Right now, we are in the middle of a political moment defined by authoritarian consolidation and institutional distrust. A 2008-style recession landing on an American public already furious about housing costs, healthcare, and the sense that the rules are rigged is not just an economic event. It will be a reckoning, and getting the villain right isn’t a political preference. It’s the difference between accountability and catastrophe.

American democracy is in crisis. This is not hyperbole. This is reality, and it started long before Trump. And yet, for all the pearl-clutching on cable news, post-election takes, and well-intentioned Democratic autopsies - there is a glaring omission in nearly every conversation about our country’s democratic decline: money in politics.

If this diagnosis is true, why won’t more Democrats support credible challengers running against long-tenured, out-of-touch incumbents like John Hickenlooper in Colorado?