial political, legal or legislative purposes.
At the end of June, the Republican-dominated ultimate Court went even further. He said that erstwhile companies or millionaires give money to politicians in exchange for contracts, resolutions or another favors, that, if they are paid over the full case, is not a bribe, but a "word of gratitude".
By 1 decision, the judges buried 240 years of American law and legalized bribery.
Thus, they besides took distant the ability of national regulatory agencies to defend average people, voters, workers, and even the environment from corporations that exploit and pollute them, and even to bargain wages. As far as the economy is concerned, the government has moved from elected by citizens to executive directors and boards of the most ruthless and harmful US companies.
With respect to Donald Trump's immunity, the ultimate Court has decided that criminal law does not let the president to be prosecuted regardless of his actions, provided Trump declares that they were part of his "official" duties. Who decides what the president's authoritative work is? Six Republicans in the ultimate Court.
Today in America, corporations have human rights, money is no different from spoken words, state offices lose their right to regulate private businesses, and the president is above all laws, like kings, chess, Mullahs, dictators and popes. These ultimate Court verdicts have fundamentally changed the nature of America.
It is impossible to make the meaning of these judgments and their consequences meet. America 1.0 is over; we live in a fresh America, more like a Confederate state, where wealthy families and large companies form laws, enforce laws and punish those who hit their tender point or stand in their way.
In America 2.0 has no voting rights. Governors and state secretaries can collect them without having to inform them (although they inactive gotta turn to court if they want to take distant someone's gun). They can destruct any policy if they put adequate resources into the run (including dark money, whose sources cannot be determined).
The president can now do a lot more than George W. Bush, who without trial tortured and imprisoned innocent people in Guantanamo. He can shoot individual on 5th Avenue in front of the full planet and say he did it as part of his office. It can besides deprive any American of his livelihood or trap him on the basis of questionable “official” legal grounds.
America 2.0 is not a democracy – it is an oligarchy, as I wrote in my book The Hidden past of American Oligarchy (An Unknown past of American Oligarchy). After so long The South yet won the civilian War. Or he's 1 step distant from winning.
And although it will take months, or alternatively years, before Americans realize the fresh powers that republicans in the ultimate Court have given to the president, millionaires and corporations, they will gradually transform the US into a state that resembles Hungary or Russia more than European republics or democracies in Southeast Asia.
The only cure for this campaign, which has reached an advanced phase for more than 50 years, is the immense upheaval to the polls this fall, resulting in legislature going to the Democrats by a large majority, and the White home remaining in their hands.
If this doesn't work, though scattered centres will defy for years, turning America off the course set by right-wing billionaires will be almost impossible.
The last specified crucial period in American history, erstwhile the wealthy oligarchs attempted to overthrow democracy, was the civilian War. Today, as then, the endurance of the state created by us and for us, for all the people of the United States of America, is at stake.
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Thom Hartmann is simply a radio and tv commentator. He has published over 20 books including Unequal Protection: The emergence of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights (Project Censored award, 2004) and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, on the basis of which a documentary was created in 2016 Before the Flood. Twitter: @thom_hartmann
Article published in stock Common Dreams under Creative Commons. She translated Anna Opara from English.
