Two ways to f*** American democracy courtesy of the US Supreme Court

1. Give fettered power to wealthy and/or corporate interests to provide unlimited funding to political campaigns with almost zero oversight and disclosure requirements.

-- Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission

2. Decide that creating unfair and undemocratic geographical representation systems in the House of Representatives is not Unconstitutional.

-- "Supreme Court Says Constitution Does Not Bar Partisan Gerrymandering," New York Times

From the article:

The drafters of the Constitution, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, understood that politics would play a role in drawing election districts when they gave the task to state legislatures. Judges, the chief justice said, are not entitled to second-guess lawmakers’ judgments.

“We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” the chief justice wrote.

Without fairness as a fundamental element of government and the electoral process, you don't have democracy.

And there is no excuse that the US isn't a "direct democracy," that it is "a republic," with "representative democracy." If your representatives are chosen in an unfair manner, there is no trust, and little necessity in protecting the rights of all, including minority interests.

For example,

It's not like you have to watch the "Poldark" television program on PBS, where in the late 1700s, the wealthy could buy lands that automatically conferred a seat in Parliament, to know that such a system is undemocratic.

And of course it's obvious this is a partisan decision, with the conservative justices manipulated onto the Supreme Court by McConnell et al key to the decision.

I think this might be the most disheartening news I have ever heard of as a citizen of the United States.

It's the only reason I'd use an expletive in the title of an entry.

And it does reinforce the point that Professor G. William Domhoff and others make, that fundamentally, US political power is controlled by capital.

-- Who Rules America? website, G. William Domhoff, University of California, Santa Cruz
-- "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," Gillens & Page, Perspectives in Politics, 2014
-- "Election shows how gerrymandering is difficult to overcome," Associated Press