Brooks and Atkins Stohr on the political response to the Minnesota school shooting [View all]

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including the tragic school shooting in Minnesota, the Trump administration's actions to remake the government and the Ukraine war continues two weeks after the Trump-Putin summit.

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These authoritarian and nihilism dynamics can be traced to Citizens United when the SC determined that money trumped people in regards to our 1st Amendment rights.

No matter how one interprets the idea that "All men are created equal" whether speaking of individuals or a nation's right to self-governance was betrayed by Citizens United. That decision de facto elevated oligarchs and foreign powers over the American People via stealth means if not overtly.

The current occupant: an illusory T.V. personality couldn't have rose to power had that decision not been made. This was most evident not just from the backdrop of his swearing in, but the only time he ever ceded the limelight and kept his mouth shut was with his chief oligarch enabler standing over him in the Oval Office.

That was just the power of currency over self-determination on full display.