One day in 2007 or 2008, I was standing just off the floor of the House of Representatives, waiting for the Congressman for whom I worked. An older man with a halo of unkempt white hair walked by and somehow dropped his wallet. The contents splayed out on the enameled floor.

I bent down to help him. It took a couple of moments. For a Socialist, then-Congressman Bernie Sanders sure carried a lot of plastic.

Places to Call His Own

In 2015, he had reported assets of less than $750,000, Business Insider reports. Now he’s worth an estimated $2 million.

How did that happen? Capitalist success. 

In both the last two years, Sanders made more than $1 million. “That would place Sanders in the unusual position of being among the top 1 percent of earners in the U.S.,” writes journalist Kathleen Elkins.  How did he do it? His $174,000 Senate salary combined with more than $868,000 in 2016 and $880,000 income from sales of books decrying the wealthy.

Oh, the titles of his two books? Our Revolution and Bernie Sanders’ Guide to Political Revolution. At least for the senator, revolution pays well. Running for president was a great career move.

And the Houses and the Planes

It doesn’t stop there. In 2016, Sanders and his wife purchased their third home, an almost $600,000 house on the shores of Lake Champlain.The Sanders also own “a row house in Washington D.C., as well as a house in Burlington, Vermont.” They bought the house in D.C. in 2007 for just under $500,000. It’s worth more than that now.

Then there’s “the Bern’s” love of flying. Last year, right before the fall election, the dear man was “so concerned about climate change that he spent nearly $300,000 on private air travel (read that, chartered jets) so he could speak to audiences in nine battleground states.” (The campaign did buy $5,000 in “carbon offsets.”)

According to the New York Times, a single round-trip flight between New York and California generates “about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year.” Even for a math simpleton like me, a little division makes it pretty clear that Bernie’s private jet travel, in a single month, pumped out ten cars’ annual contribution of “greenhouse gases.” Yikes. I guess I’ll have to recycle even more milk cartons.

Former President (Jane) Sanders

Bernie is not the only member of his family under scrutiny. His wife Jane, former president of the now-defunct Burlington College, has been investigated by the FBI for a fraudulent land deal. “The college closed in 2016, citing the enormous debt it accrued while Sanders was in charge — in particular when the college made a $10 million real-estate deal,” reports Fox News’ Adam Shaw. 

Although the FBI investigation has ended, serious questions about Mrs. Sanders’ mismanagement and failed leadership of the college remain. 

I, Bernie, Herald of the Free Market

No one should begrudge anyone else his or her honestly gained income. If Senator Sanders has come by his remarkable wealth through the toil and effort he lauds among those he claims to champion, three cheers. The free market lives and works for all of us. Even those who would destroy it.

Yet there’s something just a wee bit ironic about a man who has based his career on attacking wealth becoming wealthy. Writing with his trademark indignation in 2017, Sanders decried all who have gotten wealthy. “This massive level of wealth and income inequality, and the political power associated with that wealth, is an issue that cannot continue be ignored. We must fight back.” 

Even the liberal-chic magazine Vanity Fair finds this a bit much. Characterizing Sanders as “perpetually aggrieved,” it noted in 2016 that Sanders “now has one thing in common with the millionaires and billionaires and other 1 percenters he so frequently attacked on the campaign trail: he now owns his very own summer home.” 

In 2016, Senator Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton. Few looked closely at him because he wasn’t her, and not being Hillary Clinton covered a multitude of sins. He will be running against himself in 2020.

To paraphrase a famous passage of Scripture, we can only wonder how long this self-divided man will stand. Especially if his wallet is even heavier than it was a decade ago.