The real breakdown in the rule of law occurred when the US Supreme Court made the specious decision that amoral business entities (corporations) had the same rights in a democracy as citizens.
All this shit flows downhill from Citizens United.
Citizens United was just the inevitable outgrowth of Buckley v. Valeo 50 years ago, declaring that money == speech.
That was the wellspring of all this shit.
You must be very young? These issues predate 2010 by millennia.