2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: DU Poll: Third Way or FDR? [View all]Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Are you saying that this scenario will never occur because it's not amenable to the left? I wish.
Are you saying that it will never occur because it didn't occur in all the years before Citizens United established corporate personhood? The flaw there is that Citizens United didn't establish corporate personhood. That doctrine long predated Citizens United.
Are you saying that it will never occur because the Republicans will never again control the federal government? Again, I wish. But even if you believe that -- which I consider a pipe dream -- you have to recognize that the Republicans could control state governments. Heck, right now there are several states that have Republican governors and Republican majorities, sometimes large ones, in both houses of the state legislature. DU frequently has posts about the latest outrages they've perpetrated.
Fortunately, the Fourteenth Amendment limits the damage they can do. But the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, applicable to states, like that in the Fifth Amendment applicable to the federal government, uses that word "person" in stating its protection. If a corporation isn't a person, then those troglodyte homophobes in North Carolina could confiscate all the assets of a corporation that owned a gay bar. The Progressive magazine is published in Wisconsin by Progressive, Inc. What's to stop Scott Walker and his merry band from seizing its offices and turning them into a center for the study of right-wing economics? Right now what's to stop them is the Due Process Clause. I don't know what Plan B is.