Thomas R. Dye - Whos Running America?: The Obama Reign

First published 2014 by Paradigm Publishers

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dye, Thomas R.

Whos running America? : the Obama reign / Thomas R. Dye. Eighth edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61205-555-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
E-ISBN 978-1-61205-564-0
1. Elite (Social sciences)United States. 2. United StatesPolitics and

government2009 3. Power (Social sciences) 4. Leadership. I. Title.

HN90.E4D93 2013
303.30973dc23

2013027293

ISBN 13: 978-1-61205-555-8 (pbk)

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Whos Running America? is about the nations institutional elitethe people who direct and manage the largest corporations, banks, and insurance companies; the giant media conglomerates; the prestigious law and lobbying firms; the most heavily endowed foundations and universities; the influential policy-planning organizations (think tanks); and the leading civic and cultural institutions. The current edition, The Obama Reign , describes the Obama White House and Cabinet, the leaders of Congress, and members of the Supreme Court. Whos Running America? describes the people who occupy these key institutional positionsit names names. It describes their educational backgrounds, their rise to the top, and what they do with their power. It sets forth an oligarchic model of national policy-making, in which corporations and wealthy individuals establish foundations that in turn fund policy-planning organizations that feed policy recommendations to the mass media and to the White House, congressional committees, and the courts.

The Obama Reign focuses on the rise to power of Barack Obama, his early years in Indonesia and Hawaii, and his education at Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School. It chronicles his first unsuccessful bid for a seat in Congress, his later rise to the US Senate, and his fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. It describes his first presidential campaign in 2008 and his reelection campaign in 2012. It traces the challenges he faced in the Oval Office as well as the people he chose to surround himself with, including Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, and John Kerry. It profiles Obamas opposition in Congress, including John Boehner and Paul Ryan. And it looks at Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor.

The Obama Reign examines the boardrooms of the nations largest corporations and banks, the owners of the nations leading media outlets, and the fat cat political contributors. It adds a number of essays on institutional leadership, including The Walton Family, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, The Wall Street Bailout, Ben Bernanke: Managing the Nations Money, Warren Buffett: Radical Investor, Rupert Murdoch: Founder of FOX, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.: The New York Times , The Graham Family: The Washington Post , Arianna Huffington: Internet Influence, Fat Cats: Financing Politics, Bill Gates: Global Philanthropist, The Private Companies, The Liberal Establishment, and George Soros: Funding the Far Left.

The decision to name names was carefully considered. We know that occupants of top institutional positions change over time and that some of our information will be out of date by the time of publication. And with thousands of names, some mistakes are inevitable. However, the biographical sketches provide flesh and bones to the statistical analysis; they personalize the numbers and percentages in our research. The people who run America are real people, and we know of no better way to impress this fact upon our readers.

Great power in America is concentrated in a handful of people. A few thousand individuals out of 310 million Americans decide about war and peace, wages and prices, consumption and investment, employment and production, law and justice, taxes and benefits, education and learning, health and welfare, advertising and communication, life and leisure. In all societiesprimitive and advanced, totalitarian and democratic, capitalist and socialistonly a few people exercise great power. This is true whether or not such power is exercised in the name of the people.

Whos Running America? is about those at the top of the institutional structure in Americawho they are, how much power they wield, how they came to power, and what they do with it. In a modern, complex industrial society, power is concentrated in large institutions: corporations, banks and investment firms, insurance companies, media empires, the White House, Congress and the Washington bureaucracy, prestigious law firms and powerful lobbyists, fat cat political contributors, foundations, universities, and private policy-planning organizations. The people at the top of these institutionsthe presidents and directors, the senior partners, the governing trustees, the congressional committee chairpersons, the Cabinet and senior presidential advisers, the Supreme Court Justicesare the objects of our study in this book.