The District Magazine Volume 1 Issue 1, 2016 | Page 45

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Do Americans Really
Want Elmer J. Fudd
or Cruella de Vil as
President?
Are Donald and Hillary the
Best 153 Million Registered
Voters Can Produce?
BY HOWARD BARBANEL

In the award winning musical Fiddler on the Roof the main
character is “Tevya The Milkman.” In today’s socio-economic
terms you’d probably call him a struggling small businessman.
One of his biggest wishes is to “be a wealthy man,” so much so
that one of the show’s main songs is entitled “If I Were a Rich
Man.” (A riff on this song was done in 2004 by Gwen Stefani
called “Rich Girl.”)
One of the key aspects of Tevya’s song is that if he were in
fact a rich man, he would secure prime seating at his local house
of worship and in addition everyone would besiege him with
questions and for his advice, “problems that would cross a rabbi’s
eyes” because “when you’re rich they think you really know.”
Not much has changed in human nature since the lyrics of
that song were written in 1964 because so many people in this
country are in thrall in this presidential election cycle to rich
people who think they really know.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders
fulminates against the “billionaires who’ve rigged the system”
and how the rich control our economy, the electoral process
and the country. He’s calling for a “revolution” on behalf of
the Average Joe which can sound pretty radical. Even though
I disagree with most of Sanders’ policies and positions, he’s
really not far off the mark about the affluent (which can also
mean business or special interests) often controlling politics,
especially on the national level. Interestingly, most Americans
don’t see this as any kind of a problem.
Many of the very top candidates (and some not doing well in
the polls) do in fact come from either the Patrician or Oligarch
class. A reason for that is when you don’t have to worry about
putting bread on the table or sweating out a monthly mortgage
you have a lot of free time to pursue politics. Someone
punching a clock every day where their presence would be
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