Worst Hot Take of the Week: A Billionaire On Marx vs. 'Corbyn Must Resign to Prove He's Not Racist'

Welcome to The Worst Take of the Week – a weekly column in which NEO, AKA @MULLET_FAN NEO, pits two of the wildest takes the world's great thinkers have rustled up against each other.

Take #1

What's the story? Billionaire Democrat and 2020 presidential hopeful Tom Steyer defends the ethics of being a billionaire.
Reasonable take: Hoarding vast wealth by investing in private prisons and fossil fuels is definitely unethical.
Brain rot: But Karl Marx failed to consider software!!

Democratic Party mega-donor billionaire Tom Steyer has thrown his hat into ring for the Democratic primary 2020 Presidential race. With no household name recognition (unlike candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders), Steyer began his campaign by trying to distinguish himself from the other candidates in the 2020 field, seemingly as "the benevolent billionaire".

When pressed by the Guardian on the ethics of being a billionaire, Steyer put forward his defence of the mega-rich: "Should we put a limit on what Beyoncé makes? I don’t see why."

Fair play to him, I say, for getting the #beyhive on his side like he’s up for a Teen Choice Award. Steyer then turned the argument into a patriotic one: "I don’t think, in the United States of America, we should put a ceiling on how far people can go." That's right – success can only be measured by fortune hoarded. Hear that, Mother Theresa?

The very pertinent question of the ethics of greed also forced Steyer's mind back to the only defence he can truly muster – a pivot to full Cold War rhetoric. As if a billionaire Wall Street guy existing in the year 2019 wasn’t enough of a dunk on Karl Marx already, Steyer simply had to take it further.

"What Karl Marx failed to take into consideration was software," he explained. "If you are Michael Jackson or Rihanna or Beyoncé or anyone producing an idea, with software you aren’t just the best singer in your village… you have an ability to reproduce that song infinitely at very low cost around the world."

The questionable choice of Michael Jackson aside, Steyer's critique of Marx seemingly only applies to super famous singers who bring joy and happiness to millions, and not, say, hedge fund managers or bankers or big pharma CEOs trying to make you remortgage your house bi-annually so you can afford to buy pills to keep you alive.

Steyer allegedly plans to spend $100 million of his own money on his presidential campaign, which is more than the five frontrunners for the democratic vote have raised combined in the last three months.

Seems obvious, but if some guy who literally worked at Goldman Sachs in the 80s and invested in private prisons and fossil fuels in his hedge fund management years tries to convince you billionaires will somehow save us from destruction, it’s probably a good bet not to listen to the cunt.

Let’s just hope the 2020 presidential election isn’t going to be two white, male billionaires doing their best everyman impression. The world needs real meaningful change, and the last thing we can do with is a hateful bigot versus a Wall Street guy whose idea of leftist politics is slashing taxes for the rich while wearing rainbow laces.

Take #2

What's the story? Labour Lords take out full page advertisement calling Corbyn anti-Semitic.
Reasonable take: Corbyn is probably the least bigoted major UK party leader in the history of British politics, based on his 40 years of campaigning in solidarity with minorities and parliamentary voting history.
Brain rot: Corbyn can only prove he’s not anti-Semitic by resigning.

There have been a capacious amount of accusations levelled at Corbyn since he was elected Labour leader in 2015. Czechoslovakian spy, terrorist sympathiser, showing a "lack of respect" for dead soldiers by wearing an anorak – at times, it's resembled a clown’s pocket of used bog-roll.

Nothing has infuriated centrists more than Corbyn, particularly within the Labour establishment, so it was of no surprise that a full page advertisement was taken out in the Guardian by 64 Labour lords criticising Corbyn as racist. It read: "The Labour Party welcomes everyone* irrespective or race, creed, gender identity, or sexual orientation (*except, it seems, Jews)," signing the advert off with "This is your legacy, Mr Corbyn."

Professor Robert Winston, one of the lords who signed his name to the advert, told talkRADIO that, "Corbyn can resign to prove he’s not anti-Semitic."

There's no doubt that Labour has an antisemitism problem. But this medieval trial-by-ordeal take is truly astonishing. Proving you're not racist through 40 years of active campaigning for leftist causes in solidarity with minorities with a parliamentary voting history to match seemingly isn’t enough. With this sort of logic still prevalent among the literal barons and landed gentry in our antiquated upper chamber, I can see how 200,000 "witches" were fucking murdered by these cunts in the Middle Ages ("thee thot doth drown, she was innocent after all").

Lord Winston later went on Sky News to clarify: "Either one has to assume that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite, and I have no idea if he is or not, but if he is…"

I must say: saying that you "have no idea if he is or not" is some walk back on the massive advertisement you just put your name to. He went on to say that the centre of the Labour party is "almost Stalinist" and Corbyn is "losing honour" by not resigning.

Corbyn has a long list of actions of solidarity with Jewish people within his 40 years of fighting social injustices, including when he campaigned for persecuted Yemeni Jews to be given asylum in the UK in 2010. Who was Home Secretary when the Home Office refused?

Our current Prime Minister, Theresa May. Of course.

Winner: Genuine lords telling Corbyn that he has to resign in order not to be anti-Semitic is definitely a fire take, but Steyer laying the smackdown on Marx for "not considering software" is my worst hot take of week.

@MULLET_FAN NEO