Sure, but that's a much smaller group. The historical argument is that the rise of the environmental movement in the US coincided with the postwar boom. Yes, some people became very wealthy during that time, but millions of people became wealthy enough that they started wanting things like national parks, clean rivers, breathable air, and so on.
The strength in numbers is worth a lot more that asking a few zillionaires to make it happen single-handedly.
Not when the few zillionaires are in command of zillions of dollars of capital, which is by far a more effective lever to do just about anything these days than any lever available to middle class and below.
This is totally wrong. Public opinion is by far the biggest roadblock. Believing that only some evil rich people are in the way is a coping mechanism. Read David Shor or Matt Yglesias on this.
Right, 330,000,000 people in aggregate control that capital through countless layers of abstraction explicitly designed to prevent the vast majority of it from being allocated quickly. And this is in general a good thing because it’s an important mitigation against autocracy and catastrophic negligence.
The differences in the dynamics of these pools of capital are so enormous and so obvious I have to doubt that even you give your argument any credence.
Whether some is considered to be something (aka: "is") is typically just subconsciously checking off a few boxes, typically according to bias, which is affected by propaganda...and "democracy" has received a lot of marketing, and extra "guerrilla" marketing (Jan 6 coverage, etc) in the last few years.
You’re straw-manning. There is a solid argument with plenty of supporting evidence that a small minority observably has virtually all the political power in the United States[1].
That’s not to say public opinion is completely irrelevant, but when it can’t be directly controlled through mass media persuasion techniques it can be neutralized in various ways. Isn’t it interesting how the US is somehow evenly divided on so many “controversial” issues? One explanation is that those who are manipulating the public intentionally play up issues with that property.
Sentimental moment: I remember hearing this argument in the 1970s, and I even believed it then!
Fifty years later, I don't think there isn't going to be a negotiated solution with the rich. It was "us" (i.e. the biosphere) or them, and they already won, dooming our ecosystem.
The strength in numbers is worth a lot more that asking a few zillionaires to make it happen single-handedly.