Peter1469
05-26-2019, 08:09 AM
The Secret of Bernie’s Millions (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/24/bernie-sanders-millionaires-226982)
How does a self-proclaimed democratic socialist get rich as a politician?
Today, he might still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor. In the wake of his 2016 presidential run, the most lucrative thing he’s ever done, the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist is a three-home-owning millionaire with a net worth approaching at least $2 million, taking into account his publicly outlined assets and liabilities along with the real estate he owns outright. In a strict, bottom-line sense, Sanders has become one of those rich people against whom he has so unrelentingly railed. The champion of the underclass and castigator of “the 1 percent” has found himself in the socioeconomic penthouse of his rhetorical boogeymen. This development, seen mostly as the result of big bucks brought in by the slate of books he’s put out in the past few years, predictably has elicited snarky pokes (https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-criticized-twitter-users-having-three-houses-587721), partisan jabs (https://americarisingpac.org/bernie-sanders-net-worth-makes-him-a-millionaire/) and charges of hypocrisy (https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/college-students-call-bernie-sanders-a-hypocrite-after-learning-hes-a-millionaire). The millionaire socialist!Sanders has been impatient to the point of churlish when pressed about this. “I wrote a best-selling book,” he told (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/us/politics/bernie-sanders-millionaire-net-worth-taxes.html) the New York Times after he releasing (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/15/bernie-sanders-millionaire-1276928) the last 10 years of his tax returns. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” Asked on Fox News if this sort of success was “the definition of capitalism,” he bristled. “You know, I have a college degree,” he said (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-1-percent-club-bernie-sanders/2019/04/16/108243e6-605c-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html?utm_term=.5d0c1bfa4387).
Based on a deeper examination of his financial disclosures (https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/), tax returns (https://berniesanders.com/tax-returns/), property records in Washington and Vermont, and scarcely leafed-through scraps of his financial papers housed at the University of Vermont, Sanders’ current financial portrait is not only some stroke-of-luck windfall, it’s also the product (with the help of his wife) of decades of planning. The upward trajectory from that jalopy of his to his relative riches now—as off-brand as it is for a man who once said (https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/bernie-sanders-candidate-wealth-2016-213364) he had “no great desire to be rich”—is the product of years of middle-class striving, replete with credit card debt, real estate upgrades and an array of investment funds and retirement accounts.
As an immigrant’s son who started close to the bottom and has ended up near to the top (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-taxes.html), Sanders has a narrative arc that would form the backbone of the campaign story of almost any other candidate. But it’s more complicated for him. There’s never been anybody like Sanders in the modern political history of this country—somebody who made a career out of haranguing millionaires … and who is now a millionaire himself. There is no set strategy for how to run for president as a democratic socialist with an expensive lakefront summer house. Americans generally don’t begrudge millionaires their millions—and, as Donald Trump has confirmed, the aura of wealth can serve as a useful means of self-promotion—but what to make of Sanders’ apparently conflicting narratives?
“He became the very thing he criticized others for becoming and at the same time didn’t fix any of the problems he’s been railing about that got him to this point,” Boston-based Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mary-anne-marsh-bernie-sanders-undone-why-he-will-not-be-the-2020-dem-nominee) told me.
“He almost at times sounds like he thinks it’s inherently evil to be well-off,” veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said in an interview.
Does all of this make Sanders’ abiding calls for economic justice more authoritative or compelling, especially as he, the ranking member (https://www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-member/newsroom) on the Senate Budget Committee, argues on the 2020 hustings for costly programs like tuition-free college and universal health care, or does it defuse his drilled-home political brand and somehow muffle his message?
I don't know about Sander's book specifically, but book deals are the way many politicians get wealthy- the books are bought in bulk by political action committees and either given away at fundraisers or warehoused.
How does a self-proclaimed democratic socialist get rich as a politician?
Today, he might still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor. In the wake of his 2016 presidential run, the most lucrative thing he’s ever done, the 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist is a three-home-owning millionaire with a net worth approaching at least $2 million, taking into account his publicly outlined assets and liabilities along with the real estate he owns outright. In a strict, bottom-line sense, Sanders has become one of those rich people against whom he has so unrelentingly railed. The champion of the underclass and castigator of “the 1 percent” has found himself in the socioeconomic penthouse of his rhetorical boogeymen. This development, seen mostly as the result of big bucks brought in by the slate of books he’s put out in the past few years, predictably has elicited snarky pokes (https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-criticized-twitter-users-having-three-houses-587721), partisan jabs (https://americarisingpac.org/bernie-sanders-net-worth-makes-him-a-millionaire/) and charges of hypocrisy (https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/college-students-call-bernie-sanders-a-hypocrite-after-learning-hes-a-millionaire). The millionaire socialist!Sanders has been impatient to the point of churlish when pressed about this. “I wrote a best-selling book,” he told (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/us/politics/bernie-sanders-millionaire-net-worth-taxes.html) the New York Times after he releasing (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/15/bernie-sanders-millionaire-1276928) the last 10 years of his tax returns. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” Asked on Fox News if this sort of success was “the definition of capitalism,” he bristled. “You know, I have a college degree,” he said (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/welcome-to-the-1-percent-club-bernie-sanders/2019/04/16/108243e6-605c-11e9-bfad-36a7eb36cb60_story.html?utm_term=.5d0c1bfa4387).
Based on a deeper examination of his financial disclosures (https://efdsearch.senate.gov/search/), tax returns (https://berniesanders.com/tax-returns/), property records in Washington and Vermont, and scarcely leafed-through scraps of his financial papers housed at the University of Vermont, Sanders’ current financial portrait is not only some stroke-of-luck windfall, it’s also the product (with the help of his wife) of decades of planning. The upward trajectory from that jalopy of his to his relative riches now—as off-brand as it is for a man who once said (https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/bernie-sanders-candidate-wealth-2016-213364) he had “no great desire to be rich”—is the product of years of middle-class striving, replete with credit card debt, real estate upgrades and an array of investment funds and retirement accounts.
As an immigrant’s son who started close to the bottom and has ended up near to the top (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-taxes.html), Sanders has a narrative arc that would form the backbone of the campaign story of almost any other candidate. But it’s more complicated for him. There’s never been anybody like Sanders in the modern political history of this country—somebody who made a career out of haranguing millionaires … and who is now a millionaire himself. There is no set strategy for how to run for president as a democratic socialist with an expensive lakefront summer house. Americans generally don’t begrudge millionaires their millions—and, as Donald Trump has confirmed, the aura of wealth can serve as a useful means of self-promotion—but what to make of Sanders’ apparently conflicting narratives?
“He became the very thing he criticized others for becoming and at the same time didn’t fix any of the problems he’s been railing about that got him to this point,” Boston-based Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mary-anne-marsh-bernie-sanders-undone-why-he-will-not-be-the-2020-dem-nominee) told me.
“He almost at times sounds like he thinks it’s inherently evil to be well-off,” veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said in an interview.
Does all of this make Sanders’ abiding calls for economic justice more authoritative or compelling, especially as he, the ranking member (https://www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-member/newsroom) on the Senate Budget Committee, argues on the 2020 hustings for costly programs like tuition-free college and universal health care, or does it defuse his drilled-home political brand and somehow muffle his message?
I don't know about Sander's book specifically, but book deals are the way many politicians get wealthy- the books are bought in bulk by political action committees and either given away at fundraisers or warehoused.