How the Billionaire Coalition Wins

The Billionaire Coalition

How They Win

The Elite’s Most Powerful Weapon

The Billionaire Coalition

We define the billionaire coalition as people and corporations who benefit from tax policies that favor billionaires and the largest corporations.

The donor class drives the coalition. The benefits of donor class tax policies trickle down to the top 10%, but not much further.

Tax reform that helps working people will increase taxes on the rich. This fact holds the coalition together. However, many wealthy Americans do not support donor class policies, so the billionaire coalition includes fewer than 10% of all voters.

The pillars of the coalition are politically active corporations and wealthy campaign donors. They bend public policy with campaign donations, lobbyists, and their media outlets. We call it the billionaire coalition because they run it, and they get most of the benefits.

Corporate participation in the coalition’s political activities varies; some will focus only on issues that affect their operations, while others may reflect the views of the top corporate officers and/or directors.

Some donor class policies favor only a few corporations and the persons who own them. For example, weak antitrust law helps businesses that dominate their markets. The lack of competition harms everyone else, including other businesses.

How They Win

The core supporters of the billionaire coalition are less than 10% of the voters, but they win with a simple strategy:

1. Run candidates in both parties
2. Make generous campaign donations
3. Use lobbyists to collect that debt
4. Control the message through their media outlets
5. Divide and conquer

Prejudice - the Elite’s Most Powerful Weapon

Prejudice has long been used to create scapegoats and motivate the population for battles against neighboring tribes. Elites have been using prejudice to divide and dominate people for eons. If we hate each other, we cannot challenge the rule of the rich.

We hear a lot about racial and religious prejudice, but the media ignores the big one: economic class prejudice. The rich construct barriers to keep themselves above the masses; the middle-class fears the poor, and the poor resent the rich.

When we underestimate the value of people who differ from us, we diminish our strength by refusing to work together. We sustain our prejudices by avoiding people who belong to groups we don’t like. Our prejudices reduce the number of people who might become our political allies.

Who has all the power and money? Brown people? Black people? Immigrants? Gay people? Poor people? People who worship God using different prayers? If we cannot overcome our divisions, we have no hope against the billionaire coalition.

To defeat the billionaire coalition; we need to enact economic reform and election reforms that include better voting systems and campaign finance reform. We need a big tent.