Geographic segregation dovetails with the growing economic spread between the top 20 percent and the bottom 80 percent: the top quintile is, in effect, disengaging from everyone with lower incomes.

The top quintile is equipped to exercise much more influence over politics and policy than its share of the electorate would suggest.

Equally or perhaps more important, the affluent dominate the small percentage of the electorate that makes campaign contributions.

But the separation is not just economic. Gaps are growing on a whole range of dimensions, including family structure, education, lifestyle, and geography.

Reeves cites data showing that 56 percent of heads of households in the top quintile have college or advanced degrees, compared to 34 percent in the third and fourth quintiles and 17 percent in the bottom two quintiles.

In essence there is a class of very wealthy people who will continue making it so their kids can become wealthy as well while the rest of the world continues to lag behind. This class of people is separating from the lower classes, is dominating the political process.

Highly wealthy groups with high amounts of power separated from having to see the rest of society results in highly negative outcomes in the long run, as they turn the government into something that serves them rather than the common person.

This fact is resulting in the Democratic party shifting towards figures like Clinton and away from Sanders. It results in the republicans getting absolutely killed by Trump when the frustration of the working class poor arises in a party dominated by the working class poor.

A Democrat whose wallet tells him he is a Republican is unlikely be an strong ally of less well-off Democrats in pressing for tax hikes on the rich, increased spending on the safety net or a much higher minimum wage.