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How did corporations get more constitutional rights than your children?

When a bookshelf tips over and harms one child, there's an immediate recall. When platform algorithms push suicide content to depressed teens, they claim First Amendment protection.

To understand how we got here, Aaron traces the path from Jefferson's worst fears to today's reality. In 1886, a court reporter's unauthorized footnote gave corporations personhood. In 1971, the Powell Memo blueprinted corporate capture of democracy. In 2010, Citizens United unleashed unlimited dark money—corporations buying elections while hiding in shadows.

These aren't ancient developments. You or your parents lived through most of this. The same First Amendment that platforms use to avoid accountability when children die is the one they use to pour millions into elections—anonymously.

We traded away our democracy piece by piece, precedent by precedent. To reclaim it, we first have to see how we lost it.

00:00 Cold Open — The Platform Claims the Right to Look Away

02:10 Jefferson’s Nightmare & the Corporate Empires That Came Before

06:52 The Tea That Started a Revolution

10:00 Jefferson’s Vision & the Original Corporate Chains

17:20 The Pendulum of Power — People vs. Corporations

23:15 The Powell Memo — How Business Fought Back

29:38 Citizens United & the Age of Corporate Speech

36:45 The Tech Takeover — Lobbying, Loopholes, Immunity

47:47 Section 230 & the Right to Look Away

Social Media Online Child Sexual Exploitation Audio clips from C-SPAN