Q. What is the Democrats' beef with "oligarchs"?

A. Some of them have switched sides.

Democrats and their media allies keep calling on party leaders to do something, anything, to stop the Trump Express. Leading Dems like Cory Booker and JB Pritzker respond with loud denunciations of the president and his agenda.

Booker and Pritzger certainly aren’t stopping Trump. Their diatribes are just a form of self-promotion.

By contrast the “Stop the Oligarchy” tour of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may strike a chord. After all, Trump’s signature and politically-successful populism is spearheaded by its author, a billionaire, his vice president, a Silicon Valley tech executive, and its enforcer, the world’s richest man (if Elon Musk still holds that distinction.)

I’ll admit that a populist movement led by the uber-wealthy is odd. But populism is as much an attitude as a program.

Moreover, Trump’s agenda has some populist elements. The best example is probably his attack on illegal immigration. That attack will likely benefit low-wage native workers. If it hurts anyone other than the immigrants themselves, it will hurt the wealthy who use their cheap labor.

The Trump tariffs are also intended to help the working class. (Whether they will is an open questions.) And Trump’s attacks on elitist institutions like Ivy League universities, high-power law firms, and major media outlets is also populist, not only in attitude but also in substance.

Thus, Trump’s brand of populist has enough genuine elements not be written off as phony.

The same cannot be said for an anti-oligarchy campaign led by mainstream Democrats. This is clear from the subtitle of a recent article in the Washington Post (paper edition): “To liberals who once saw [Musk] as an ally, he now embodies the ‘oligarchy.’”

Musk was every bit as much an oligarch when he was the liberals’ ally as he is today. All that’s changed is that he now supports MAGA Republicans. In other words, the problem with Musk — the reason his signature company must be undermined and its cars vandalized — is not that he’s an oligarch. Rather, it’s that he’s the wrong kind of oligarch — one who has switched sides and abandoned the libs.

A similar point was driven home in a CNN interview with the increasingly insufferable Michael Bennet, who ranted about how the very wealthy were undermining democracy with their massive campaign contributions. Kaitlan Collins spoiled the fun by asking Bennet about the billionaires who contributed to his short-lived presidential campaign in 2020. It took the Senator several moments to stammer out a non-answer.

Even Bernie Sanders has taken corporate money during his political career (albeit in small amounts, apparently). Nonetheless, I believe Sanders has standing to attack “oligarchs.” But the same cannot be said for most Democrats. (Sanders was a Democrat only briefly, in order to run for the party’s presidential nomination.)

Democrats face an authenticity problem. Posing as the anti-oligarch party is unlikely to help them overcome it.

Bernie Sanders can probably get away with it. Maybe Ocasio-Cortez can, too. Cory Booker — Mr. Inauthentic — and JB Pritzer — net worth of $3.5 billion — not so much.