I was a kid when breakdancing was a thing. Parachute pants, awful music and bad hair were all the rage for about 20 minutes in my pre-pubescent years. A staple of that horrible time in human history was the “break-fight.” A break-fight was a dance-off between two people or two groups of people because they lacked anything better to do. The winner, if you could call it that, won bragging rights for the 30 or so seconds the people who watched it took to turn away and forget the whole thing had happened. In the last week Democrats participated in a break-fight of sorts, but it was more of a “broke-fight,” and if any of them win, we all will lose.
It started with Hillary Clinton claiming she and Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House. Diane Sawyer knew this was a lie. Everyone who heard it knew it was a lie. Hillary knew it was a lie when she said it, but she said it anyway because she was trying to convince middle income Americans that she “feels their pain.”
It was an obvious lie, but Hillary wants to be president herself, and her party just spent a billion dollars in 2012 demonizing a man who’d given away his entire trust fund and actually earned hundreds of millions of dollars on his own as being an out-of-touch elitist. Unlike Mitt Romney, who made decisions, founded companies and took risks to make his fortune, Bill and Hillary wrote books and gave speeches.
Knowing this, she doubled-down this week. She said, “but they don’t see me as part of the problem because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names…” Yes, she said having a net worth of between $100 and $200 million isn’t “truly well off.” I know Obama has been a disaster for the economy, but c’mon. She finished her statement with “…and we’ve done it through dint of hard work.”
The Clintons are the very definition of elites trading on their name to make their fortune. No jobs were created, no risks taken, and the only sweat broken was from the spotlight while they were on stage collecting millions of dollars for speaking. The only dirt they’ve had under their nails got there from counting money. If the risk of a paper cut from a $275,000 check for a speech is considered “hard work,” I completely misunderstood my time as a roofer in college.
But Hillary wasn’t the only Clinton engaging in poverty porn this week. Chelsea told a magazine, “I was curious if I could care about (money) on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t.” That’s weird, because just a couple of years ago she signed a deal with NBC News for $600,000 per year to do “reports” for them. That was after her time working for a hedge fund, which are not known for their minimum-wage positions. Of course, it’s easy to not care about money when your family is marinating in it, much like no one ever thought “Man, I’m thirsty,” while drowning.
Not to be outdone, Vice-President Biden told the “White House Summit on Working Families” that he is an economic illiterate. Well, he didn’t use those exact words. He actually said “don’t hold it against me that I don’t own — that I don’t own a single stock or bond — I have no savings accounts.” Aside from this being a lie, he continued, “but I got a great pension and I got a good salary.”
What he has is a congressional pension that will pay him 80 percent of the average of his three highest years’ salaries. That’s forever and on top of whatever book deal and speech money he gets. Yes, he’s just like us!
In reality, Joe Biden is the type of person for whom Velcro shoes were invented. That he’s able to open a can of soup, let alone earn millions of dollars, is a testament to the American Dream.
But the American Dream isn’t what progressives are selling nowadays. They’re selling victimhood. As such, wealthy Democrats are rushing to paint themselves as victims.
Even the First Lady joined in the party.
At the same White House Summit, Michelle Obama told her sad tale of working part-time while raising her kids, with help from a “babysitter” (READ: Nanny, but only rich people have nannies, so…). She had it so rough that when she went from working part-time to vice president of her hospital she said she’d do it only if they’d cater to her family desires for time off. Yes, you read that right – she went from a part-time employee to VP, but claims she said she’d do it only on her terms. The word “hero” leaps to mind…
Of course, her husband being a politician didn’t help her at all; she did it all on her own. By the way, want to buy a bridge?
Democrats are falling all over each other to identify with the victim mentality they’ve created and cultivated. But it’s like Dr. Frankenstein claiming he “gets” his monster because he’s glued a couple of bolts to his neck – it’s transparently phony. Then again, we’re talking about Democrats here, so…
This “broke-fight” isn’t going to end anytime soon, there’s too much money in it. In fact, and ironically given the latest GDP numbers, poor people and rich people clamoring to pretend they know what it’s like to be poor may well be the only growth industries in Barack Obama’s economy.