To the editor:

Freedom of speech is the freedom to be heard, and most citizens’ freedom to be heard has been reduced as big corporations with deep pockets get the loudest political voice. There is no countervailing power.

By the 2016 campaign cycle, corporations and Wall Street contributed $34 to political campaigns for every $1 donated by labor unions and all public interest organizations combined. (And the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent of Americans accounted for 40 percent of all personal donations.)

What have big corporations and the ultra-wealthy received for all their money? Among other things: — Lower trade barriers, Deregulation of Wall Street, Deregulation of finance, Weakened unions, Weakened laws against monopolies, Lower taxes and wider tax loopholes for large corporations and the ultra-wealthy, Weakened laws against insider trading.

It has been a vicious cycle. Each change in laws has ratcheted wealth and power upward, making it easier for the wealthy and powerful to gain further legal changes that ratchet even more wealth and power upward.

Even when such actions are illegal, some corporations have chosen to defy the law when the risks and costs of getting caught are less than the profits to be made. The list of enterprises that in recent years have made such a calculation, wittingly or unwittingly — including BP, Halliburton, Citigroup, and General Motors — makes clear that corporate power will infringe on individual liberties if the potential financial returns are sufficiently high.

One consequence of this imbalance is the emergence of neo-fascism in America.

Is it really so surprising that some who feel they no longer have a voice — that the economic and political system is rigged against them — prefer a demagogic strongman who will at least shake up the system over a president who appears to personify that system? Donald Trump and the Republicans are not on the side of American workers. On the contrary, his one legislative accomplishment during his bonkers presidency was a major tax cut for corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

But Trump sounds tough. He says he’ll give voice to Americans who have been left behind. He deploys racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and misogyny as weapons to make many white, Christian, American males feel more powerful. Trump is selling dangerous snake oil. Why are there so many buyers? Because they have felt acutely vulnerable, and his snake oil gives them hope of becoming powerful.

Stop this move to fascism. Fairly tax the large corporations and super rich. Restore the American workers’ wealth, freedom and power.

Vote for Democrats!

Dennis Raube

Fort Myers