Billionaires are the target in this year’s Democratic campaign

When investment mogul Henry Kravis put his Colorado ranch on the market earlier this year for $46 million, attention to its big-game hunting grounds, marble-countered butler’s pantry and golf course designed by Greg Norman ran high on the society pages — and on the Twitter feed of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “Billionaires like this guy make me wonder what our country needs more of,” the Massachusetts senator wrote, “ranches with golf courses designed by PGA players & fireplaces ‘imported from European castles’ — or universal childcare & a Green New Deal?” It wasn’t long ago that demonizing the super-rich was risky politics for Democrats. “We haven’t seen anything like this since 1936,” said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, whose films and writings have been a rallying point for rage against the ultra-rich. He boasts how former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein warned the Sanders candidacy “has the potential to be a dangerous moment” and how former Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam called the senator’s views “contemptible.” And there is Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone recalling the thought that occurred to him when he saw the excitement Sanders created among young voters in 2016: “This is the antichrist!” Warren, too, has a surfeit of anti-endorsements to brag about. Former Vice President Joe Biden was at one high-dollar fundraiser in Chicago earlier this year when billionaire host Neil Bluhm told assembled donors that Sanders and Warren “don’t represent the Democratic Party” that he supports.