Hard to describe it much better than Gary Younge does Here…

“Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench.”

The trend towards oligarchy in the polity is already clear. There are 250 millionaires in Congress. As a whole, the polity’s median net worth is $891,506, nine times the typical US household. Around 11% are in the nation’s top 1%, including 34 Republicans and 23 Democrats. And that’s before you get to Romney, whose personal wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined. All of this would be problematic at the best of times, but in a period of rising inequality it is obscene.

The issue here is not class envy, hating rich people because they are rich, but class interests - cementing the advantages of the privileged over the rest. The problem is not personal, it’s systemic.

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Downplaying money’s central role at this point merely buys into the illusion of participatory democracy, where ideas, character and strategy are paramount, while others are actually buying the candidates and access to power. The result is a charade. Fig leaf, G-string - name the scanty underwear of your choice. The emperor is butt naked. Whoever you vote for, the money gets in.

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