Tenchu's Thoughts: Why Do Populists Hate Abundance?
In 2015, Bernie Sanders said the following:
Bernie Sanders: Don't Need 23 Choices of Deodorant, 18 Choices of Sneakers When Kids Are Going Hungry (Reason.com)
You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country. I don't think the media appreciates the kind of stress that ordinary Americans are working on. Although his words resonated with the socialist left, he was widely mocked by conservatives because he demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism. Children aren't hungry in this country because we have 23 choices of deodorant or 18 choices of sneakers. That's classic finite pie theory. They're poor because the CEOs of Nike and Proctor and Gamble are rich.
Fast-forward 10 years later, and now we have Donald Trump saying the following:
Donald Trump on fallout from trade war: 'US kids may get 2 dolls instead of 30' (Hindustan Times)
Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Of course, there's a slight difference. While Bernie was bemoaning Americans for being "too rich" at the expense of poor, hungry children, Trump believes that we're just "too rich," period.
Either way, both populists are taking aim at consumerism. Both populists are saying that we Americans are buying too many things that "don't matter," like deodorant or Nikes or dolls for children.
And both populists, for all their appeal to the masses, are WOEFULLY out-of-touch.
Because the 23 deodorants, the 18 sneakers, and the 30 dolls don't represent excess.
Instead, they represent abundance. They represent prosperity. They represent just about everything that makes America great.
If you seek to kill that prosperity for your own political agenda, you deserve to be raked over the coals. Doesn't matter if you're a socialist like Sanders or a narcissistic fascist like Trump.
Either way, I don't want to hear our politicians telling us that we're "too rich" for our own good.
Tenchusatsu |
