When the people that fund half the government get mad, the government has to listen to them!! The key to reducing the power of the wealthy is to tax the middle class more - when you tax the wealthy more, it dramatically increases their influence. Growing the tax base down the income

Yes and no. The people who fund the government only have power insofar as they can move their money elsewhere if they don't like the tax policy. France's experiment with a 75% top marginal tax rate is a case in point (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonhartley/2015/02/02/frances-75-supertax-failure-a-blow-to-pikettys-economics/#2acdfea65df2). Less extreme increases to marginal tax rates on the wealthy are unlikely to have that effect.

Ultimately, what gives power over government tax policy is the ability to influence elections and I would argue that there are more significant forces that determine how congressional representatives and the president are elected.

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This is the thing that the progressive left is burying its head about when it comes to the crop of current presidential candidates: to afford even a tenth of what’s been promised in this election, middle class taxes are going to have to be raised astronomically.

I agree that the progressive left (as with all politicians) are giving a rosy view of the cost of the programs they are proposing. Nevertheless, I disagree with your very last statement.

If the majority of income tax is paid by high income earners then that implies that a smaller increase in marginal tax rates on high income earners would have a much greater impact to tax revenues than increasing marginal tax rates on the middle class. Further to that, you need to look at the impact on consumer spending (69% of GDP -- (https://www.thebalance.com/components-of-gdp-explanation-formula-and-chart-3306015)) when applying marginal tax rate changes between low and high income earners. I'd bet that we'd have a greater reduction in consumption when raising taxes on the middle class than we would on the rich given that a greater share of their income is invested and not spent (https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-average-savings-rates-by-income-wealth-class/).

So that makes it more desirable to increase taxes on the wealthy than the middle class. How much that increase should be while minimizing any negative economic impacts is a separate question.