Put Not Your Faith in Billionaires - Even Liberal Ones

First, because rich people are out to enrich themselves at your expense, no matter what they claim to support.
Secondly, because abandoning the political process for the vain hope that Big Daddy Billionaire will rescue us is the death of democracy and the final step into serfdom.

Digby:

But on the whole, I just can't help but mourn for our poor rickety system of democracy to see yet another billionaire jump into the arena and decide for the people what issues are important. I can now easily imagine a time at which we simply choose our billionaires rather than our politicians or parties and pledge our loyalty to "Team Bloomberg" or Team Koch" just like the serfs we are rapidly turning into.

But don't worry, you have the same right to free speech as they do --- and if you can afford to spend billions, you too can buy the television advertisements to compete with what they're selling. So, it's all good.

SNIP

As I said, if there's one discrete issue that I exempt from this complaint it's climate change which is such a huge challenge with such catastrophic implications that I wouldn't complain if every liberal with money decided to focus on fighting it. But now that we are seeing the emergence of a new aristocracy dedicated to fighting our battles for us, it would be useful if some of the ones who've taken up the liberal standard would build a few ideological political and media institutions to match the right wing's advantage.

I'm surely grateful for my new liberal liege lord and just hope that he won't lose interest once he finds that it's hard to make a difference as so many previous noble liberals have done. I even bow my head to my centrist ally Lord Bloomberg on the gun issue --- he's making a difference. But overall this country is looking less and less like a democracy every day.