The Rich, the Very Rich, and the Ultra-Rich Are Draining Our Pockets While Weighting Us Down
Recently, I came across some prescient and eye-opening comments in the November 2025 issue of The New Republic:
“I used to think that the defining fight for our country was between the left and the right. Now, I am much more worried about the money at the top crushing everyone underneath.
“That sounds grim because it is. But I also think this perspective can unite our country in a way that feels almost impossible today.”
Those words were written by Alvaro M. Bedoya, who was appointed to the Federal Trade Commission in 2022 by President Biden and served until he was fired by Donald Trump in March 2025. Bedoya’s comments are part of an article he wrote titled “How I Became a Populist.” Populism is a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that established elite groups don’t pay attention to their needs and requests. A key point of Bedoya’s article is that populism can be much more than an attack on billionaires and oligarchs. It can be “an opportunity to unite the millions they are leaving behind.”
Of course, left and right will have to unite somehow and start throwing hard punches upward, not at each other. How else can we gather enough strength to chip away at the crushing weight of runaway wealth at the top? Much easier said than done, yes, especially given how wide our political divide has become. Yet can you think of an alternative? It is we who are propping up the trillionaires, billionaires, and multimillionaires now soaking up as much of our sparse money as they can…while they squash us.
It will be a battle much worse than David vs. Goliath. Picture $30,000-a-year Social Security recipients going up against people who can spend that much for lunch. You can’t outspend them. But you can make yourself quit buying things from them–convenience and coolness be damned. You can pinch their spare-change pockets and make their accountants uncomfortable. More importantly, you can vote out the politicians that they own, from the White House all the way down to school boards and town councils. Just show up at the right place and right time with the right documents in hand. Then vote to throw the bums out.
While you’re waiting for the next election, read a couple of books for inspiration (and well-informed anger): Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum (Vintage Books); and Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections by David Daley.
Si Dunn reviews books for The Progressive Populist and Lone Star Literary Life.
-30-