The Citizens United ruling was awful for the Democratic Party

Most importantly, as I've written about previously, the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010 was awful for this country. Think people were fed up by big money in politics before the ruling? Of receiving seemingly countless fliers in the mail? Of seeing nothing put campaign commercials during dinner? Of thinking their voices meant little to nothing? Well, after the ruling, things just got worse on all of those fronts. Campaign spending increased, and with that, so too did the release of fliers and television ads, not to mention people's voices began feeling even smaller than before. But, while the ruling was awful for the country as a whole, it's also been awful for the Democratic Party. The Republican Party wasn't phased a great deal by the ruling. They've increasingly become the party of the top 1%, so to them, what would better give them a chance come election day than providing that very top 1% unlimited contribution capability? For the Democratic Party, however, it's had an entirely different impact. Before the ruling, while Democrats had many big-money donors as well, they tried to at least get the bottom 99% involved through grassroots campaigning, making them feel like they were part of the election process and that their voices (and dollars) counted for something. After the Citizens United ruling, however, Democrats were forced to either appear hypocritical by constantly going after the big money donors like Republicans to keep the playing field level and have a better chance come election day, or stay true to their roots by continuing to focus more on small-time donors, grassroots campaigning, and see their electability odds decrease quite substantially as a result. Now more than ever it seems like, long-time progressives and/or Democrats are receiving emails asking for donations. It's gotten to the point where many of these very progressives and Democrats have set such emails to spam via their settings because they've understandably grown sick and tired of them. Unfortunately, though, until the Citizens United ruling is overturned, these awful trends aren't going to stop. Democrats, like Republicans, will continue sending countless emails every day asking for money. They'll continue obsessively going after big-name donors. They'll continue having to play the game the Supreme Court dictated through their atrocious ruling, making them appear to be hypocrites in the process. Sadly, unless the ruling is turned, we may not be far removed from seeing our democracy (republic) turn into an oligarchy, if it's not there already. On that day, January 21st of 2010, the Supreme Court may have officially altered the name of this country from the United States of America to the Koch States of America.