We’re not going to pretend otherwise — the current situation is bleak. While Donald Trump is the dominant current story, even if he stepped down tomorrow, the root problem would remain, which is the increasing role of money in politics unleashed by the Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. the FEC Supreme Court decisions. In simple terms, the Supreme Court declared that corporations are people and money is speech. Combined with the first amendment, which guarantees people free speech, that opened the floodgates for unlimited spending on politics (a.k.a. bribery) — which is overrunning our democracy. While the fight won’t be easy, we’ve identified a list of four key issues (which may evolve as we go), and each month we plan to focus on actions for a different one. We’re starting with supporting journalism because we can’t fight what we can’t see, and quality journalism is how we know what’s going on.

• Protecting Democracy teams key issues:

  1. Supporting journalism, especially local and investigative

  2. Opposing the influence of big money in politics

  3. Opposing the concentration of power in government (nationally, this would be the increasing dominance of the executive branch, but this is also an issue on the state level where leaders in the legislature (who generally got to leadership by being big fundraisers) have way too much power over rank-and-file members

  4. Supporting each other so that we don’t let discouragement or divisiveness get in the way of our being prepared to stand up for democracy as opportunities arise

• Action items for supporting journalism (in priority order and to the extent you’re financially able):

  1. Subscribe to LNP (if you already subscribe or want to do more, consider supporting LNP’s sister organization, WITF (both owned by Pennon)

  2. Subscribe to high-quality investigative journalism:

     • Spotlight PA – an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom dedicated to high-quality investigative and public-service journalism about the PA state government and urgent statewide issues

     • The Lever – a nonpartisan, reader-supported investigative news outlet that hold accountable the people and corporations manipulating the levers of power (founded by an award-winning journalist who’s also a former Bernie Sanders speechwriter)

     • ProPublica – an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism that shines a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust

     • Wired – Wired is a part of Condé Nast, which is a global mass media company (unlike the previous three recommendations), and they’re included here despite their big-corporateness because they have shown a remarkable ability to repeatedly be the first to expose important details about the inner workings of the Trump administration

  3. Subscribe to anywhere else you appreciate getting political news from (The Atlantic? Substack? Associated Press? CNN? Guardian US? NPR? The New York Times? Politico? The Intercept? More Perfect Union? your favorite political podcast? somewhere else?)