Thanks in large part to democratic socialists, hating on the rich is becoming mainstream in US politics. Sen. Bernie Sanders regularly denounces the “millionaires and billionaires” who have bought the country’s political system and rigged the economy to work in their favor, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made waves for proposing a 70 percent top marginal tax rate and declaring that a society where billionaires exist alongside extreme poverty is immoral. In the recent presidential primary debates, many candidates echoed Sanders’s calls for wealth redistribution and taking on the power of corporations.

Attacks on the rich by socialists and progressives have been met with predictable hysteria by the Right. But many Democrats also reject Sanders / AOC–style class-struggle rhetoric.

Case in point: in a meeting with wealthy donors, former vice president Joe Biden recently said, “We may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.” He went on to assure the donors that, under a Biden presidency, “No one’s standard of living would change, nothing would fundamentally change,” before pleading with them: “I need you very badly.”