We recently held an online study group to examine the question: Are we an oligarchy if our only choices come November are two people who make tens or hundreds of millions a year? Thank you for furthering my education on this crucial topic. I learned an enormous amount from the DKos community. In the interest of helping others, I’m sharing my notes on our consensus views.
The consensus in our community:
Progressive tax rates aren’t all that great. You can’t be “the one who cares about the middle class” if your tax rate is lower than someone else. Even if they take in 100 times what you do. I expect to see DKos supporting a flat tax rate since that would clearly engender enormous caring for the middle class. We believe those making tens of millions deserve our everlasting gratitude. They “pay Bernie's salary in 2014 and for a few other things as well”. Heck, you might even say they’re job creators! We don’t wish to “place on a pedestal” those who have “chosen to be on the federal government payroll”. Our admiration is reserved for those public servants enterprising enough to step through the revolving door and make a few million by giving speeches to industries they held sway over. Why haven’t all life-long public servants moochers cultivated some admirers among the public policy divisions of a few large regulated businesses. They’ll be happy to make you an offer at the going rate for a speech! We will laud your transparency if you've had your returns reviewed by an army of accountants and been planning their release for years. But let's say your wife does the taxes and this is your first presidential run. You've released one return and others are being reviewed for release by an accountant. In that case, we are pretty certain you’re stalling to remove evidence of all the puppies you’ve been smothering with your 1040s. We believe you hate successful women if you question the propriety of candidates accepting $250,000 an hour speaking fees from interest groups and companies. But if your name is Jane Sanders, we will knock you for having “a substantial income and severance”. Because pay equality for women is really important, but less so if your last name is Sanders. We are very concerned about income inequality. Team Red sucks because they keep putting up plutocrats like the Bushes who don't know what it's like to live an average life. What, you say our candidate is worth five times what the Bushes are? What we really meant is that plutocratic wealth is no indicator of whether you can empathize with the poor. We believe “this fucking guy, and his fucking wife, have gotten on my last fucking nerve”. What gall to release a single year of tax returns! We are certain in our belief that candidates have released tax returns for decades prior to being nominated. What did you say, Bill Clinton waited till after he had the nomination in the bag to release returns in 1992? Well, mumble, mumble. We believe notions of propriety are for losers. Ex-presidents, senators and future candidates for office should be free to have their pockets filled with whatever wealthy donors and large companies choose to offer. If you question ten million from speeches, we will accuse you of thinking “wealth itself is the problem rather than where it comes from”. We project a lot. Back in 1992, it turned out that the Clintons had improperly claimed deductions. We believe that was an “honest mistake”. It was certainly nothing like the unknown nefarious things the Sanders might have been up or. Why they owned and rented out land in Vermont! What could be more suspicious than that? If you question the fact that 6 of the last 8 candidates for president have had incomes/wealth placing them in the top 0.01%, we will say you “just hate rich people”. Because clearly, the president has to come from our “leading families”, we are a democracy after all, and have always been one, even during Jim Crow. We believe it is “conspiracy theory nuttery” to say we’re an oligarchy because both leading contenders for the highest office in the land come from the wealthiest 0.003% households (4,000 families out of 300,000,000). We’ll tell you Washington, Jefferson and Jackson were as rich or richer than Clinton (though not richer than Trump). We are oblivious to how terrible this argument is, since much of their “wealth” was in the form of slaves. Restating years of tax filings for the 250 million a year foundation that bears your name is just the way things are, but amendments to your senate financial disclosures should engender deep suspicion if your last name happens to be Sanders. If you say you find it depressing when ex-politicians deliver speeches to industry, we will tell you they “had to make a lot of money [...] to be ready for the next wave of 100 top GOP lawyers”. If you suggest there’s something unseemly about Democrats living a Trump-lite lifestyle, we will say you have “some kind of Puritanical notion of propriety.” If you say donations to a tax-exempt foundation with the candidates name on the door might not be equivalent to donations to an unaffiliated charity, we consider those to be “demonstrably false attacks” . So what if the foundation supports your political endeavors by providing a revolving door for staff/donors/attendees for your campaign?I’ve learned so much about our community, my head hurts. There’s even more learning I should share in our “no such thing as oligarchy” study group, but alas the snark pills have stopped working on me.