How exactly did corporations come to be understood as “people” bestowed with the most fundamental constitutional rights?
The answer can be found in a bizarre—even farcical—series of lawsuits over 130 years ago involving a lawyer who lied to the Supreme Court,
an ethically challenged justice, and one of the most powerful corporations of the day.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign to pressure insurers and financial services companies to cut ties with the NRA could deeply harm its financial health and ability to “fulfill its advocacy objectives.”

In the complaint, entered July 20 and first reported by the New York Law Journal, the NRA claims it has lost income and access to banking services as a result of the state’s actions.
One of the more dramatic impacts of Cuomo’s push: The NRA says it has not been able to renew its media liability insurance.
If the group cannot secure a policy soon, it could be forced to shutter its multimillion-dollar television network,
NRATV, or a number of its print publications, the complaint reads.
The NRA also says that, without insurance, it “cannot maintain its physical premises” or “convene off-site meetings and events.”

The key difference is among regional cultures tracing back to the nation’s colonization.

Sectionalism isn’t, and never has been, as simple as North versus South or an effete and domineering East against a rugged, freedom-minded West.
Rather, our true regional fissures can be traced back to the contrasting ideals of the distinct European colonial cultures that first took root on the eastern and southern rims of what is now the United States, and then spread across much of the continent in mutually exclusive settlement bands, laying down the institutions, symbols and cultural norms later arrivals would encounter and, by and large, assimilate into.

Understanding this is essential to comprehending our political reality or developing strategies to change it — especially as we approach a momentously consequential midterm election.