The levers of politics aren’t hard to identify, according to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). All one needs to do is take the famous Watergate informant advice and “follow the money.”
In the video below, Sanders traces the current situation of exceptionally compliant Congressional Republicans — who despite their legislative role appear to be unequivocally under the thumb of President Trump — to the nation-changing 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
In that famous decision, the high Court determined that “free speech” could not be limited by campaign spending laws in the ways it previously had, a ruling which freed wealthy groups and individuals to spend unlimited money to back candidates or push issues, in effect further tilting the power balance of American democracy toward moneyed interests.
The result today, as Sanders explains, is a looming threat hanging over any Republican apostate who opposes the president’s initiatives. Sanders describes a dilemma Republicans face wherein dissent — even principled objections on behalf of constituents — aren’t tolerated and punishment for such dissent will be massive spending to unseat the troublemaker, a threat explicit enough to bring nearly any lawmaker in line.
Citizens United amounts to legalized bribery – plain and simple. pic.twitter.com/3oUYiTye98
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 25, 2025
The Citizens United decision has been controversial from the start, and its impact has only grown over time. Free speech — the critical element in the Court’s decision — has been notoriously difficult to protect and/or restrict, with determining what qualifies as hate speech, what is an actionable threat, slander/libel cases, and the famous yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater all being examples of the challenge.
Sanders’s objections don’t address the complex legal matters at issue, but instead focus squarely on the practical impact of the Citizens decision — the emergence of Super PACs with enormous power to influence the electorate, and lawmakers.
In its decision, SCOTUS found the justification for protecting speech — even the speech of wealthy corporations — more palatable than attempts to limit it, despite with the obvious potential for the decision’s distorting effects on the electorate.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy opined: “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”
One commenter on Sanders’s video acknowledged the slippery slope Kennedy implied, writing: “Citizens United is controversial, but it also protects free speech rights. The focus should be on transparency and accountability, not restricting voices.”
Whether Citizens United protects a right or corrupts democracy — or both — Sanders is undoubtedly correct in his assessment of the results. In one example, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has made no secret of his modus operandi using the freedom granted by the SCOTUS decision to put his heavy foot on the scale, promising to spend generously to primary any Republican lawmaker who is seen to be obstructing the Trump administration’s agenda.
Elon Musk says he would spend millions in primaries on anybody who opposes President Trump. pic.twitter.com/TdroLJXXa4
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025
Writing on the critical Citizens United SCOTUS decision, the Brennan Center for Justice asserts that the Justices in the narrow 5-4 majority misapprehended its potential for corruption, presuming that the requirement that PACs must operate outside a candidate’s direct control would suffice to protect against the purchase of influence.
Brennan Center describes the results below:
The justices who decided Citizens United held that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption on the erroneous assumption that the money wouldn’t be under the control of any single candidate or party. They also assumed that existing transparency rules would require all the new spending they were permitting to be fully transparent, allowing voters to appropriately evaluate the messages targeting them.
Both assumptions have proven to be incorrect. While super PACs and other outside spenders are supposed to be separate from candidates and parties, they usually work in tandem with them — to the point where affiliated super PACs that can raise unlimited money are now integral to most major campaigns. Legal loopholes also mean that many of these groups can keep their sources of funding secret.