Self-declared socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have long decried billionaires as evil creatures who stand in the way of “hardworking people” achieving their dreams, and otherwise make life miserable for the proverbial “99 percent” of Americans.

While the aforementioned Three Stooges continue to preach themselves silly in their respective demands for taxing the ever-loving hell out billionaires, Elon Musk’s $43 billion hostile takeover bid for Twitter has sent the left into histrionic meltdown. Hence, one MSNBC analyst is now calling on Congress, presumably to “abolish billionaires.” Oh, the hypocrisy! But we’ll get there, in a minute.

MSNBC political analyst Anand Giridharadas made the ridiculous comment — along with other silliness — Monday morning on Twitter.

Elon Musk is why to abolish billionaires.

Asking them to chip in their fair share isn’t enough. Regulating them isn’t enough.

When people are allowed to acquire this much concentrated [sic] influence, they will inevitably manspread economic power into every other form of power.

Couple of things, which we’ll get to, but manspread? What is that? I get it; I’m just pointing to the silliness.

Elon Musk is why to abolish billionaires.

Asking them to chip in their fair share isn’t enough. Regulating them isn’t enough.

When people are allowed to acquire this much concentrated influence, they will inevitably manspread economic power into every other form of power.

— Anand Giridharadas @ The.Ink (@AnandWrites) April 14, 2022

Three problems. First, the notion that the left fancies itself as the arbiter of what is a “fair share” and what is not, is not only wrong; it is scary as hell.

Second, how authoritarian to believe it is the federal government’s right to “allow” Americans to accumulate wealth or influence. Not 1984-ish at all.

Third, this guy — as is the case with all liberals — could not be more hypocritical. What would be the left’s reaction if George Soros launched a hostile bid to buy Fox News? Would Giridharadas use a Soros bid for Fox to declare billionaires should be abolished? Of course not.

Giridharadas wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in June 2021 titled “Warren Buffett and the Myth of the ‘Good Billionaires’,” in which he explained his disdain for billionaires.

Warren Buffett appears to be the safest kind of billionaire: the good kind. Mr. Buffett is neither Zuckerbergian messiah nor Musky provocateur, neither Bezosist space cadet nor Sacklerian undertaker. He is, or seems to be, quiet, humble, indifferent to money, philanthropic, and critical of the system that allowed him to rise.

Au contraire, believes Giridharadas.

I regret to inform you that Mr. Buffett is actually the most dangerous kind of billionaire we have. The worst billionaires are the Good Billionaires. The sort who make it seem like the problem is the distortion of the system when, in fact, the problem is the system.

[..]

There is no way to be a billionaire in America without taking advantage of a system predicated on cruelty, a system whose tax code and labor laws and regulatory apparatus prioritize your needs above most people’s.

Even noted Good Billionaire Mr. Buffett has profited from Coca-Cola’s sugary drinks, Amazon’s union busting, Chevron’s oil drilling, Clayton Homes’s predatory loans and, as the country learned recently, the failure to tax billionaires on their wealth.

The salient point: Anand Giridharadas is irrelevant to the larger point, which is his views on billionaires permeate the mindset of the bitter, zero-sum-game left, as well. All billionaires are bad — because every billion dollars “hoarded” by billionaires is a billion dollars “robbed” from hardworking, everyday Americans.

So how do everyday Americans view billionaires?

Interestingly, though likely due to the incessant anti-billionaire drumbeat on the left, a growing number of Americans aren’t all that sure that billionaires are a good thing. A 2021 Pew Research survey found the following:

Roughly three-in-ten Americans (29%) now say the fact that there are some people who have personal fortunes of a billion dollars or more is a bad thing for the country, up from about a quarter (23%) in January 2020.

The share who say having billionaires is a good thing for the country has decreased somewhat over the same period, from 19% to 15%.

A narrow majority of Americans (55%) continue to say billionaires are neither a good thing nor a bad thing for the country, similar to the proportion of adults who said so last year (58%).

While there has always been —and always will be — a substantial number of wealth-envious people on the planet, the relevant question here is how the Republican Party can more effectively combat the left’s “evil billionaire” narrative. As a bit of an analytical person, I believe by driving home the facts — and math. 

As noted by The Tax Foundation in March 2021 — based on data from the IRS:

According to the latest IRS data for 2018—the year following enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $616 billion in income taxes.

As we can see in Figure 1, that amounts to 40 percent of all income taxes paid, the highest share since 1980, and a larger share of the tax burden than is borne by the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers combined (who represent about 130 million taxpayers).

Bernie? Lizzie? Mr. Giridharadas?

Um, @SenSanders? @SenWarren? https://t.co/B5fdMVcyTZ pic.twitter.com/UE1az5Kpbh

— Hold My Beer (@RealLibSmacker) April 14, 2022

The bottom line:

Not dissimilar to Democrats rushing to microphones and TV cameras within nanoseconds of mass shootings to demand stricter gun-control laws, the left is pandering to fellow leftists who believe Elon Musk’s involvement with Twitter threatens to end America as they know it. And to a degree, they’re right.

Twitter is largely a left-wing cesspool, and if it can be “fixed,” that’s a good thing for advocates of free speech — which we all know the radical left is anything but. So the question is, Mr. Giridharadas, who is the authoritarian, again? I’ll wait.

Incidentally, I will now become an Elon Musk-free zone — exactly as I became a “The Slap”-free zone — unless something really bizarre happens.

That said, check out RedState’s latest related coverage: 

The Empire Strikes Back at Elon Musk

Liberals Absolutely Lose It Over Elon Musk’s Hostile Takeover Bid of Twitter

Elon Lays Down His Agenda in Letter to Twitter Heads – and It’s Glorious