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But the sacrifice of these good rich souls is a real sacrifice. If they succeed in changing the way political power in America is controlled, they will have a significantly different life. This isn’t one less vacation house in the Bahamas. This would be a move from quintessential insider to just one of “the People.”

Even more striking is that any number of them could, on their own, fund the reform that would save this republic. If this is a “war to save democracy,” then the total cost of this war would be less than half as much as the Pentagon spends every single day. For $1 billion, a campaign to save this democracy could be waged and won. There are at least 371 billionaires in America, 157 of whom are worth more than $2 billion.2 One of them could fund the campaign that would make this republic free again. Or ten of them. Or a hundred. Real change is within their grasp.

Because this isn’t a problem like racism or sexism. It’s simply a problem of incentives. It won’t take generations of relearning, or the awakening of some kind of social awareness. It will simply require making it make sense for politicians to opt into a different system to fund their elections (as, for example, 80 percent of candidates in Maine now do, and more than that in Connecticut). Nor is this a problem like cancer or AIDS. We know precisely what would cure this problem, and we could produce that cure tomorrow. All it would take is resources, and the imagination to recognize just how far these resources could go to recovering this republic.

It wouldn’t even have to be individuals. Think about the freedom now secured (mistakenly, in my view, but in war, you take what you can get) by Citizens United.

I recently had the chance to hear Google’s Eric Schmidt speak. It was the first time I had seen him in a relatively intimate (and hence serious) context. Schmidt was describing all the incredible projects that Google was undertaking: world-changing technologies that anyone else would have thought impossible. There was a certain imagination that defined each of these projects. An imagination that said, “You say it’s impossible. Watch.”

So I asked Schmidt about the subject of this book. I pointed to the string of governmental policies that Google disagreed with, from copyright to network neutrality to antitrust to immigration. I suggested the obvious link to the corruption I have described here. And I asked him if he thought Google could just ignore these differences, treating them like flies buzzing around a picnic, or if Google would try to resolve the differences by pushing to get these policies changed.

For the first time that evening, a small idea was uttered by the representative of this extraordinary company. Schmidt spoke of invigorating the Google PAC, and pushing harder to get their side of the issue better heard.

And I thought, Wow. This is a Google solution to this, the most important problem facing this republic? This is the most they can imagine?

For Citizens United has handed a company like Google an enormous opportunity. We live in Google’s infrastructure. Citizens United means that the company is free to deploy that infrastructure to political ends however it wishes. Indeed, given the failure of Congress to mandate disclosure of independent expenditures, Google could deploy its infrastructure to push particular political ends without even acknowledging it. A single decision by the powers that be could ramp up a campaign to radically strengthen and make more rational the way democracy functions. For almost nothing.

Tempting as these fantasies are, however, they are just fantasies. We can’t wait for some deus ex machina to save our republic. Our republic is ours to save. Or better, it is only ours if we save it. It won’t be billionaires. It won’t be geniuses with brilliant code. And it certainly won’t be politicians.

For our politicians are Yeltsin. Their problem is an addiction. This magnificent republic melts away, and they can’t stop themselves long enough to save it. They can’t stop themselves because they are being