Do The Democrats Have To Tap Their Inner Robespierre In 2020?

Targeting the ultrarich is actually pretty unifying.

- Eric Levitz

The Democratic party’s leading lights—from Elizabeth Warren on the party’s left flank to Joe Biden on its right—are all telling versions of the same story: The American people are working hard, but their economy is hardly working. Payrolls may be expanding, but wage growth is too damn low, while the cost of health care is too damn high. Inequality is getting out of control, and the American Dream is growing out of reach. Diversity is our strength, bigotry is our weakness, and progress is our destiny. Yet when they describe the root of those problems, there is one question that bitterly divides them: Does their story of middle-class decline need a ruling-class villain?

Warren and Bernie Sanders say yes. In their account, the true name of our affliction isn’t inequality but oligarchy. It isn’t an impersonal, abstract force that’s immiserating working people—it’s an extractive economic elite. “How did we get here?” Warren asked rhetorically in her campaign-launch video. “Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.”