Angry Rich People Are Not 'Populists'

BY karoli CROOKS AND LIARS
SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

At last, someone has seen the Emperor's New Clothes and called them what they are. Paul Krugman tears down the myth of the 'angry populist movement' and gives a peek into who they really are.

Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or accuse him of treason — you won’t find it among these suffering Americans. You’ll find it instead among the very privileged, people who don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, their homes, or their health insurance, but who are outraged, outraged, at the thought of paying modestly higher taxes.

The rage of the rich has been building ever since Mr. Obama took office.

[...]

For one thing, craziness has gone mainstream. It’s one thing when a billionaire rants at a dinner event. It’s another when Forbes magazine runs a cover story alleging that the president of the United States is deliberately trying to bring America down as part of his Kenyan, “anticolonialist” agenda, that “the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s.” When it comes to defending the interests of the rich, it seems, the normal rules of civilized (and rational) discourse no longer apply.

At the same time, self-pity among the privileged has become acceptable, even fashionable.

Oh, those poor, poor babies, having to pay higher taxes after enjoying some of the lowest historical tax rates ever. And the little darlings seem to have short memories, too, because they can't seem to process facts very well. Especially facts that show empirically and beyond all doubt that higher tax rates actually make them richer, not poorer.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

Oh yeah. I forgot. :)



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