The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly between cultures.

The term "middle class" is first attested in James Bradshaw's 1745 pamphlet Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France. The term has had several, sometimes contradictory, meanings. It was once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and the peasantry of Europe.^{[by whom?]} While the nobility owned the countryside, and the peasantry worked the countryside, a new bourgeoisie (literally "town-dwellers") arose around mercantile functions in the city. Another definition equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles. By this definition, only millionaires and billionaires are middle class in modern times. In fact, to be a capital-owning millionaire was the essential criterion of the middle class in the industrial revolution. In France, the middle classes helped drive the French Revolution.

Elizabeth Warren (born June 22, 1949) is an American bankruptcy law expert, policy advocate, Harvard Law School professor, and Democratic Party candidate in the 2012 United States Senate election in Massachusetts. She has written several academic and popular books concerning the American economy and personal finance. She contributed to the oversight of the 2008 U.S. bailout program, and also led the conception and establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Warren attended The George Washington University and the University of Houston. She received a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law–Newark in 1976. Warren taught law at several universities and was listed by the Association of American Law Schools as a minority law professor throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the wake of the U.S. financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program in 2008. She later served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under U.S. President Barack Obama.

Middle Class Rut, also known as MC Rut, is an American alternative rock band duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Zack Lopez and vocalist/drummer Sean Stockham. They were formed in Sacramento, California in December 2006. After several EP's, in 2010 they released their first full-length LP, No Name No Color.

Middle Class Rut was formed after the dissolution of Lopez and Stockham's previous band, Leisure, which was signed to Dreamworks Records in 2000 when Lopez and Stockham were in their teens. Leisure came to an end in 2003 and, after taking a hiatus from performing, Lopez and Stockham came together again to form Middle Class Rut.

The band played its first major national tour in the fall of 2007 with Receiving End Of Sirens and Envy On The Coast. Alternative Press reviewed MC Rut's live performance, saying “…it’s mind-blowing to witness the sheer depth and complexity of the sound these two guys are capable of unleashing on their own…but once the novelty subsides, you’re left with incendiary post-rock with visible traces of ‘90s alternative.” The Sacramento Bee, in a major feature this past spring, declared that “Middle Class Rut gives an intense spin to the adage that 'less is more.'” The band toured with Burning Brides during July 2008 and 3 during October 2008.

Karl Denninger was the CEO of MCSNet in Chicago, one of the area's first Internet providers. He is a founding contributor to conservative blog market-ticker.org and was one of the early members of the Tea Party movement ("I cannot take credit for the idea floated on the forum, but I do like it"). Rick Santelli's CNBC mention of a tea party followed Mr. Denninger's blog entry on January 20.

On January 20, 2009 Denninger published a blog post regarding the suggestion to mail tea-bags to the White House and Congress. The title of his post was "Tea Party February 1st?" It was written on the same day and in response to President Obama's inauguration, even though Denninger had voted for Obama. The blog-post took issue with the bank bailouts, the US national debt and "the fraud and abuse in our banking and financial system" which included the predatory lending practices at the center of the home mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Denninger, who helped form FedUpUSA in the wake of the March 2008 Federal Reserve bail-out of Bear Sterns, has been a guest on MSNBC, Glenn Beck and CNBC Reports. By February 1, the idea had spread to various conservative and libertarian-oriented blogs, forums, websites and through a viral email campaign.