In the early 2010s, as a new system was consolidated in Russia, the U.S. Supreme Court took two important decisions that shifted the United States towards authoritarianism. In 2010, it ruled that money talked: that corporations were individuals, and their campaign spending was free speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This granted real companies, front companies, and various fake civic entities the right to influence campaigns and, in effect, to try to buy elections.
