Democracy eroded

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United in 2010 basically allowed corporations to put money into politics with few restrictions. This decision has eroded our democracy so that big money conglomerates control elections, legislation and courts.

My understanding from my eighth-grade civics class was that a democracy is run for the people and by the people. A plutocracy is when a government is run by the wealthy for their own benefit. This is what has happened to our country since that decision. It has now manifested itself with the election of Donald Trump, the self-serving or Trump-serving bureaucrats he has installed to make the different arms of government work for him and his friends.

When president Obama was elected in 2008, Mitch McConnell made it his mission, along with many other Republicans, to block any legislation put forth by the administration and the Democratic members of Congress. At this particular moment, our leaders stopped governing and began power grabbing. Wielding power as a way of enabling your wealthy buddies to enrich themselves at the cost of the environment, the health of their constituents and to make the Supreme Court a political weapon, just as Trump has done with the CDC, the FDA, the EPA, the DOJ, the HHS and nearly all nonpartisan government agencies.

What the Republicans fear is losing power, the ability to keep the poor, the nonwhite and those who oppose their authoritarian views under control. While I doubt we can stop them from tilting the Supreme Court further away from the beliefs of the majority of the American public, we must continue to take power back from them by voting and making ourselves heard.

My family has been in what is now the United States since 1622, and it frightens me when I realize my family members are talking about which country we may need to move to if Trump is reelected. Get out and vote.

Van B. Miller

Mundelein