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Bernie’s bringing class war back
After the last Democratic presidential debate, Frank Luntz asked a panel of undecided voters for their thoughts. The Republican pollster quizzed them about the usual stuff—immigration, impeachment, candidates’ personal styles—eliciting some rather mundane responses, but things got interesting when talk turned to billionaires. Luntz wondered how many considered the ultra-wealthy “unsavory.” Quite a few did.
“The reason I am of the view that billionaires are unsavory is—in our current system—I don’t know why they exist. I don’t know why there’s people with that much money in our country when there’s people who can’t afford to buy insulin,” one said.
Another chimed in: “I think [billionaires are] unsavory because trickle-down economics doesn’t work. The way that people amass that much wealth is through capital ownership. They take their money and they use it to increase the value of their stock options. And they do that by taking away money from their workers.”
A theme that had been bubbling beneath the surface was brought to the fore toward the end of the segment when a young woman said: “I want to see Bernie versus Trump because we’re in a class war. That’s what it is.”
For decades, “class warfare” has been a snarl word used to shut down any policy that might benefit working-class Americans at the expense of the…
