Book Review: Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann

It’s probably unnecessary to note that, for at least the last decade, we US residents no longer live in a democratic republic. Thanks to a series of business-friendly Supreme Court decisions, our representative government is now filled with employees of a plutocratic oligarchy. And, as of November 2016, the political party their employers co-opted completely in 2009 own all three branches of government. The checks and balances established by those who wrote the Constitution to ensure We the People remain free and independent are the victim of corporate raiders.

Thom Hartmann’s book, first in 2004, emerged at a time when the above was a threat observed mostly by independent journalists and those who were awake to the danger. The second edition, updated in 2009 when Charles and David Koch held the first of their semi-annual “conferences” that gave birth to the Tea Party and consolidated the GOP into their weapon of choice for the destruction of government as we know it. That the government hadn’t been what most people believed for at least 30 years and probably longer is a testament to what happens when people’s traditional source of information—the mainstream media—has been debased into a corporate propaganda.

Mr. Hartmann’s book traces the history of the corporate takeover of the US government from the triggering event, the 1886 SCOTUS decision Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, to the pivotal 2010 Citizens United decision that opened the previously controlled floodgates of cash from billionaires and corporations into our election process. On the way, he discusses the relationship of the country to corporations, making clear the Founding Fathers were, with some exceptions, opposed to their having any hand in the government process. Ironically, one of those who thought otherwise is the protagonist of a current musical much beloved by the Democratic liberal establishment—Alexander Hamilton. That Hamilton firmly believed the rich and powerful should be in charge of the US government tends to get lost in translation.

This isn’t an easy book to read, which is as it should be when you’re trying to educate people unaware of the subject in a way that will enable them to both understand the problem and begin what has become an increasingly difficult fight to correct it. I don’t recommend trying to read it quickly, even if you’re one like me who can do so if need be. This is important information anyone willing to pick up the gauntlet and take back the country needs to not just understand but know well enough to persuade those who still don’t understand. My copy is studded with pink Post-It flags so I can find the bits I consider most telling, and that might be the best way to read it.

Eight years ago, the situation was bad; it has since become dire. There is no question the only way to bring down the neo-feudalism taking over the country is to amend the Constitution so corporations are once again reduced to the artificial constructs they are. There is another irony that isn’t addressed in the book, since it’s of recent birth, which is that the same billionaires responsible for the corporate takeover are now paying to convene a Constitutional Convention of the states for the alleged purpose of passing a balanced budget amendment but which will actually be open to becoming a Wild West aggregation of right-wing zealots whose actual goal is likely to gut the document entirely.

Unequal Protection is an important book for those who refuse to sit still in the face of a plutocratic revolution to overthrow the republic. It needs to be on bookshelves right next to Mayer’s Dark Money and Klein’s Shock Doctrine.