“I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.” With those insouciant words, Bernie Sanders acknowledged last week that he has joined the ranks of the “millionaires and billionaires” he has vilified for most of his career.
Condolences, senator.
Sanders has plenty of company. In 2018 there were 10.23 million U.S. households with a net worth of between $1 million and $5 million, not including their primary residence. That’s an increase of about 250,000 from 2017. Another 1.4 million households are worth between $5 million and $25 million, and 173,000 households are still north of that.
Bret StephensNor is Sanders alone in Congress, even – or especially – among Democrats. About half of all Senate Democrats in 2018 were millionaires. That includes Virginia’s Mark Warner (worth $90.2 million, according to Roll Call), Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal ($70 million) and California’s Dianne Feinstein ($58.5 million).
Sanders’ experience of sudden wealth ought at least to temper the hard and ugly edges of his class-war politics. Getting rich is not a form of theft. As often as not, it’s the result of a service. Being rich is not a sin. Typically, it’s the result of long labor, patient saving, prudent investment, gutsy risk-taking and some stroke of originality.