INEQUALITY IS WARPING OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM “Inequality is also warping America's political system. Greatly concentrated wealth leads to outsized political power in the hands of the few -even in a democracy with free and fair elections - which pushes government to create rules that favor the rich. It's no accident that we’re in the era of Citizens United. Such rulings give ordinary Americans the strong suspicion that the game is rigged. Democratic institutions no longer feel legitimate when they continue to produce blatantly unfair outcomes; it's one of those insights that only an elite could miss. And it's backed up by evidence as well as by common sense. Last year [2014], political scientists found that, in recent times, policy ideas have rarely been adopted by the U.S. government unless favored by corporations and the wealthy - even when those ideas are supported by most Americans. The persistence of the highly unpopular interest loophole for hedge-fund managers is simply the most unseemly example.” Packer, George, “The Republican Class War,” pp: 26-34, The New Yorker, November 9, 2015.