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While Biden inspires hope, our democracy has let down Black communities for far too long.

Almost nobody seems to believe that Obamacare can be stopped under any realistic scenario given Democratic control of the Senate. And yet some House Republicans are willing to shut down the government—and possibly inflict a serious wound on their party—in pursuit of that chimerical goal. 

What's going on here? 

In fact, there is no one explanation. But here are my favorites in descending order.

The recent Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page paper finding that ordinary citizens have, “little or no independent influence on policy at all.” While the paper was covered extensively in the popular press, few bothered to even read the paper which notes, “ the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of economic elites.” Gilens’s data look at only tho

Buckley has been called the “original sin” of campaign finance law.

Historically, organizing to get big money out of politics has been driven largely by older, white, and male leaders, frequently missing the voices of those who are the most marginalized by the failings of our democracy.

Next year won’t just mark the most expensive and big money-dominated election in U.S. history--it is also the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court case that set the basic structure of campaign finance law.  In Buckley at 40, Demos Counsel and Senior Advisor Adam Lioz examines how 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo launched a vicious cycle of political, economic, and racial inequality that endures today.