“Warren, whose profile in courage is to foment hostility toward a small minority (“billionaires”), should try an experiment — not at her rallies of the resentful, but with an audience of representative Americans. Ask how many in the audience own an Apple product? The overwhelming majority will raise their hands. Then ask: How many resent the fact that Steve Jobs, Apple’s innovator, died a billionaire? Few hands will be raised.” — George Will, “Elizabeth Warren is progressivissm’s Donald Trump”

He adds this for good measure:

Warren’s dependence on a wealth tax announces progressivism’s failure of nerve, its unwillingness to require anyone other than a tiny crumb of society’s upper crust to pay significantly for the cornucopia of benefits that she clearly thinks everyone wants — but only if someone else pays for them.

On the same morning Will’s wisdom about taxation, billionaires, and Americans with iPhones and other Apple merchandise appeared, a SurveyMonkey poll in the New York Times revealed the measure of popular support for Senator Warren’s proposed two percent tax on individual wealth above $50 million.

Sixty-three percent of Americans support this wealth tax; 77% of Democrats; 55% of Independents; and 57% of Republicans.

That’s right, even a clear majority of Republicans are in favor of imposing a 2 percent tax on this “tiny crumb of society’s upper crust.”

The Times reports: “Support for a wealth tax cuts across many of the demographic dividing lines in American politics. Men and women like it. So do the young and the old. The proposal receives majority support among every major racial, educational and income group.”

The survey found a single group that opposes this plan: College-educated Republican men, only 41.5% of whom endorse the proposed wealth tax.

Will’s reference to the popularity of stuff made by Apple is confirmed by the link he offers, which reports, “Sixty-four percent of Americans now own an apple product,” — virtually the same percentage that support a 2-cents on the dollar tax on assets over $50 million.

While George Will is focused on hostility and resentment and hand-wringing over the oppressed minority of the rich, Americans — including those of us (like Elizabeth Warren) with ample appreciation for the benefits of a competitive market economy — believe in the fairness of progressive taxation, just as the U.S. had back in the 1950s and 1960s, when everyone received a more equitable share of the nation’s wealth.