The most obvious explanation is that the anti- Warren donors are spooked by her attack on their great, silent benefactor: income inequality and the four decades within which the American economy and government have cooperated in redistributing wealth and income upward to a privileged sliver of Americans

The central focus of Warren’s career has been documenting the growing struggles of ordinary Americans—in particular, the growth of corporate profits and upper-crust wealth as average Americans tread water. This phenomenon has been abetted by politicians who are supported and financed by both corporate interests and the wealthy. As Warren puts it, “The constant tension in a democracy is that those with money will try to capture the government to turn it to their purposes.” That privileged nexus between economic and political power explains much about why the top 0.1 percent of Americans now control nearly as much in wealth as the bottom 90 percent.

A few statistics illustrate how sharply America has diverged from our historical norm since 1980. Over the last five decades, the top 1 percent have nearly doubled their share of national income—a concentration of earnings not seen since the 1920s. CEOs head roughly two-thirds of America’s richest 1 percent of households. And in 2017, the gap between CEOs and workers was nearly 9 times larger than it was in 1980. The gap gets bigger the higher you go: The CEOs at the S&P 500 are paid 61 times as much as the average employee. Inevitably, this wealth gap fortifies the donor classes.