Posted on 10/09/2015 3:15:14 PM PDT by Libloather
Voters on both the left and the right often claim that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties, and of course that isn’t true. There’s a big difference between Elena Kagan and Antonin Scalia, for one thing. But there may be more to this argument than you think.
Democrats now depend as much on affluent voters as on low-income voters. Democrats represent a majority of the richest congressional districts, and the party’s elected officials are more responsive to the policy agenda of the well-to-do than to average voters. The party and its candidates have come to rely on the elite 0.01 percent of the voting age population for a quarter of their financial backing and on large donors for another quarter.
**SNIP**
Sanders is running on an explicitly left-populist platform. It includes taxation of overseas corporate profits, a progressive estate tax, an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, the investment of $1 trillion in infrastructure, withdrawal from Nafta and other trade agreements, free tuition at public colleges, a single-payer health care system, and more.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bernie needs more rich people.
Democrats are easily bought, and the big corporations own the lock stock and barrel.
They’re all easily bought.
And they deliver value for the money.
Basically, they are better whores than the GOP-E.
That is because they are for sale!
Not so much with RINOs.
Taxes are an expense that’s passed on- to the poor.
Of course the middle class hasn’t anyone to pass the expense on to, but the rich do.
Seriously this is the answer.
The .com boom made LOTS of people rich.
Clinton was President during that time.
The .com crash made LOTS of people poor.
Bush was President during that time.
Not political, it is the pain your average voter felt.
politicians are cheap WHORES... repubs and dems...
they will do anything you wish for $$$
that is why WE THE PEOPLE are not getting what they want
and congressional ratings are LOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
Crony capitalism
The poor do not hire people and write checks.
The problem with the wealthier Lefties is that they like to be exclusively rich and ensure that no one else can afford their lifestyles (and all that goes with it).
the democrat party is a criminal enterprise and those elected are literally owned by wealthy power brokers
It’s all a function of the takings clause of the Constitution. The government can’t tax wealth so why should wealthy people fear taxes? Income taxes don’t tax the people who already are rich like Warren Buffet. They tax the people who are trying to earn money and get rich, like the people who would like to compete with Warren Buffett.
It never surprises me when I see rich people like Buffett and Bezos who are already in the castle yelling “pull up the drawbridge” but it does surprise me when everyone says how selfless they are in doing so.
Because the Democrats create an ocean of tax money and feed it to their supporters.
IMHO
The funny thing is that the times is treating this like its some kind of big eye-opening revelation when everybody knows the dem party has been been feeding on the trough of big money donors since they’ve crawled out of a sewer of primordial ooze
The rich and powerful will always end up in control of the state:
"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating." -- Frederic Bastiat
Iron law of oligarchy: "sociological thesis according to which all organizations, including those committed to democratic ideals and practices, will inevitably succumb to rule by an elite few (an oligarchy). The iron law of oligarchy contends that organizational democracy is an oxymoron. Although elite control makes internal democracy unsustainable, it is also said to shape the long-term development of all organizations—including the rhetorically most radical—in a conservative direction.
Robert Michels spelled out the iron law of oligarchy in the first decade of the 20th century in Political Parties, a brilliant comparative study of European socialist parties that drew extensively on his own experiences in the German Socialist Party. Influenced by Max Weber’s analysis of bureaucracy as well as by Vilfredo Pareto’s and Gaetano Mosca’s theories of elite rule, Michels argued that organizational oligarchy resulted, most fundamentally, from the imperatives of modern organization: competent leadership, centralized authority, and the division of tasks within a professional bureaucracy. These organizational imperatives necessarily gave rise to a caste of leaders whose superior knowledge, skills, and status, when combined with their hierarchical control of key organizational resources such as internal communication and training, would allow them to dominate the broader membership and to domesticate dissenting groups. Michels supplemented this institutional analysis of internal power consolidation with psychological arguments drawn from Gustave Le Bon’s crowd theory. From this perspective, Michels particularly emphasized the idea that elite domination also flowed from the way rank-and-file members craved guidance by and worshipped their leaders. Michels insisted that the chasm separating elite leaders from rank-and-file members would also steer organizations toward strategic moderation, as key organizational decisions would ultimately be taken more in accordance with leaders’ self-serving priorities of organizational survival and stability than with members’ preferences and demands." ~ Encyclopedia Britannica
A friend described what he thought it was several years ago and I haven't heard a better explanation.
The rich have got theirs (riches, power, status) and they don't want anyone else to get theirs. They enjoy the elite and rarified status they enjoy and want it to stay that way.
Final campaign fundraising totals:
2008 Fundraising
Obama: $744,985,625
McCain: $368,093,763
2012 Fundraising
Obama: $715,677,692
Romney: $446,135,997
Top Corporate Donors Obama 2008
Goldman Sachs
Microsoft
JP Morgan Chase
Google
Citigroup
Time Warner
National Amusements Inc. (CBS, Viacom)
IBM
General Electric
Morgan Stanley
Unfortunately the conscience of a Democrat tends to offer puny reststance to the allure of wealth and power.
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