Biden and the Democrats increasingly rely on a gentrified base built around college-educated professionals and the oligarchic elite. The professionals and their unions, particularly teachers, provide the ground game. Meanwhile, the oligarchs send in the cash. In 2020, five of the top eight Biden donors came from tech firms, for instance. The ultra-rich now tend to be on the putative left, which has consistently out-raised and out-spent the political right in recent years, by a margin of nearly two to one.

Yet the very policies the oligarchs and progressives embrace have proven economically perilous for much of the middle and working classes. The expenditures for climate have not created the promised gusher of ‘green jobs’. In fact, wherever these policies are imposed, such as in California, many jobs in manufacturing, logistics and agriculture have stagnated or declined.