Why Did the Rich Vote for Obama?

I would like to answer a question: Why did so many of the rich vote for Obama? As examples I can site: Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, George Soros, and Donald Trump. At least we can say they all supported Barack Obama in the most recent campaign with contributions. So did Wall Street and big business as their contributions also went mostly to the Democratic Party. It seems to defy common sense as the Democratic Party supposedly represents people who have less wealth not more wealth. Indeed the democrats are for higher taxes, regulations, income redistribution, and (supposedly) equality. These are all things that presumably would make the rich less rich. So why did the rich support the Obama?

Let me first offer some possibilities other than the reason I have in mind. For one it's part of being elite now in America. It’s part of fitting in with the crowd. It's also part of getting along with the leftist media. Another theory is that the very rich having more money than they need tend to value stability. So if a system that presupposes that it represents the poor is in power what can the poor complain about? Nothing, hence stability is achieved. These may be partial reasons, but there is another reason that I think gets more to what we might call the psychological motivations of elitism.

To make sense of it we first have to consider human behavior. The elites want to be elite. They enjoy being elite. They work hard at becoming elite and at maintaining their elite status. Now the psychology of anyone in such an exclusive situation is that they want to protect the exclusivity of it. Once they get there they don’t just give up and become a bunch of philanthropists. Yes, I know that’s what they want you to believe. They might even believe it themselves, but the reality is they want to increase their status any way they can. In fact now that they are elite they want it to be harder for others to get that way.

It’s similar say to owning gold. If you owned gold would you be happy if they discovered a gold reserve with ten times the gold previously known? Or what if you just bought a stock you thought was going to go up a lot. Would you be happy if you found out they were going to issue more shares? Whatever your profession is imagine if 10,000 more highly qualified unemployed people of that same profession were moving to town. How would you feel? The reality is most people psychologically at least want to protect the exclusivity of what they have achieved relative to others. Most elites would psychologically like to see it harder to become elite. They would like to see the elite class move up relative to the other classes. That’s equivalent to what they have been working so hard to achieve. This is basic human psychology. Humans always want more even if they apparently have everything.

Consider Georg Soros. He got rich by making investments. He is already as wealthy as wealthy can be. He found as he made even more money it didn’t continue to increase his status relative to others. Even ten times more money wasn’t going to make a difference. So he found himself in a situation where further gains in status through increasing his wealth were increasingly difficult. Do you think he gave up? No one day, after being rich for some time, George had an ingenious thought. He realized: he can move up relative to others only if their wealth decreases.It doesn't do any good for Soros to double his money yet again, and it doesn’t harm him to half it, but if he can half your money even if he thirds his own then his power relative to you increases. Why: he is still rich and can buy the same as before but you can't. His elite status is expanded by diminishing yours. It’s was his only option. It makes perfect sense from a psychological point of view.

OK, you say the elites want to be elites, but that still doesn’t explain why they favor the democrats. After all again you say the democrats are the party of the poor. They are the party of equality and so on. You say it still seems to defy common sense. My answer is: Have a look around the world. All the countries that have tried socialism have decreased their economic output. As economic output decreases it gets more and more difficult to join the elite circles.

Now, let’s go back to our theory. Please look at it from the psychological point of view. As economic output decreases the elites obtain more of what was getting increasingly difficult to obtain: exclusivity. Further since they are already richer than they need to be they can still buy everything they want, but now they are the only people in society that can do it. Their status is unimaginably increased. For those who now have less, and had little before, they are much worse off. The poor are always hit the worst especially the working poor. They are the dogs of any socialist society. So as socialist policies ensue the elites enhance their status by increasing the poverty of others. They get to do this all the while they also get to pretend they care. They are for the party of the poor.

Lets go back to George Soros. He was an investor. Do you think he isn't acutely aware that socialist policies reduce a nations economic output? Do you think he doesn't realize that when there is less output someone has to have less. Do you think he doesn't factor in that if the government confiscates money to give to leftist elites then that means even less yet still for some poor worker. He knows, but he's an elite. He's just trying to enhance his status.

Now there are other elite classes on the left. The Democratic Party has a broad spectrum of special interest groups that all share in the confiscated money taken mostly from the working middle classes and the poor. The Democratic Party doesn’t just represent the super rich it also represents these professional classes. These classes are also a form of elites. Their psychology is similar. In this way we can see how elitism is the central unifying force that holds the Democratic Party and the left together.

Let’s look at it from a regulations standpoint. Do you think the big companies want to end regulations? Who do you think has the advantage if hundreds or thousands of lawyers are necessary to produce a car a big company or a new startup? The same goes for any enterprise. Regulations favor established companies that can afford the lawyers, accountants and required bureaucracy to meet the regulations. Small companies can’t begin to compete. Do you think big companies want to increase their competition? Especially corrupt inefficient ones? No, that’s why Wall Street and big business support the democrats. So, yet another group of elites has joined to coalition.

In conclusion, the elites support the democrats because they want to enhance and protect their status.