Idle Rich Vote Democrat

We know that the poor and those surviving on entitlement program benefits are likely to vote Democrat. But so are non-productive Americans at the other end of the spectrum – those who live of trust fund money and inherited wealth that makes it possible for them to live a life of luxury without lifting a finger to work, according to Michael Barone.

Who are the trustfunders? People with enough money not to have to work for a living, or not to have to work very hard. People who can live more or less wherever they want. The "nomadic affluent," as demographic analyst Joel Kotkin calls them.

These people tend to be very liberal politically. Aware that they have done nothing to earn their money, they feel a certain sense of guilt. At the elite private or public high schools they attend, and even more at their colleges and universities, they are propagandized about the evils of capitalism and globalization, and the virtues of environmentalism and pacifism. Patriotism is equated with Hiterlism.

Their loyalties, as Samuel Huntington explains in "Who Are We?," are not national, but transnational -- they are citizens of the world with contempt for those who feel chills up their spines when they hear "The Star Spangled Banner." They are taught to have contempt for the economic contribution they make to their country as investors and to feel guilty if they make no other contribution. Their penance is that they must vote left.

Barone goes on to point to a number of electoral results in the 2004 race that highlight how trustfunders voted differently from their productive, working neighbors. Barone sums it up thus.

The good news for Democrats is that they have found a new source of votes and money. The bad news is that an important part of their core constituency has the characteristic that the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin ascribed to the press, "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."

Maybe we need a special “trustfunder tax.” And after all, how could they, or the party they support, object to making the spoiled super-rich “pay their fair share.” Messrs. Kennedy, Kohl, and Dayton, get your checkbooks ready.