Who Killed the American Dream?: The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told

by Thom Hartmann, Sean Pratt (Narrator)

Can't afford housing or healthcare? One 1886 Supreme Court fraud gave corporations constitutional rights over you—discover how billionaire oligarchs stole your future and the constitutional amendment to take it back.

You work harder than your parents did, yet you can’t afford a home. Billionaires are richer than ever. You know the system is rigged—but no one’s told you how it happened or who rigged it.

Here’s what they don’t teach in law In 1886, the Supreme Court never ruled that corporations have constitutional rights. That “precedent” came from a single fraudulent sentence inserted by a court reporter working with a corrupt justice. One headnote. One lie. The greatest legal heist in American history.

That fraud did the following and
Crushed unions and shipped jobs overseasSlashed taxes for the wealthy and gave corporations the power to buy electionsTransferred trillions from working families to billionaire oligarchs
That’s why your paycheck doesn’t stretch. That’s why corporations have more rights than you do. That’s why democracy is eroding. For 140 years, they’ve distracted Americans by blaming immigrants, “welfare queens,” and each other—while billionaires rewrote the rules. Now people are pushing passing local ordinances, organizing for a constitutional amendment, and reclaiming power for We the People.

The rebellion has begun. Stop blaming your neighbors. Start demanding accountability. Learn how the system was stolen—and how to take it back.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Adult

Audible Audio

Published July 7, 2026

About the author

Thomas Carl Hartmann is an American radio personality, author, businessman, and progressive political commentator. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, since 2003 and hosted a nightly television show, The Big Picture, between 2010 and 2017.

Reviews

[Michael McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately I agree with much of what this book says. My issue is that it uses hyperbolic language and is highly repetitive. The phrase “morbidly rich” appears 21 times. Almost every subsection ends with a reference to “Davis’s corrupt/damnable/phony/toxic/fraudulent headnote”.

As to that headnote, don’t get me wrong, Davis sounds like a genuine shitweasel, but a cursory search yields a case not long after that outright states what this one did fraudulently. The Supreme Court had to decide that way even if I believe is a corrupt interpretation of the Constitution (I’m sure Originalists can dream up a convoluted defense of it because they always figure $ome way - I’m guessing they led refer to English Law protecting the East India Company).

Also, I’m passionate about the topic and it’s clear the author is too, but it often reads like a conspiracy theory when it is really just a statement of fact. I’d have preferred a less inflammatory and streamlined analysis that I could recommend to anybody, but the conservatives probably won’t make it far into the book (that said I know how difficult it is when the abuses are so massive). As the author says, people from both parties agree that corporations shouldn’t have constitutional rights, so why not come from that angle? I truly believe this would have been twice as powerful at half the length.

[Bruce Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company SC decision headnote - J.C. Bancroft Davis clerk & Justice Stephen J. Field - "Corporations are people" entitled to the "equal protections" in 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. However, the Supreme Court did not address that issue in the case nor in their written opinion.

In 1873, the Court had declared that the Fourteenth Amendment’s “one pervading purpose” was “the freedom of the slave race.” In 1877, the railroads brought four different cases to the Supreme Court, arguing that they deserved constitutional protection as “persons” under that same amendment. They lost all four.

Kewis Powell memo 1971

Ronald Reagan Administration

Citizens United decision (2010) - money is speech under First Amendment

Hobby Lobby decision ( 2014) - closely held corporations have religious freedom rights. As a result, a non-living soulless corporation could refuse to provide contraception coverage to employees based on its alleged religious belief.

Over the past fifty or so years, the most effective part of the deflection—or cover-up playbook—has been a remarkably successful effort to divert Americans’ attention and anger away from the oligarchs and corporations that are actively undermining our democracy and get people to instead blame their woes on women, people of color, welfare recipients, and, most recently, nonwhite immigrants.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media or providing me with an e-arc of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review

This was a really fascinating audiobook. I appreciated the short length and the way the author kept the information engaging and easy to follow.

The idea that corporations are people originated with an 1886 Supreme Court decision, only the court never ruled on that fact. The court reporter who was supposed to summarize the decision in a head note added that himself, then it was used as legal precedent for the past 140 years. This has led to many decisions that have been harmful the American people, including Citizens United.

It was interesting to hear about ways that corporations are quietly benefiting from their human status, as this is most definitely something they don't want on people's radar. Instead, corporations benefit from the narrative that the change in actual peoples' relative economic status is due to insert-group-of-"other"-people.

I certainly wouldn't call this book unbiased in its writing style, but if you are left leaning and want someone to be mad at that actually deserves it, this book makes a very good and easy to understand argument about why that group should be corporations masquerading as people.

[Camp Clemmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

America Suffers from a Self-inflicted, Lethal, but Curable Infection

Thom Hartman exposes the fraud that our Supreme Court uses as the pretext for Constitutional corporate personhood, the insidious basis for unlimited corporate political spending in our elections as well as many other of our country's ills. He explains how this has enabled America's momentum toward oligarchy and what might stop it.
Mr. Hartman's writing is clear, concise, well-documented, and engaging. His message is timely and crucial. I highly recommend "Who Killed the Ame
rican Dream" to all who care about the present and future of our country.
Joseph Clemmons (Husband of Nora Nilsen)

[Steven May · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hartmann reveals how corporations power to control America actually started in 1988 with an error in reporting a supreme court ruling. He proposes a constitutional amendment to restrict corporate power.

Any one who is frustrated with money’s taking over America needs to read this book.