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Why Rich Celebrities Love Democrats
Last week, my wife told me that Michael Stipe, the lead singer for one of the favorite bands of my youth, had opened a rally for Senator Bernie Sanders. I knew the guy was an insufferable lefty, but it still got me thinking about why rich celebrities love to support socialists, seemingly against their own interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCTxL-ZZJN0
And then I realized — like a snail coming late to a conclusion that everyone else has long since reached — that it actually is in their best interests to support these policies because “income redistribution” — as opposed to “property redistribution” — doesn’t impact the already-wealthy all that much. Rather, income redistribution is a tax against other people becoming wealthy.
Sanders is not proposing that the rich pay their fair share: he’s proposing that people becoming rich cough-up the money they’re busy earning. Those like Stipe have already made their fortunes. Sure, Sanders’s high taxes will have some impact on his further income, but Sanders isn’t proposing to confiscate Stipe’s existing wealth; it’s the next musician — the one who isn’t already filthy rich — who will be paying 80% of his income, thus preventing him from ever reaching the lofty status of those like Michael Stipe.
I’d actually like to hear Sanders start talking about taking away redistributing wealth that has already been accumulated. Nobody needs to make more than $150,000 a year, right? Then why should anyone have more than that in liquid assets?
Let’s see how excited these people remain.
Published in Politics
Never attribute to greed that which can be explained by stupidity. They are both universal, but stupidity is much easier to apply in practice.
Kudos to the editor who found that video, but my goodness is that drivel so horribly painful to listen to!
Why rich celebrities love democrats?
That is a liberal bubble.
We really should concentrate attacks on the growth of spending not the best way to fund it. (Don’t we already tax assets with inflation?)
I think it also has a lot to do with the general truth that progressives are primarily driven by their feelings and celebrities fall very much into that mode of being.
Take the current enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. He hasn’t demonstrated the ability to do much in his own life but he’s very popular because his ideas feel good (to many). The man who couldn’t run a lemonade stand wants to dismantle banks. Don’t expect him or his devotees to explain it – it just feels right.
I would, too, because I want to see how they’d do it while keeping the value of the assets. Someone put up a poster at my workplace showing the mansion of Papa John of the pizza restaurant chain, and a quote from him saying the company couldn’t afford health insurance for its workers. Aside from all the other ways that’s wrong, let’s say they take his house, valued at I believe $10 million. Then what? You can’t sell it, because everyone knows if they took it once, they can do it again.
I would assume most of that is available to anyone, it’s just not worth the time or money for most people given the amount of taxes they pay.
I have a couple coworkers who play the lottery while I overhear complaining about rich people and the amount of taxes they pay. Sometimes I want to go over and ask if they did win the lottery if they would hire those professionals to protect their winnings.
This is my sentiment also. Most rich celebrities just push the lefty line because they don’t know any better. Of course this is the case for most Democrats.
I think these two go a long ways to explaining it for many of them. Couple that with the pressure they seem to usually face from their fellow peers, and you might even explain most of them – not all probably, but a very large number of them.
Ryan, your premise that someone like Michael Stipe advocates his political views because he’s already wealthy is undermined by the fact that most left-leaning wealthy artists advocated the same positions when they were poor and struggling. This has certainly been my experience with left-leaning colleagues who have journeyed from unknown to celebrity.
It’s difficult to determine the “best” artist, but the market surely determines who is best at providing what the greatest number of people will pay for. And those who can provide it reliably over time often become wealthy celebrities.
Being in the right place at the right time with all the other right elements you listed isn’t easy or random. Sure, luck sometimes plays a role but exceedingly few can turn a lucky moment into a full-fledged career… much less one that propels them to significant wealth and lasting celebrity.
You offered the example of Jeremy Irons vs. Harrison Ford, citing Irons as the better actor even though his salary (compared with Ford’s) doesn’t reflect it. Irons has played a broader range of roles and is a terrific actor, no doubt. But Harrison Ford has reliably and expertly filled a type of role the market lavishly rewards. Would Jeremy Irons have made a better Indiana Jones or Han Solo?
In any case, most successful career artists are extremely good at their craft and aren’t especially insecure about their talent… or guilty about the rewards it brings.
a) Michael Stipe isn’t “Rock n’ Roll”.
b) As long as the weed is legal, the gays can marry, and the transgendered can use any bathroom they want, etc, what other controls would the government impose that a “real” Rocker would object to? They are libertines, not libertarians. They’re in favour of the freedom to do whatever you want and to be free from the consequences.
The remaining aspects of life under government control (e.g. entrepreneurship, useful production, religious belief, etc) are of no interest to a weed-addled rocker, because they involve the acknowledgement of consequences.
In other words, they support the Democrats because they don’t believe that the Democratic activists will ever come for them. They’re the aristocrats who support the divine right of Kings as long as the King doesn’t impose his will on them.
Kinda like this Sanders supporter who opposes government regulation of alcohol:
c) Many pop stars already have little control over their lives, what with managers, publicists, executives, agents, etc. Maybe they think everybody should have the “benefits” of a corporate entourage controlling their every decision?
This is flatly wrong. They are unionized out of economic self-interest. The vast majority will never be rich or especially famous and they benefit from collective bargaining with the corporations that employ them. Those who do become rich and famous typically join unions long before that happens.
Do you believe professional athletes are unionized out of the same guilt-assuaging faux-solidarity?
Hey, if there were no possessions there could be no taxes. It’s win-win!
When I was a kid an official from the Soviet embassy came to my class to give us a presentation, and one of his selling points actually was they there were no taxes in the USSR.
Also, as unions go, SAG is one of the better ones. They actually provide genuine services to their members, like health care and retirement services.
Also, strictly-speaking SAG membership isn’t mandatory. It’s possible to be an actor and only work non-union gigs. Not easy, but possible.
There aren’t many unionized industries where that’s the case. Some, but not many.
No, they actually don’t. The producers provide health and pension. The producers pay for it. SAG just takes credit for it.
SAG still provides the service of administering it. From the point-of-view of the actor, that’s even better. The evil producers can’t cut off their health care like a bad old car company can, because it’s administered by the union.
(Please keep in mind, I’m comparing SAG to other unions, not to a free market.)
SAG-AFTRA (there was a merger in 2012) doesn’t just take credit for it. The union bargains for it. The benefits would not exist in anything resembling their current form if not for the union’s initiative.
As it happens, the Screen Actors Guild-Producers Pension and Health Plans were the result of negotiations helmed by then-SAG president Ronald Reagan.
Full disclosure: I am a trustee of those plans as well as a SAG-AFTRA member and former executive vice president of the union.
With some rare exceptions, they’re just not that smart. It’s really not any more than that. Because they’re on tv or movies or magazines they’re given some air of credibility and of course many are brilliant artists and some know what they’re talking about. Most don’t.
And they don’t need to because no one ever questions them deeply on any of this and it’s just the way it is. No one is arguing with them over the impact of Bernie Sanders’ economic policy so they never have to actually engage on anything.
Hmm…yes, that’s probably true. I don’t think “cementing of aristocratic status” is necessarily a conscious decision, though. Or, I certainly don’t think that’s the only reason he is a liberal, just that it’s an interesting factor.
Imagine if we actually phrased it like the distribution of property as you might have in a “landed aristocracy” short of country. Not even that you sell the mansion, as Matt suggested, but the government takes it, and maybe converts it to something else. Even if it’s not a conscious decision, it’s not real to them because their property and lifestyles are protected.
The camera (@ 2:20) briefly pans to Stipe’s left where an overhead gate protects a storefront from those inclined to take what doesn’t belong to them. I’d imagine something similar protects Stipe’s property.
It seems the irony of this election is that the people Sanders thinks he’s running to help are more likely to vote for Trump, while the people he thinks he’s fighting against are more likely to vote for him (at least compared to the previous group).
Though I’ve got some of their stuff, I’ve always thought REM was over-rated.
On a side note I have always hated REM…..insufferably whiny music.
The health and pension plans are what is called a Taft-Hartley Trust, which is (by law) administered by Trustees who are 50% union and 50% management. Of course, those Trustees hire professional administrators to do the day to day work.
The 50:50 composition of the Trustees is intended to prevent the union bosses from pocketing the money intended for the members, which was a big problem before the Taft-Hartley Act was passed. The rules of Taft-Hartley apply to all similar plans that benefit union members, although some of those plans have a far more corrupt history than the various motion picture industry plans (the Teamsters’ Pension Fund comes to mind).
haha – well, some of it. Some of it is fantastic, though.
Of course, listening to Michael Stipe (or pretty much any other band member) speak kind of ruins it for me. I shouldn’t be that way, because it means there’s not much music or television that won’t annoy me in some little way.
Why do rich actors need health care and retirement plans negotiated for them? I’m sure you can tell me that not all actors (especially those who are character actors on tv) are equally rich, but I still don’t know why that isn’t something they can afford to do for themselves.
Alternately, isn’t that what agents are for? Although that might also be too much of an expense for many actors.
Because the health insurance system is set up to punish anyone who tries to buy insurance without being part of a large group. Somehow the underwriters can determine our risk for car accidents individually but they need us to be in an employment pool to figure out what our health insurance needs are.
I agree, particularly with their early stuff, when Stipes’ vocals were buried in the mix. The overall sound was terrific but you couldn’t quite make out the lyrics (listen to Driver 8, Pretty Persuasion or These Days). Once they made him more prominent in the mix things went downhill.