Citizens United increased big money, but backroom deal making goes back to the beginning. Lincoln was a hardball player as we say today.
The DNC and RNC influence local candidate selection through money. Jesse Ventura likened it all to TV wrestling, it is all theater in which the DNC and RNC need each other as combataants.
But there is a new elemnt. I am not religious, but there seems to be an evil that came through from some republicans in the inquisition. Deep abiding hate and a virulent malevelant spirit has taken hold beyond politucs as usual.
Fair comments, but they don't support the assertion that no Dems read the ACA prior to passage. I'm pretty sure they did read it - I watched some of the hearings and heard some public debate on the Republican amendments that Dems had to add to ensure passage. They seemed to have read it quite thoroughly. Yeah, the decisions about whether to sacrifice x,y and z in order to get the thing passed were made in back rooms... thus it has always been and will always be, as long as there is any vestige of representative democracy remaining. But it wsn't a rubber stamp.
