# Any modern Democratic president an enemy of the 1% **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 18, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015 "2015-04-18T23:25:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/41 "2015-04-19T13:17:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Ted Cruz made that argument: “Big government has been very good for the top 1%”. That’s why I’m not sure the Democrats really want to get into a More Populist Than Thou fight with Republicans. The public is not really sure whether they mistrust big business or government more. But neither are very well trusted. > > [Institutions](http://www.pollingreport.com/institut.htm) If you scroll down to the second poll, the top 3 groups the public think have too much power are all big business related (lobbyists, corporations, banks). Only after that do government related groups, labor unions, churches, etc show up. Also to what degree is distrust of the government due to the fact that government is allied with the 1% who can be hostile to the 99% (climate change, plutocracy, income inequality, etc)? To the degree that I don’t trust government much of that comes from the government being dysfunctional and being too allied with wealthy groups that are hostile to my own interests. That is not the same as distrusting big government because you feel they are too hostile to business, it is the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![rock\_party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19b73/32.png) [@rock\_party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rock_party)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/42 "2015-04-19T14:08:35Z")
The 1% have had a coordinated effort for quite a while. And they’re lucky…they’ve got God on their side. [http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030.html?ml=po#.VTO2smd0wkk](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030.html?ml=po#.VTO2smd0wkk) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/43 "2015-04-21T14:48:57Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > what About Kennedy…? By no means. He engineered a tax cut which proportionally benefited the wealthiest earners. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/44 "2015-04-21T15:01:19Z")
There’s been no real difference in the party(ies) since government was acquired by big business in a hostile takeover in 1981. They are two wings of the same dysfunctional bird. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/45 "2015-04-21T16:50:22Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Democrats have to walk a fine line between pretending to want to bring down the wealthy and well connected, but not actually do it enough to piss off the wealthy and well connected. It could cause a schism in the democratic party similar to what happened in the 50s and 60s with civil rights. That schism is coming. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/46 "2015-04-21T17:45:57Z")
FDR was a great friend to the 1% though they didn’t recognize it at the time. He was smart enough to realize that the rabble had to be thrown a few crusts of bread or they just might drag the 1% from their mansions and kill them. WWI and its destruction of empires was still recent history. Communism was still a going concern. There was already a history of violent labor unrest here in the US. The Depression provided masses of poor and displaced people looking for hope. The 1% of the era, I honestly believe, had no idea how close they came to hanging from lamp posts nor that they owed their lives and continued status to “that man.” ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/47 "2015-04-21T18:09:25Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > FDR was a great friend to the 1% though they didn’t recognize it at the time. He was smart enough to realize that the rabble had to be thrown a few crusts of bread or they just might drag the 1% from their mansions and kill them. WWI and its destruction of empires was still recent history. Communism was still a going concern. There was already a history of violent labor unrest here in the US. The Depression provided masses of poor and displaced people looking for hope. The 1% of the era, I honestly believe, had no idea how close they came to hanging from lamp posts nor that they owed their lives and continued status to “that man.” There’s a big difference between the 1% then and the 1% now. In the old days most of the wealthy (\<.2%) had actually earned their money rather trhan having acquyired it through connections, destruction of wealt, and laws that favored them. In those days taxes on the wealthy were extremely high and now they’ve been essentially eliminated. Once this country produced wealthy who earned their money by building a better mousetrap. Now most of them made their money by destroying products and companies and then sending the jobs to China with government assistance. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/48 "2015-04-21T20:30:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That schism is coming. I’d like to think so, but I doubt it. On the social issues, the 1% are extremely liberal. The Fortune 500 is solidly pro-gay and is flexing its muscle to push a pro-gay agenda. That will buy them a lot of good will on the Left. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015/49 "2015-04-21T20:51:19Z")
On the contrary, they ARE the left. The left as we know it today is an alliance between the 1% and the well off liberal middle class. While a lot of them like to talk about the other part of the coalition, when it comes down to a conflict between their issues(jobs) and the white collar coalition’s issues(climate change), guess who wins? Trying to push the 1% to go all in for the GOP would shift the balance of power within the Democratic Party sharply back to the working class, which means that issues like climate change and social liberalism get de-emphasized and the party returns to more what it was like in the pre-Civil Rights era. I don’t mean that in the sense of hostile to African-Americans, but just focused mainly on economic issues and keeping social issues and more sophisticated issues like the environment on the backburner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-modern-democratic-president-an-enemy-of-the-1/718015.md?page=2)