Populism

Throughout recorded history there have been individuals who tried to gain power over others by promising to redistribute the wealth. This approach is called populism and the latest to use this is Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. She follows in the footsteps of President Obama who told Joe the Plumber that he would spread the wealth around. The success of this approach depends on exploiting the differences between groups. The rich vs the poor, women vs men, dark skin vs light skin, high school drop outs vs Ivy leaguers, union vs non-union, white collar vs blue collar, blue state vs red state, rural vs urban, east and west coast vs Midwest, wall street vs main street, old vs young and finally north vs south. The man who ran for office pledging to unite the country has by necessity divided the country. This call to the masses of the promise to take from the haves and give to the have-nots is so powerful that even when it is exposed for the fraud that it is, the people still refuse to give up on the idea. Those in the Black community voted 95% for Obama and after six years they have lost ground in every economic measurement and they still are 95% for him because his rhetoric is so alluring. NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous said Sunday, perhaps unwittingly, that black Americans “are doing far worse” than when President Obama first took office. I am quite sure it was unwittingly because The President really believes that redistribution will help the poor and the middle class. What he does not understand is simple math. Just recently it was pointed out that the Wal-Mart family is worth 90 billion dollars and that is more than the poorest 50 million people. On the surface that looks pretty bad but the solution is not to redistribute for if that is done each of the 50 million would receive $1,900 and that would have very little effect on their lives. The answer is to get these people better paying jobs and that is done by economic growth. Data shows that since Obama took office the middle class, for whom he often states he is the champion of, has lost ground each year. Many in that group are committed to this president and they continue to believe that his policies of redistribution will bring them a better life but they are now in the minority. A recent poll showed that the majority now believe that their children will not be as well off as they are and that has never happened before. The famous argument that pitted the one percent against the 99 percent is another example where the math proves it doesn’t work. I don’t know if the aforementioned Senator Warren is aware of the math that shows there are too few rich and too many poor but I doubt that she wants to know. She is a populist and her success depends on people believing that redistribution is the key to their salvation. If only she would propose policies that would provide economic growth but that is not her strategy because real growth comes from the private sector not government and her power comes from government.