Race, class issues starting to split Silicon Valley alliance of tech, progressives
The rise of today’s progressive-dominated Democratic Party stemmed from a brilliant melding of minorities, the poor, the intelligentsia and, quite surprising, the new ultrarich of Silicon Valley. For the past decade, this alliance has worked for both sides, giving the tech titans politically correct cover while suggesting their support for the progressives’ message can work with business.

Not only did tech overwhelmingly favor President Obama with campaign contributions but Obama also overwhelming won the Silicon Valley electorate, taking the once GOP-leaning Santa Clara County with 70 percent of the vote. After the 2012 election, a host of former top Obama aides – including former campaign manager David Plouffe (Uber) and press spokesman Jay Carney (Amazon) – have signed up to work for tech giants. Perhaps even more revealing was the politically inspired firing last year of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich for contributing to California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage....

...The immediate response from the oligarchs, and their swelling ranks of highly paid public-relations consultants, will likely be symbolic, mouthing the politically correct stance on climate change, even as they take off in their private jets. Also expect them to put more money into charitable activities, which could turn displaced cab drivers or factory assemblers into future wards of the tech elite. In the end, it seems little different from a glossy form of the Gilded Age – or feudalism.

In the long run, rising inequality poses an existential threat to the tech industry, across California and the nation. Tech firms ultimately will not be able to address this merely with noblesse oblige, political cover or PR stunts. And the stakes are large: If the negative impacts of tech are not addressed, the population will seek to tax more of the oligarchs’ holdings and restrict their freedom of operation....