John Edwards, Paris Hilton: Politics of Economic Resentment

TKS on National Review Online:

01/03 09:26 AM
The New Orleans Times Picayune analyzes John Edwards' decision to announce his presidential candidacy in their city:

By announcing his presidential candidacy in New Orleans, John Edwards said he was trying to make two points: that the city's slow recovery highlights the "two Americas" of rich and poor that became the symbol of his first run for president in 2004, and that it is important for Americans not to just complain about problems but to "take action" as so many post-Katrina volunteers did.
How the setting for his presidential announcement will affect his candidacy and whether it will refocus national attention on the unfinished business of Katrina remains to be seen. But political pundits agree Katrina is a good issue for Edwards because it fits with one of his campaign's major themes: the need for the next president to address the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots.

I read this and was reminded of some poll results from Gallup from late November, looking at how Americans think about wealth and the wealthy:......

Simultaneously, Americans see certain folks not just thriving, but raking in more money than they could ever imagine. We’ve always had a certain amount of national gawking at the “lifestyles of the rich and famous,” but it seems like in the past few years, our popular culture has gone way past conspicuous consumption to a 24-7 rubbing our noses in the wealth of the super rich. I would cite just about everything to do with Paris Hilton (including “The Simple Life,” in which the point of the show is the girls’ ignorance anything outside the life of the super-rich), the ostentatious houses of “Cribs,” “The Fabulous Life of…” “Laguna Beach,” “I Want a Famous Face” etc. I watched two episodes of the MTV show “My Super Sweet 16” – celebrating the most obscenely lavish parties of the most venomous and dislikeable spoiled brats – and contemplated becoming a Communist revolutionary.

So maybe ears will perk up when Edwards says:

EDWARDS: Oh, I'm sorry. The answer to that question is, we do need, in my judgment, to get rid of some of the tax cuts that have been put in place, particularly for people at the top. I think that it may be necessary to put in place a tax on some of the windfall profits that oil companies are making in order to implement some of these changes that I've just talked about.

I think it's also really important that we be honest with people. We're in a — we've gotten in a deep hole, in terms of our deficit. We have investments that need to be made. I've talked about some of them: Investments to strengthen the middle class; investments to end poverty; universal health care, which I'm completely committed to; some of these energy proposals that I've talked about briefly here today.

Those things cost money. So we're going to have to invest if we're going to transform America the way it needs to be transformed to make us successful in the 21st century, which is going to require rolling back some of these tax cuts, in my judgment, that have been put into place.

If you think of "the rich" as Bill Gates, a guy who built a company from next to nothing to design software that millions of people use, then you probably think of "the rich" as smart innovators who deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labors. If you think of "the rich" as Paris Hilton, then you probably eagerly support inheritance taxes and higher taxes on the biggest earners.