Spare Us the Follies of Spoiled Rich Kids

Thomas Sowell has written that one of the most destabilising forces in modern times has been second-generation-bourgeois “intellectuals”. These are people who inherited the hard-won wealth of parents or grandparents, and who are often the first of their families to attend university. Lacking any real struggle in their lives, and almost invariably inculcated in Marxist ideology at university, they end up latching on to some “cause” or other.

This was as true of the likes of Mao or Guevara as it is of Edward Said, Patrisse Cullors or Ibrahim X. Kendi.

It’s especially true of the gaggle of useless rich kids now plaguing Australian politics.

It is widely speculated that the next federal election will see voters desert the major parties for independents. But, for every grass-roots, working-class independent party such as One Nation, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, or the Liberal Democrats, there are even more “independents” clustering around a single issue — climate change — and bankrolled mostly by the spoiled, cashed-up scions of the wealthy elite.

The Morrison government is being called to defend its traditional heartland from breakaway candidates funded by single-issue interest groups focused on renewable energy. The sun-kissed, moneyed electorates of Sydney’s eastern suburbs and northern beaches have become the political plaything of the millionaire class, some of whom have a well-publicised axe to grind with the Liberals.

Other seats held by prominent ministers, including Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Josh Frydenberg, are being eyed in a co-ordinated push funded by donations from the nouveau riche and descendants of the landed gentry.

The next election is shaping up to be fought on two separate shades of green: khaki and teal.

The khaki will be the Morrison government selling itself as the only party capable of managing what Morrison has not unjustly called “some of the greatest threats we’ve seen since before the Second World war.”

The teal will be the inner-city, blue-green elite who are utterly convinced that the only, the greatest threat facing the world is climate change.

Climate change is reliably rated as a last-tier issue by ordinary Australians, on survey after survey. The spoilt brats of the ultra-wealthy think they know better.

Wentworth, formerly a blue-ribbon Coalition seat, is being targeted by a pro-renewables group headed by Allegra Spender, daughter of fashion designer Carla Zampatti. Other big-money bankrolling of climate-obsessed independents comes from Alex Turnbull, son of the multi-millionaire banker and former prime minister, and Simon Holmes a Court, son of the late mining billionaire.

The single-issue independents’ push represents a big danger for the Morrison government as well as for voters less fortunate than the uber rich with the means to indulge their political vendettas and corporate fancies.

The Australian

These are all the essentially useless offspring of self-made men: spoiled rich kids who’ve never known a real hard day’s work in their lives. Like Mitchell Layton, in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, they’ve inherited fortunes and are spending the rest of their shallow, pathetic lives trying to make amends for it.

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