SPLIT DECISION: THE PARTISAN DIVIDE ON U.S. ECONOMIC SYSTEM FAIRNESS
SURVEY RESPONDENTS WHO SAY THE SYSTEM
UNFAIRLY FAVORS POWERFUL INTERESTS
SURVEY RESPONDENTS WHO SAY IT IS
GENERALLY FAIR TO MOST AMERICANS
0
20
40
60
80 %
0
20
40
60
80 %
2014 2016 2018 2014 2016 2018
DEMOCRAT/
LEAN DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLICAN/
LEAN REPUBLICAN
84%
36%
15%
57%
DEMOCRAT/
LEAN DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLICAN/
LEAN REPUBLICAN
SOURCE: PEW RESEARCH CENTER
8
FORTUNE.COM // JANUARY 2020
polling, Bernie Sanders
and Elizabeth Warren,
routinely vilify billion-
aires as more or less the
root of all evil. Sanders
has said, “I don’t think
that billionaires should
exist.” The top-polling
Democrat, Joe Biden,
sends a more subtle
message: “I don’t be-
grudge anybody making
a million or hundreds
of millions of dollars,”
he said in February,
leaving unspoken
that 10 figures are
just too much. Yet the
Democratic field also
includes two billion-
aires, Tom Steyer and
recent entrant Michael
Bloomberg, who in only
a few weeks has used
massive TV advertising
to approach the top tier,
a few points behind the
No. 4 candidate, Pete
Buttigieg.
As for the Republi-
cans, they’re not entirely
unconflicted on this sub-
ject, even though their
candidate became the
first billionaire President
three years ago.
So do we love billion-
aires or disdain them?
Simple partisanship is
the easy part of the an-
swer. Polling confirms
what we already know:
Republicans tend to be
billionaire-friendly, and
Democrats tend not to
be. What complicates
the picture is a large
nonpartisan element.
Oprah Winfrey, Steven
Spielberg, Michael Jor-
dan—they’re all billion-
aires, and America loves
them. Bill Gates and
Warren Buffett rank
near the top in YouGov’s
2019 survey asking
Americans whom they
admire most, inter-
spersed among movie
stars, Pope Francis, and
the Dalai Lama.
Sometimes we love
billionaires. But as the
success of Sanders and
Warren shows, a sizable
group of Americans
resent them bitterly. At a
deep level, our billion-
aire bifurcation reflects
two starkly different
views of the world—how
it works, why some peo-ple get ahead and others
don’t, whether the future
is dark or bright. The
divide separating those
who hold these oppos-
ing views has deepened
dramatically over the
past few years.
Consider the fun-
damental question
of whether the U.S.
economic system “is
generally fair to most
Americans” or “unfairly
favors powerful inter-
ests,” as the Pew Re-
search Center has posed
it for the past five years.
Overall sentiment has
barely budged: About
33% of U.S. adults say
it’s fair, and 63% say it’s
unfair. But in just the
past three years, Repub-
licans and Democrats
have polarized on the
issue, with Republicans
now far more likely to
say it’s fair, and Demo-
crats far more likely to
say it isn’t.
Little wonder that
billionaires are under
fire. It’s no longer just
Democratic Socialists
like Bernie Sanders whobelieve they’re pro-
foundly bad for the na-
tion; Cato polling finds
that 54% of Democrats
believe “billionaires are
a threat to democracy”
(while 79% of Republi-
cans don’t agree).
Underlying this
historic shift is the
megatrend of increasing
income disparity. The
inescapable fact is that
since 1967, inflation-
adjusted income has
increased 99% for the
top quintile of house-
holds and only 31%
for the bottom quin-
tile. Republicans and
Democrats frame their
explanations of what
happened in funda-
mentally different ways
based on their rapidly
diverging worldviews,
leading to ever more
sharply contrasting
policy prescriptions.
Which brings us
back to America’s
love-hate relationship
with billionaires. In our
hyperpartisan environ-
ment, two extreme
election outcomes
are entirely plausible.
The Democrats’ more
progressive wing could
sweep, promising an
unprecedented anti-
billionaire agenda of
historic tax increases on
the wealthy. Yet voters
could also deliver a
completely opposite and
equally unprecedented
outcome: Next January,
for the second time in
U.S. history, a billion-
aire—of either party—
could be taking the oath
of office.