Everyone who'd rather not see the electorate be galvanized by issues such as Citizens United (lobby groups and the industry behind them), effective Wall Street oversight (banks), Carbon Taxes (energy giants), single payer healthcare (health care industry), gerrymandering (basically most of the elected members of The House) etc.

As it happens half the issues you raise there are also distractions, but best. A number of them are also ways for the elite to con the populace into giving them more power. Keep in mind that just because you've seen through one smoke screen doesn't mean there aren't others.

To take the example of Citizens United, the question there is whether a group of average individual citizens can pool their resources to create lobbying groups that have a chance to compete with individual wealthy and/or well-connected citizens.