IRVINE, CA - "Why do so many people hate Martha Stewart?" asked Robert Tracinski, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. Why is the reaction in the press and Congress over charges that Stewart engaged in "insider trading" so far out of proportion to the actual evidence or the alleged crime? Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.
"There is only one explanation for the tone of vicious glee" on the part of Stewart's attackers, observed Tracinski. She is hated "because she stands too high above the crowd, because she is 'too perfect.'"
"While most people are able to appreciate the accomplishments of others," Tracinski explained, "many take other people's achievements as an affront, an intolerable reminder of their own shortcomings. These are the people who desperately search for dirt to sling at celebrities, to show that the celebrities aren't so good after all--and who rush to join any witch hunt and repeat any allegation."
These ugly and vicious attacks against Martha Stewart, Tracinski noted, are not isolated events, but part of a larger and dangerous cultural trend in America: the envy and hatred of successful people.