From the Archive, Dec 7, 2017: Is It Mandatory for Democrats with Money to be Selfish Pricks?

originally published here on Dec 7, 2017

It often amuses me at how conservatives talk out of both sides of their mouths on the issue of wealthy people, lawmakers particularly, who aren't on-board with the usual drastic Republican economic policies of slashing taxes to the bone, demonizing working and poor people, and generally acting as though accumulating money is the real purpose of life.

If an elected official is progressive, quite possibly a democrat, and he/she is not wealthy, many conservative folk will say that they have no place in the discussion as they haven't demonstrated that they know how to succeed, don't know how America works, how free enterprise works, blah, blah, blah...

Donald tRump has spouted this crap repeatedly.

If a progressive elected official does have wealth, conservatives will still attack him or her, it's just a different strategy. Many Democratic or progressive public servants are well-off. So the line of attack in that case is that he/she is a hypocrite, as though people with money somehow have to be selfish assholes and hate working people or anyone who doesn't have enough dinero to get into the club!

So it's the usual Rethuglican approach of attack everyone with whom you disagree, but the strategy and the talking points are different depending on who or what they're attacking.

Meanwhile, there is no inconsistency when people with wealth say our economic policies need to take into account all Americans, not just large corporations and the 1% who have the means to hire lobbyists and buy off elected officials with YUGE campaign contributions.

There are plenty of people who have gobs and gobs of wealth but know American economic policy needs to take into account all Americans and the common good: Warren Buffett, Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, and many, many others.

It's insane to believe that having wealth automatically makes you selfish and fills your head with hatred and contempt for working people, the chronically poor, disabled people, etc. There's nothing hypocritical in the least about having shitloads of money and believing that that everyone's situation and everyone's needs matter.

There's nothing hypocritical about being wealthy and thinking that really wealthy people, including yourself, need to pay substantial taxes, that revenue can get too low and that something's very wrong when the secretary pays a higher effective tax rate than the CEO for whom she works. (Something which, by the way, actually happened with Mitt Romney and his secretary when the subject of effective tax rates for different income brackets came up for discussion in the 2012 Presidential debates.)

Conservatives are not going to get progressive people and Democrats to give in to their extreme, Ayn Rand-type of economic selfishness by suggesting that Democratic lawmakers--who very often are wealthy--are somehow disqualified from caring about ordinary people or advocating for policies that are designed to benefit the 98% of Americans who work for a living.


Working guy "Bulldog Ben" Basile



© 2017 Benjamin Lawrence Basile