Gov. Ron DeSantis has filed his financial disclosure to Florida’s Division of Elections. DeSantis values his net worth at $318,987, offset by $21,284 in unpaid student loans. That makes him a successful member of the middle class. It is small change compared to political plutocrats such as Bill and Hillary Clinton or Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) must wonder how Citizen Ron makes it to the end of the month.
George Orwell once said two people could not be friends in a democracy if one earns four times as much as the other. That might be true in the societies of the Old World, where class differences are reflected in accents and manners. But American society was founded by yeoman farmers, so the rich must affect earthy habits and speech when they aspire to office. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump played their roles with gusto. George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton failed to stay in character, but George W. Bush gave a convincing impersonation of a simpleton from a John Steinbeck novel. President Joe Biden delivers a risible impression of a union fixer, also from a Steinbeck novel.
If he wins the Republican nomination for 2024, DeSantis could become the first middle-class president since Richard Nixon. I exempt Jimmy Carter, because a Southern gentleman whose family kept its land is an aristocrat by another name, and Gerald Ford, who may have been middle class but wasn’t a real president. I also exempt Biden. He was middle class long ago, but he has thoroughly depraved himself through five decades of public service.
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