Do you believe that when practiced at its highest level, hypocrisy can become a form of art? Do you think someone can commit acts or make statements that violate their previously professed values so brazenly, shamelessly, and stubbornly in denial about the contradiction, that you just want to step back, stare, and take it in?
Because Vermont senator Bernie Sanders came awfully close to that when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked him about flying on private jets on his “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour.
Baier: You have gotten criticized from other people – [Washington] Free Beacon, ‘Bernie Sanders spent $221,000 on private jets [amid] ‘Fighting the Oligarchy’ tour, paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders.’ That you’ve spent millions of dollars on campaign funds on private jet travel over the years. How do you pushback on both of those things?
Sanders: When’s the last time you saw Donald Trump, during a campaign mode, at National Airport?
Baier: No, no, no. It doesn’t – he’s also not ‘fighting the oligarchy.’
Sanders: No. You run a campaign and do you three or four or five rallies in a week. The only way you can get around to talk to 30,000 people. Think I’m going to be sitting waiting line at United waiting while 30,000 people are waiting? It’s the only way to get around. No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We have done it in the past, and we will do it in the future.
It’s Vermont senator’s indignation that the question dare be asked that really sells it, and the cherry on top is Sanders acting like standing on line, waiting on a delayed United Airlines flight, is some sort of plebian indignity that is utterly beneath him.
If you asked Americans who qualifies as an oligarch, I suspect frequent travel on private jets would rank among the most frequently-mentioned criteria. And don’t even get me started on the carbon emissions; flying on private jets is just about the most carbon-intensitive activity a person can do. Little Greta would be so disappointed.
Bernie Sanders – estimated net worth $2 million, owner of three houses – spends a whole lot of his time telling you how terrible rich Americans are, how greedy and selfish they are, and how they’re the real reason for your life’s disappointments and frustrations. This is the same Sanders who fumes that America is so decadent and materialistic, and famously ranted, “you don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”
But his travels on private jets – hey, “it’s the only way to get around.”