158 Families

The United States has become a nation where the majority of its citizens are no longer the white traditionalists that were the stereotypes of the American mainstream for well over two centuries. Even the not-so-old iconic television shows produced at the end of the last century – sporting houses with white picket fences, stay-at-home moms and white dads in fedoras or hard hats – would be wildly distorted images of contemporary America. Today, we are a nation comprised mostly of culturally, racially and ethnically diverse peoples; but that white mainstay is a rapidly-fading minority that still calls most of the shots in our political world.

They do it with gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, religious justification and, most of all, money and lots of it. They are empowered by judicial decisions (e.g., Citizens United allowing their corporate structures to foot the bill for massive influence peddling), tax codes and regulatory schema filled with the finest exemptions, loopholes and special treatments that money can buy, and government officials with palms outstretched fighting ever-more-expensive election campaigns. They live under a legal code reserved just for them.

So I was fascinated by an October 10^th New York Times piece (Buying Power) by Nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen and Karen Yourish addressing exactly who are those most powerful moneyed influence peddlers. In a rapidly changing world where new-tech explodes from young minds, where immigrants are building the greatest segments of small business and where women are hammering at that glass ceiling, who represents the bulwark of American influence from that same-old/same-old white traditionalist faction that still seem to run this country as if they owned it… which, apparently, they do? Ah, with a few of those in the new diversity demographic – very few – thrown into the mix.

“They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

“Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

“These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.” NY Times.

The heaviest concentrations of donors are found, not surprisingly, in New York, Florida, California and Texas, with significant smatterings from Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. And most of that money goes to fiscal and social conservative causes and candidates. “‘It’s a lot of families around the country who are self-made who feel like over-regulation puts these burdens on smaller companies,’ said Doug Deason, a Dallas investor whose family put $5 million behind Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and now, after Mr. Perry’s exit, is being courted by many of the remaining candidates. ‘They’ve done well. They want to see other people do well.’

“In marshaling their financial resources chiefly behind Republican candidates, the donors are also serving as a kind of financial check on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies. Two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year, according to a June New York Times/CBS News poll, while six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.

“Republican candidates have struggled to improve their standing with Hispanic voters, women and African-Americans. But as the campaign unfolds, Republicans are far outpacing Democrats in exploiting the world of ‘super PACs,’ which, unlike candidates’ own campaigns, can raise unlimited sums from any donor, and which have so far amassed the bulk of the money in the election.

“The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30, according to the most recent available Federal Election Commission filings and other data, while an additional 200 families gave more than $100,000. Together, the two groups contributed well over half the money in the presidential election -- the vast majority of it supporting Republicans.”

Indeed, as wealth polarization – the one-percenter-effect – redefines American politics, as compensation moves from labor to those who own the automation that is replacing labor, as investment strategies and off-shore tax manipulation join out-sourcing as the major wealth builder, as automated social technology platforms replace “making real stuff,” we are watching hard work-American dream and job security fritter away in a world of job instability and the new “gig economy.”

Further shifting wealth is the new “denial of mass opportunity” represented by the wealthy no longer willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund what was once – decades ago – the finest educational system on earth. With so much money built on overseas economics, financial instruments/strategies and digital highways, the mega-rich no longer want to pay the taxes to support a hard-tangible-asset world infrastructure of functioning highways, dams and bridges. Indeed, primarily through their Republican voice-boxes, they have managed to chill the effort to address income inequality though embracing slogans – “protect the job creators” – that have a zero chance of working. They have stemmed the tide of government support for education, infrastructure and research, kept their taxes low (even “zero”) and side-stepped regulation, even when the laws are on the books, by defunding the regulatory agencies charged with implementation.

What’s worse, with plunging educational standards and the rise of manipulative and mean-spirited religiosity, they have been able to garner enough popular support to hold the reins of power more tightly than any other period since the dawn of the 20^th (the last) century. They have championed a plutocracy that belongs exclusively to them. But in this sea of demographic change, how long can they hold the rising, angry and desperate tide from overwhelming them? How long will they be able to pretend to challenge the Washington, DC incumbency with the very outsiders that paid for the system to get here? And most importantly, how long can a nation so severely divided stay as one?

I’m Peter Dekom, and unless we address our plutocratic trends and crush those vectors, we will fade, we will dissipate, and we will only be able to look at our greatness in the rear view mirror of history.