Donald Trump has proven to the world what Washingtonians have been experiencing, albeit on a smaller scale, with a local billionaire named Daniel Snyder, for years, that a person being rich guarantees nothing when it comes to having the competence, expertise, and most of all, the ethical infrastructure one needs in order to be an effective leader. People who are envious of the wealthy assume that rich people know something the rest of us don’t, i.e., the secrets to success. Some wealthy people in the public eye foster this myth. They do so by assuming for themselves attributes they simply don’t have. Daniel Snyder has proven that being wealthy no more equips him to be a good NFL franchise owner than being rich informs Donald Trump how to be a good president. Now, coffee billionaire Howard Schultz wants us to believe that being wealthy qualifies him to be Commander in Chief. Another myth that creeps in the subconscious of many and is fostered by the right is a long-debunked notion from the 17th century called Enlightened Self-Interest. This myth states that wealthy land-owners or business people would never let their zeal for profits harm their potential customers or the communities that sustain them. Trump is the embodiment of the unification of both of those false concepts. Above all, these false concepts – Enlightened Self-Interest and the Infallibility of Riches – have proven, again and again, that conservatism itself is not a philosophy or an ideology; it is a rationalization against the social responsibility that comes with great wealth. Think about it. More later -JJP