Richard White has written this opinion piece for Politico.It begins: “The Gilded Age demonstrated how venal the rich can be. But our current Gilded Age manages to maintain the venality while pumping in large doses of ideology. Corporate lobbies, a creation of the first Gilded Age, can and do take care of corporate interests. Now, however, the rich seem to desire more than tactical friends who protect their interests — they want advocates, even zealots, to advance their views. With Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court launched the current wave of super PACs, concentrating political money in fewer private hands than at any time since the Gilded Age. This is fitting, since Citizens United is the spawn of a Gilded Age decision, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.”