“No political truth is of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty: The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”—James Madison, Federalist 4...
Then it’s not “thanks to one man”, either. Remember what happened to Speaker McCarthy when only a small number of MAGA Republicans moved against him?
Everything that Mike Johnson is doing is the fault of all Republicans. If even a few grew a spine, and were willing to set aside party politics for the good of the country, Johnson would be out.
Not that the Democrats are blameless in all of this. The reason Trump has so much control is that he has all the money. A problem that even the Democrats had the ability to fix in the past by passing campaign finance reform laws.
It’s not trivial to implement campaign finance reform when the Supreme Court has decided it’s unconstitutional.
Even so, baby steps are possible, but nobody has done shit. There was some campaign finance reform in the For the People Act (also known as HR1), that, according to Nancy Pelosi, was within the guidelines set by the Supreme Court.
But of course all of that is moot, because I don’t think Pelosi ever intended it to pass. It’s easy to pretend you have ideals and push legislation when it has no chance of becoming law.
Why do you think she never intended to pass it?
I think campaign finance reform laws are unpopular among most politicians, including most Democratic politicians. Despite their rhetoric, they all got their positions by selling out to corporations and the rich. They can’t just turn their backs on the people who they owe favors.
It’s basically a case of how they got their positions in the current system, and so it’s difficult to convince them to change the system. It’s short-sighted, but I think most politicians are very short sighted.