And it's about time.
Billionaires are the target in this year's Democratic campaign
Even a few billionaires are jumping on the "bash billionaires" bandwagon.
Apparently, this is reminiscent of FDR in the 1936 campaign, when bashing the rich was also in vogue.
Should billionaires be allowed to exist? Not according to Bernie Sanders.
Sanders and Warren are leading the charge against billionaires.
Why has antagonism against the super-wealthy increased in this campaign? The article explains that it's not simply due to large disparities in wealth, but also due to various scandals, such as Big Pharma execs gouging customers, tech execs failing to protect users' privacy or respond to foreign disinformation, the bailing out of financial execs following the mortgage crisis which they caused.
This apparently has been a long time coming within the Democratic Party, as previous leaders were highly reticent and timid when it came to attacking the super-wealthy (which is likely the reason a lot of blue-collar voters have turned against them).
It appears that Democrats are finally beginning to realize that trying to placate the rich was a failed strategy.
As noted in the bolded quote above, this is not about class envy, but more about people getting rich at the expense of average Americans, using dishonest, devious means to do so.
What's also interesting is that both Warren and Sanders take pride in the scare tactics used by billionaires who oppose them:
This is the common refrain from the wealthy, with empty, baseless Chicken Little warnings that the sky will fall if the dreaded "socialists" take over. But they're only worried about themselves and the super-wealthy. The other 99% of America would be just fine if socialists took over.
Billionaires are the target in this year's Democratic campaign
WASHINGTON —
When investment mogul Henry Kravis put his Colorado ranch on the market earlier this year for $46 million, attention to its big-game hunting grounds, marble-countered butler’s pantry and golf course designed by Greg Norman ran high on the society pages — and on the Twitter feed of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“Billionaires like this guy make me wonder what our country needs more of,” the Massachusetts senator wrote, “ranches with golf courses designed by PGA players & fireplaces ‘imported from European castles’ — or universal childcare & a Green New Deal?”
It wasn’t long ago that demonizing the super-rich was risky politics for Democrats. Candidates worried about charges of class warfare and feared turning off voters who dreamed of joining the ranks of the 1%. Democratic Party’s economic policies sought to aid the poor and the middle class, but mostly not at the expense of the rich.
As Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate made clear, such reticence has vanished from the current campaign.
Even a few billionaires are jumping on the "bash billionaires" bandwagon.
A widening economic divide, a raft of misdeeds by the billionaire class and diminished political clout for campaign mega-donors have turned the richest Americans into a particularly ripe target this election cycle. Not since the Great Depression have so many candidates so aggressively pilloried the well-to-do.
Apparently, this is reminiscent of FDR in the 1936 campaign, when bashing the rich was also in vogue.
“We haven’t seen anything like this since 1936,” said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, whose films and writings have been a rallying point for rage against the ultra-rich. “That was when FDR said, ‘I welcome their hatred,’” Reich said, referring to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now Bernie Sanders has been recycling that exact line on the campaign trail.
Should billionaires be allowed to exist? Not according to Bernie Sanders.
“Billionaires should not exist” is emblazoned on bumper stickers sent to Sanders enthusiasts.
The Vermonter isn’t new to crusades against billionaires. But now he has lots of company: California Sen. Kamala Harris boasts that a career highlight was unloading on Jamie Dimon, the billionaire chairman and chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, when she was the state attorney general. Tom Steyer, the former hedge-fund investor, doesn’t let his own billionaire status interfere with bashing the upper crust while campaigning.
“No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said during Tuesday’s debate. “Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires,” she added, referring to Steyer.
Sanders and Warren are leading the charge against billionaires.
But while others have joined the pile-on against the super-wealthy, it is Sanders and Warren who on many days seem to be in an arms race of billionaire antagonism.
They eagerly bait, troll and bash billionaires at every opportunity. They send out missives to donors boasting how much damage their plans would inflict on the wallets of specific wealthy families and corporations.
Why has antagonism against the super-wealthy increased in this campaign? The article explains that it's not simply due to large disparities in wealth, but also due to various scandals, such as Big Pharma execs gouging customers, tech execs failing to protect users' privacy or respond to foreign disinformation, the bailing out of financial execs following the mortgage crisis which they caused.
The broadsides come amid a raft of new data that underscore why billionaires are such a ripe target. America’s 400 richest families last year, for the first time, paid a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 50% of American earners, a new book by UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman reported. (In the 1960s and 1970s, the richest Americans typically paid taxes twice as high as those paid by the working class.)
The top one percent of earners in America have seen their wealth triple in the last 30 years, as the bottom half of American earners watched theirs stagnate. Then there are the scandals: Pharmaceutical execs gouging customers, tech execs haplessly failing to protect users’ privacy or respond to foreign disinformation, financial execs bailed out following the mortgage crisis they helped cause.
That has all lead to a souring of American attitudes toward the ultra-rich. A recent survey by the nonpartisan Democracy Fund Voter Study Group found that Democrats overwhelmingly believe the wealthy have too much political influence (89%), exploit people who work for them (78%) and give unfair advantages to family and friends (84%).
This apparently has been a long time coming within the Democratic Party, as previous leaders were highly reticent and timid when it came to attacking the super-wealthy (which is likely the reason a lot of blue-collar voters have turned against them).
Some in the party have been itching for years to crusade against billionaires, but it became complicated in the Obama era.
“President Obama, in some ways, did not allow this,” said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “He was trying to make the case for the way he addressed the economic crisis, which was bailing out banks. That created a lot of disgruntlement among the working class.”
It appears that Democrats are finally beginning to realize that trying to placate the rich was a failed strategy.
But after Sanders nearly derailed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary with his anti-billionaire theme — and Donald Trump won the general election partly by feeding into populist economic resentment — the argument for a measured approach faded.
“This is not just about people being angry because rich people are rich, and they are not,” said Nell Abernathy, vice president of policy and strategy at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive nonprofit. “The candidates are focused on people who are getting rich at the expense of average Americans.”
As noted in the bolded quote above, this is not about class envy, but more about people getting rich at the expense of average Americans, using dishonest, devious means to do so.
What's also interesting is that both Warren and Sanders take pride in the scare tactics used by billionaires who oppose them:
As they build their case, there are few things some campaigns prize more than anti-endorsements of the super-rich. Sanders has a full page of them proudly displayed on his website.
He boasts how former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein warned the Sanders candidacy “has the potential to be a dangerous moment” and how former Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam called the senator’s views “contemptible.” And there is Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone recalling the thought that occurred to him when he saw the excitement Sanders created among young voters in 2016: “This is the antichrist!”
Warren, too, has a surfeit of anti-endorsements to brag about. She got major mileage out of the leaked transcript of Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, telling employees over the summer that the firm would pull out all the stops to block her plan to break up Big Tech. The audio stars in a new video produced by the campaign in which various rich and powerful men fret about the economic doom a Warren White House would trigger.
This is the common refrain from the wealthy, with empty, baseless Chicken Little warnings that the sky will fall if the dreaded "socialists" take over. But they're only worried about themselves and the super-wealthy. The other 99% of America would be just fine if socialists took over.