Have Billionaires Gone Too Far?
About this episode
The episode discusses the influence of billionaires in politics and the potential backlash they face as signs of growing inequality and anger emerge.
The über-rich have enjoyed a remarkable degree of sway in Donald Trump’s Washington—but they may now be facing a backlash. The Washington Roundtable traces the signs of invigorated “pitchfork politics,” such as Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax in New York , a wealth tax on the ballot in California , and recent protests against the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s involvement in the Met Gala —and what these efforts reveal about the cultural and political limits of oligarchy. The panel is joined by Brooke Harrington, a Dartmouth professor of economic sociology who trained as a wealth manager to embed inside the world of the super-rich. Together they examine whether the “broligarchs” have overplayed their hand, what history tells us about when élites lose their grip on power, and whether the left or the right is better positioned to harness growing inequality and anger as a political weapon heading into the 2026 midterms and beyond. This week’s reading: “ All the President’s Contractors ,” by Antonia Hitchens “ Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Complicated Commemoration ,” by Jelani Cobb “ For Putin, Problems (and Paranoia) Keep Mounting ,” by Joshua Yaffa “ The Pope’s First Anniversary Is…
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