Demonizing a Group to Fire up Your Base

Democrats rightly deplore what President Trump has done in demonizing immigrants to fire up his base.

Why is OK to demonize billionaries to fire up a base?

Sure there are a few billionaires who have actively sought to shape the law to their advantage - the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch come to mind.  But the vast majority of billionaires are folks who just took the rules politicians created and went about their business building a life within those rules, and were very good at it.

Billionaries didn't cause our problems.  A google search says there are 607 billionaires in the United States, they have one vote apiece.   Our problems in this country sit squarely on the shoulders of voters and the politicians they chose.  

One can plausibly argue that the particular billionaire on the stage at the Nevada Democratic debate has done more as a wealthy private citizen to make progress on gun control and climate change than all the politicans on the stage put together.  He is also the only one to propose raising income taxes on the wealthy (which would be taxing himself).  

Hitler didn't lead the German people into disaster by hypnosis.  He was just simply particularly adept at recognizing their gut level prejudices and massaging them.  

Demonizing any group reflects badly on any politician who relies on it, and, in my estimation, on the voters who do not call him/her on it.