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Hot off the press at Vanity Fair, Craig Unger has written a must-read analysis of the real landscape of 2012 presidential election–and, indeed, all upcoming elections, presidential or otherwise. According to Unger, the new political landscape can be boiled down to a single equation: The Democratic Party vs. Karl Rove.

As Unger readily admits, Rove’s political career was considered dead after the ‘ugly stain” of the George W. Bush presidency, a fall from grace that makes his astronomical rise to GOP “party boss” all the more legendary.

And Rove’s aspirations are legendary as well. According to Unger, Rove is playing the long game, in which electing Romney is just the beginning.

According to Unger: “This was not simply about winning elections. It represented a far more grandiose vision-the forging of a historic re-alignment of America’s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state.”

How would Rove go about achieving this democracy-shattering vision? By wielding his greatest ally: Citizen’s United.

“The gist of the decision could be boiled down to two words: Anything goes,” writes Unger. “Corporations were people, too. And just as John Q. Public could say anything he liked about politics, thanks to an extraordinarily broad interpretation of the meaning of “freedom of speech,” come election-time, so too could Wall Street, Big Oil, pharmaceutical companies, the tobacco industry, and billionaire cranks flood the airwaves with thousands of political commercials.