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Citizen’s United Paved the Way for Trump’s Corporate Grift
Sixteen years ago, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Citizens United that allows corporations to flood our elections with unlimited amounts of money.
Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, co-presidents of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:
“Sixteen years ago, Citizens United unleashed a torrent of corporate spending that has directly enabled the cozy and self-serving relationships corporations and billionaires have been able to secure with Trump and other politicians.
“In 2024, the already horrifying amount of money went on steroids, as we witnessed the largest direct corporate spending on elections ever. Unprecedented spending by crypto companies drove election outcomes and completely reshaped Congressional policy debates, as politicians caved to crypto demands rather than face an onslaught of industry spending in the next election. Predictably, the crypto industry’s shattering of norms made it inevitable that other industries would follow suit. Now Big Tech companies are signaling their intent to use crypto’s playbook to drive state and federal election results and prevent regulation of dangerous new AI technologies.
“All Americans suffer and our democracy withers when corporations and the super rich have more of a say in elections than regular voters do. It’s not only that corporations and the super rich are able to block overwhelmingly popular policies – meaningful cuts to drug prices, raising the minimum wage, making corporations pay their fair share in taxes, cracking down on polluters and much more – that would make our country more just, healthier and more sustainable. It’s also that deep frustration with a failed political system paves the way for demagogues like Donald Trump to seize power.
“A constitutional amendment to overturn this terrible decision is 16 years overdue.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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‘Sometimes You Need a Dictator,’ Trump Says Following Threats to Cancel Election
Trump previously said he wished he could cancel elections, but feared being called a "dictator" by his detractors. Now he's calling himself one in front of the whole world.
Jan 21, 2026
After weeks of authoritarian threats to crush protests with the military, cancel elections, conquer foreign countries, and send masked agents door-to-door to round up anyone who can't prove their citizenship, Trump on Wednesday told an already uneasy room full of world leaders that "sometimes you need a dictator."
The offhanded comment came in the middle of a rambling speech at the reception dinner for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, in which Trump congratulated himself on a different rambling speech he'd given earlier that day at the summit.
“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said of the widely mocked address in which he continued to demand the US take over Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as "Iceland") and made new tariff threats against Canada and Europe if they resist the annexation.
“Usually they say ‘he’s a horrible dictator-type person,’ I’m a dictator,” Trump continued. “But sometimes you need a dictator! But they didn’t say that in this case... It’s all based on common sense, it’s not conservative or liberal, or anything else.”
At least twice over the past month, Trump has suggested that the 2026 midterm elections should be canceled, since his party is likely to lose.
The first time he brought up the idea, on the five-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, he seemed to back off the idea for fear of being called a dictator by his detractors: "I won’t say cancel the election; they should cancel the election, because the fake news would say: ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”
But if being called a dictator was the only thing holding him back from attempting to suspend democracy, he no longer appears to care.
As political commentator Charlotte Clymer wrote on social media, "Trump is now openly referring to himself as a dictator" in front of the whole world.
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Expert Who Ran Simulations on 'How Civil Wars Start' Warns Minnesota Is Exactly What It Looks Like
"If we keep having these crises, one of them is going to get really ugly."
Jan 21, 2026
Experts are warning that the Trump administration's ongoing crackdown in Minnesota could quickly get out of hand and could even result in a second US civil war.
Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, wrote in a Wednesday column published by the Guardian that she and her colleagues at the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) conducted a tabletop exercise in October 2024 that simulated potential outcomes if a US president were to carry out law enforcement operations similar to the ones being conducted by the Trump administration with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minnesota.
"In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia and attempted to federalize the Pennsylvania’s National Guard," Finkelstein explained. "When the governor resisted and the guard remained loyal to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces."
Finkelstein noted that such a scenario is alarmingly close to what's currently going on in Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz has placed his state's National Guard on standby and President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give him broad powers to deploy the military on US soil.
The simulation also projected that the judiciary would be of little help to any state that found itself in the president's crosshairs.
"We concluded that in a fast-moving emergency of this magnitude, courts would probably be unable or unwilling to intervene in time, leaving state officials without meaningful judicial relief," Finkelstein explained. "State officials might file emergency motions to enjoin the use of federal troops, but judges would either fail to respond quickly enough or decline to rule on what they view as a 'political question,' leaving the conflict unresolved."
Steve Saideman, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, argued that the situation now is even more dire than the one Finkelstein and her colleagues imagined in their simulation.
In a post on Bluesky, Saideman argued that the US is "hours or days away from civil war."
"This might sound extreme," he acknowledged, "but if Walz has the Minnesota National Guard blocking ICE operations, the usual response of the federal government to governors using National Guard against feds is to call out the Army... What happens if the Army confronts Minnesota National Guard? We have no idea. But one real possibility is: bam."
Saideman added that, given the nonstop chaos of Trump's presidency, it's only a matter of time before it eventually boils over into real civil conflict.
"If we keep having these crises, one of them is going to get really ugly," he said. "Crises under Trump are street cars—there is always another one coming along. We have gotten lucky thus far, but if a citizen shoots at ICE or if the Minnesota National Guard tussles with ICE, things may escalate very quickly."
In a New York Times column published on Monday, Lydia Polgreen argued it was no longer a stretch to equate what is going on in Minnesota with a war being waged by the federal government against one of its own states.
"It might not yet be a civil war, but what the White House has called Operation Metro Surge is definitely not just—or even primarily—an immigration enforcement operation," wrote Polgreen. "It is an occupation designed to punish and terrorize anyone who dares defy this incursion and, by extension, Trump’s power to wield limitless force against any enemy he wishes."
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Criminal Investigation Demanded for DOGE Theft of Social Security Data
"This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg," said the executive director of Social Security Works. "We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it."
Jan 21, 2026
Advocates and Democratic members of Congress are calling for a criminal investigation after a court filing revealed that operatives at the Department of Government Efficiency—previously headed by Elon Musk—pilfered and leaked Social Security data through a non-secure private server.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said Wednesday that his organization supports Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) in their call for "a full criminal investigation into DOGE leaks of private Social Security data to Elon Musk’s associates and immediate congressional action to safeguard Americans’ privacy."
"This reported malfeasance was enabled by a culture created by the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and DOGE soon after the president took office—a culture of recklessly interfering in the legitimate functions of the federal government with questionable intent and zero accountability," said Richtman, calling the data abuses part of a "relentless attack on the functioning of the Social Security Administration."
Richtman's statement came a day after the Trump administration acknowledged that DOGE operatives accessed and divulged highly sensitive Social Security data in ways that "were potentially outside of" SSA policy and in violation of a March 2025 court order. The Justice Department maintains that SSA doesn't know data was shared on the third-party server.
As the New York Times reported, the Trump DOJ also disclosed that "a political advocacy group contacted two members of the DOGE Social Security team, asking for an analysis of state voter rolls the advocacy group obtained."
"One of the DOGE employees signed an agreement with the advocacy group, which the Social Security Administration appeared to learn through a review of emails," the Times noted. "The Justice Department did not provide details about what came of the agreement and whether sensitive data was shared inappropriately."
In a joint statement responding to the revelations, Larson and Neal said that "we have been warning about privacy violations at Social Security and calling out Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ for months."
"DOGE signed an agreement to share Social Security data with an organization trying to undermine state election results, sent 1,000 Americans’ personal records directly to one of Elon Musk’s top consiglieres, and shared the confidential data of Americans on a private server," the Democratic lawmakers continued. "The 'DOGE' appointees engaged in this scheme—who were never brought before Congress for approval or even publicly identified—must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for these abhorrent violations of the public trust."
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, echoed that call on Wednesday, saying that "those who have committed illegal acts must be prosecuted."
Lawson also demanded that Congress launch "a long-overdue investigation into just what DOGE is doing with our earned benefits and our private data."
"Thanks to Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, Elon Musk’s DOGE minions have access to our private Social Security data. So does anyone they choose to share it with—and anyone who can hack the unsecured server they’ve stored it on," said Lawson. "This week’s revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. We need to know exactly who has our data and what they are doing with it."
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