- The Washington Times
Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Actress Kirstie Alley blasted democratic socialism after getting into a spat with former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Peter Daou on Twitter.

The back-and-forth started Monday afternoon after Mr. Daou asked his 282,000 Twitter followers to give him one “good reason” why any individual should be able to have $1 billion.


After getting significant pushback for the tweet from conservatives and capitalists, Mr. Daou lashed out at “right-wingers” who purportedly care more about obtaining wealth than taking care of working people.

“Welcome to all the rightwingers defending billionaires because you think they care about you,” he wrote. “Hint: They don’t.”

Ms. Alley later chimed in, arguing that some wealthy people get there through entrepreneurship and innovation.

“Because they created something so [expletive] marvelous that the whole world wanted it!” she wrote to Mr. Daou.

The Democratic strategist fired back, “So all the world’s billionaires just made wonderful things, they didn’t gain any advantage from a system geared to squeeze the last drop of blood out of working people, they weren’t helped with obscene tax breaks…. it was just their wonderful gift?”

Ms. Alley responded, “You asked for ONE good reason a single person should have a billion dollars. I gave you ONE. There are several more. You didn’t ask for a debate or a thesis. Your request must have been rhetorical so you could demonstrate your brightness.”

“PS all you Socialists can ‘school’ me till your heads fall off,” the former “Cheers” star continued. “I will never NEVER be agreeable to a Socialist government ..and your renaming it ‘democratic socialist’ is as a dumb as ‘gentle nazi’…so save your ink and move along.”

Ms. Alley, a noted Scientologist, also hit back at critics who used her affiliation with the controversial church to discredit her argument.

“You can tell a persons IQ by the way they attack things that have NOTHING to do with the subject at hand,” she wrote. “Example: ‘Oh yeah? You don’t like Beagles? OK well that’s because you’re a Mormon!!’”

Mr. Daou declined to respond to Ms. Alley directly but continued his rant against conservatives who believe in personal wealth.

“DEEP SICKNESS We share a country with people who are more outraged about billionaires having to pay taxes than children dying alone and in agony on cold cage floors,” Mr. Daou tweeted Tuesday. “And these people scream ‘big government!!’ and ‘don’t take away their liberty!!’ at the thought of oligarchs being taxed, but have no problem with government controlling women’s bodies.

‘They earned it.’ I’ve heard that a thousand times since yesterday,” he continued. “They benefited from a system geared toward rapid consolidation and accumulation of wealth. A system that provides massive tax breaks to billionaires while the working class toils to survive.”

“It is unconscionable and obscene that a dozen people have enough wealth to eradicate hunger and homelessness with billions left over,” he tweeted. “It betrays so much about the toxic rightwing mindset that they perceive wanting to stop redistributing wealth upward as ‘jealousy.’ The idea that we want fairness, justice, and some semblance of equality is beyond their comprehension, apparently.”


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