Juan Williams: Donald Trump, money and politics

Donald Trump is blunt about his primary qualification to be president: “I’m really rich!”

Yes, he is — and so are most of the other people running for the White House. All but four of the 22 prominent candidates across both parties are millionaires. The only non-millionaires are Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R).

{mosads}And people with even more money than these rich candidates are bankrolling the campaigns. The New York Times reported last week that “fewer than four hundred families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.”

The Times found an especially astounding concentration of wealth among contributors to GOP campaigns. “Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super-PACs,” the paper reported. 

The Washington Post followed up with an editorial warning of an emerging “American oligarchy.” The Post wrote that big donations from the super-rich have “the potential to warp the political system,” and noted that among the most munificent givers are people who “would be affected by government policy. … Tycoons who have their fortunes in private equity, hydraulic fracking and oil field services, technology and other businesses. Now they want to add king-maker to their names.” 

In this sea of money, Trump still stands out. He is so rich that he doesn’t need to raise money to run his campaign. He recently took to Twitter to slam Republican candidates for going to a conference held by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. He said the politicians who traveled to California for the event are guilty of begging “for money. … Puppets?”

Trump’s derision drew lots of snickers. He is entertaining. But his surprisingly successful campaign — built in part upon boasts about the power of big money — has traction with voters even though it comes at a time of record U.S. income inequality.

Pew Research reported last December that the nation’s rich now have a “median net worth that is nearly 70 times that of the country’s lower-income families, [and there is now] also the widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years.” The top one percent now controls more than 80 percent of the nation’s wealth. 

Sanders regularly gets a rousing response when he states that the “gap between the very rich and everyone else in America is wider today than at any time since the 1920s.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has become a folk hero on the left by calling for more help for middle- and working-class families while pushing a crackdown on the rich — specifically, on Wall Street’s risky but high-profit business ventures, which rely on government bailouts when they go sour. 

But somehow the richest of the rich candidates leads the GOP race.

Admiration for Trump’s wealth appears to be part of his popularity. He advertises his success.

Trump says his wealth is evidence of his ability to make deals and thus become “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Trump offers no specifics about how he will produce those jobs. Instead, he speaks to a central political concern among small-government conservatives. 

Casual conversations with voters at campaign events — right or left, filled with Tea Party Republicans or Black Lives Matter Democrats — deliver one consistent theme: Economic anxiety is high for everyone.

But there is no consensus on how to level the playing field. Polls show most conservatives do not want government action — other than lowering taxes. Among Democrats, on the other hand, more than 90 percent tell Pew that they want government intervention, such as raising the minimum wage.

Recent Associated Press-GfK polling shows 80 percent of Democrats support a higher minimum wage, but only 40 percent of Republicans agree. Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has endorsed a proposal to raise the minimum wage in New York. So has Sanders, who calls the current $7.25 federal minimum wage a “starvation wage.”

Trump and most of the GOP contenders oppose raising the minimum wage. They favor tax cuts, which they say would ignite growth.

Last year, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The Republican Congress blocked his effort.

According to 2012 exit polls, voters with annual family incomes under $51,000 made up 41 percent of the electorate. They voted for President Obama by 22 percentage points over Republican Mitt Romney. 

Today, Americans agree the economy is far better than it was when President Obama came to office. Unemployment is down and Wall Street profits are up to record levels. But wages are stagnant and median household income has not gone up for 20 years.

Meanwhile, loopholes and deductions taxes on the wealthy remain near historic lows — in part because of the extension of Bush-era tax cuts. And now the wealthy, under the new, more permissive campaign finance rules approved by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, are exerting more financial influence to mute any response to the populist impulse. At the moment, that means stopping efforts to raise the minimum wage.

If politics is a mirror to the nation’s soul, then Trump and his boastful billions are a true reflection of America 2016.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.