...[R]elentless concentration of wealth and power among the rich is deeply corrosive in a democracy, and this makes it a profoundly political problem as well.

How did we get here? In the past, after all, liberal politicians did make it their business to advocate for the working and middle classes, and they worked that advocacy through the Democratic Party. But they largely stopped doing this in the '70s, leaving the interests of corporations and the wealthy nearly unopposed....

With labor in decline, both parties now respond strongly to the interests of the rich -- whose institutional representation is deep and energetic -- and barely at all to the interests of the working and middle classes.

This has produced three decades of commercial and financial deregulation that started during the administration of a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, gained steam throughout the Reagan era, and continued under Bill Clinton.

Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916, 1963 (emphasis added):

Nor is the extension of federal regulation over the economy a question of progressive intent thwarted by conservative administration and fulfillment. Important business elements could always be found in the forefront of agitation for such regulation, and the fact that well-intentioned reformers often worked with them -- indeed, were often indispensable to them -- does not change the reality that federal economic regulation was generally designed by the regulated interest to meet its own end, and not those of the public or commonweal...

The first federal regulatory effort, the Interstate Commerce Commission, had been cooperative and fruitful; indeed, the railroads themselves had been the leading advocates of extended federal regulation after 1887...

[T]he business and political elites of the Progressive Era had largely identical social ties and origins. And, last of all, the federal government, rather than being a source of negative opposition, always represented a potential source of economic gain. The railroads, of course, had used the federal and local governments for subsidies and land grants. But various other industries appreciated the desirability of proper tariffs, direct subsidies in a few instances, government-owned natural resources, or monopolistic privileges possible in certain federal charters or regulations. For all of these reasons the federal government was a natural ally.

Since the 1970s, political parties have responded strongly to the interests of the rich. Do journalists believe these things when they type them up, or is there a script of some kind?