April 5, 2016 --

One Percent Member James Traub wrote an opinion piece, “Call It What It Is: A Rabble,” that appeared in The New York Times March 27.

The column, an anti-Trump rant, accused Donald J. Trump of being “a rabble-rouser who has found his rabble.” LPR spoke, recently with George Bailey, about Traub’s description of Trump. (This is the George Bailey of Frank Capra’s movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”) Bailey said that Traub reminded him of Henry F. Potter, the movie’s banker.

“Betcha Mr. Traub, if he ever watches ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ thinks Potter is the movie’s hero,” Bailey said. “Well, he oughta identify with Potter,” Bailey added. “You remember how he justified squeezing the ordinary people of Bedford Falls to keep them from becoming ‘[a] discontented, lazy rabble’? Well, what I told Potter goes for Traub, too. ‘[T]his rabble that you’re talking about…they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in his community.’ I also told Potter that what galls him is that he can’t get his fingers on the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan. I guess what galls Traub is that he can’t control the people who, supporting Trump, are just sick and tired of being treated as cattle.”

(LPR thanks “The It’s a Wonderful Life Book,” compiled by Jeanine Basinger, for Potter’s comment and Bailey’s reply to Potter. P. 164.)