Fundamentally Broken

Cenk Uygur summarizes how Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be a really "bad guy":  accept unlimited campaign funds from corporate PACs, use freedom of speech to pay off people not to share unsavory secrets, help write and vote on laws that favor corporate interests, and then invest in those interests for personal financial gain. And a president has even fewer ethical standards to meet than members of Congress.

Update (October 20, 2019):  Somehow the idea that the rich pay a lower tax rate than the working class seems bound up with the existence of vast legalized political corruption.

The wealthiest 400 families paid an average effective tax rate of 23% last year [the second year of the 2017 tax cut] ... while the bottom half of all American households paid an average rate of 24.2%.

The one dollar–one vote principle is implemented in four simple steps. First, corporations and wealthy donors legally invest billions of dollars in campaign contributions for their favored candidates. Second, the corporations and donors spend many billions of dollars more on lobbying the same politicians in Congress and the executive branch. Third, the politicians then pass the policies and approve the judicial and executive nominees favored by the corporations and wealthy donors—and also prevent the passage of popular policies that are not supported by the donors. Fourth, these policies lead to the transfer of trillions of dollars in wealth and income from working- and middle-class families to these corporations and wealthy individuals. The entire process is institutionalized in laws passed by Congress, implemented by the executive, and upheld by the courts—all geared to favor big business. The separation of governmental powers into three branches has become a fiction nullified by a veritable corporate coup d’état.