A lot of malcontents out there have been impugning the honor of Speaker Nancy Pelosi lately, just because she has a refrigerator that cost more than your net worth, but this ignores some important political realities.
Any student of history can immediately see how ridiculous it is that people are so incensed. After all, in the grand scheme of things Nancy Pelosi is far from rich, she just has a few nice things, and any chiding about fifteen dollar pints of icecream is surely bad faith. Irresponsible people spend more than that on rent every month.
Scrooge McDuck had a vault of cash and gold coins with a dang swimming board so he could dive into his hard earned wealth, but everybody seems to love him.
Pablo Escobar had hippos as pets, and millions of dollars eaten by rats because he couldn’t spend it fast enough, yet he’s celebrated with an award winning Netflix series.
The Pope lives in a palace with countless priceless masterpieces and a massive hoard of gold and jewels, and people think he’s some kind of saint.
The Queen of England owns every swan in that country. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t even own one swan.
King Tut’s treasures are some of the most celebrated archaeological finds on the planet, worth far more than one measly refrigerator of ice cream, but nobody’s clamoring to cancel him.
Marcus Licineus Crassus, the wealthiest man in ancient Rome supposedly died when he drank gold. Sure it might not have been his idea, but can you say conspicuous consumption?
Just look at Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang. He had that famous terra-cotta army and a mercury filled map of all China’s waterways in his tomb, but you don’t hear anyone talking about what bad optics that is.
Hell, if you factor in her assets and liabilities, Nancy’s paltry $120 million net worth isn’t even in the top 20 in congress. Democratic Senator Mark Warner is worth $257 million, but I haven’t seen a single tweet talking about his freezer full of organs and young blood. What’s next, are we going to criticize Barack Obama for being worth 30 times more now than when he was first elected? $120 million can barely even buy one bad sports team, and we’re supposed to be mad about expenditures on commercial appliances and ice cream?
Some people just want to criticize, but I for one applaud the success of our hardworking elected officials, and have full confidence that once I finish this can of Fancy Feast (a luxury, and irresponsible, I know) I too can put my nose to the grindstone and become one of the most wealthy and powerful people on the planet. It’s about hard work, not handouts, and few things are more difficult than clapping weird, but you people wouldn’t know that, would you?
Jean Krill is is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His writing navigates the many disparate visions of a radically better future.