The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve was posted on the Washington Post website October 4, 2017:
THE BIG IDEA: Everywhere he looks, Republican strategist and lobbyist Bruce Mehlman sees “eerie” parallels between the Gilded Age and today.
Mehlman produces quarterly reports about the political climate. In his latest, which he’s distributing to his clients today, he argues that “data is the new oil.” He likens Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Larry Page and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post) to captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
“Back then you had iconic innovators who built these dominant companies and amassed great fortunes. You’ve got that again today,” Mehlman explained in an interview. “You saw income inequality spike.The last time it was as high for the top 10 percent as it is today was the Gilded Age. … In politics, you saw a rich few increasingly dominating spending to impact elections — similar to today.” Continue reading “Why a Republican strategist thinks we’re in a new Gilded Age”