It will be remembered as the date when a government of, by and for the people became a government of, by and for wealthy campaign donors -- and of, by and for wealthy Republican politicians themselves.
We thought the corruption, self-dealing and social indifference of the Gilded Age was long behind us. But we underestimated the raw nerve of President Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
This Triumvirate of Privilege has returned us to the “age of betrayal,” as the writer Jack Beatty called the years of the robber barons. The goal has always been to roll back the social advances the country has made since the Progressive Era.