Republicans have recently suggested that Democrats have a secret society. Seeing what President Donald Trump and right-wing Republicans are doing leads me to believe it’s Republicans who have a secret society of billionaires working with the Supreme Court extremists to take over our country.

The plan began in 1988 by the billionaire Koch brothers, who financed Citizens United and challenged the Federal Election Commission in the Supreme Court to establish that corporations and unions had First Amendment rights, like people. A man named David Bossie headed the plan. In 2016 Bossie became a top manager of Trump’s election campaign.

Unbelievably, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 that corporations and unions are now people, allowing corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on elections. The court has also determined workers at unionized companies weren’t required to pay dues to unions. Let’s not be fooled by the title; it’s really Billionaires United.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even bring to a vote President Barack Obama’s nomination for Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement, which was his constitutional obligation to do. Republicans today don’t care about constitutional laws and will change them to suit their agenda if we let them.

Red states are already taking away voting rights from the poor and elderly by requiring voter IDs, and gerrymandering is rampant, giving Republicans a sure win.

We have to decide if we still want the democracy we’ve fought and died for. Do we?

If we vote for Republicans in our state and federal elections this November, we will embolden them to gut health care, voting rights, education, and labor and civil rights, while also privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

Gloria Fleming

Augusta