Yet another champion of the common man is raking in millions off his political brand. Before President Trump’s first impeachment inquiry in 2019, nobody had ever heard of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. His testimony made him a national celebrity and a hero of the self-described “Resistance,” a militantly anti-Trump collection of activists and personalities (that is, the group of people who have nothing better to do than cosplay as dissidents living in an authoritarian state). Since then, Vindman has retired from the army, entered a very lucrative consulting business, published two books, and become a highly paid speaker. The obscure lieutenant colonel became a sought-after personality overnight. He is now attempting to convert that brand into a Senate seat. His populist rhetoric is fairly boilerplate for the 2020s: “The people of Florida want a Senator who will use the power of the office to crush corruption and cut costs instead of using it to make millions for themselves and their billionaire backers.” Hardline populists love to ask about incentives. Who has an incentive to support whom? Which politician benefits from a particular crisis? Which bureaucrat gains authority from declaring another emergency? All good questions, but they always seem to exempt the very people asking them. Has it ever occurred to any of these rocket scientists that the fame and fortune of the Resistance movement may be an incentive to keep the Trump hysteria alive? Vindman now campaigns against career politicians and the “political elite class.” It has become especially fashionable to ask whether politicians perpetuate conflict to stay in power. And these people have some legitimate points. There are certainly instances of corruption and shady incentives in Washington. Old news. What gets a lot less attention is the plethora of commentators who derive their power from perpetuating media conflicts and apocalyptic narratives. According to Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter with the Washington Free Beacon, Vindman reported approximately $1.5 million in income from his consulting company, $240,000 from his personal Substack, $27,000 for a speech at a wealthy woman’s home, and quite a few other notable streams of income. Perhaps most notably, Vindman’s Substack features a “name the number” subscription option with a minimum contribution of $250 per year and no maximum. Individual Substack contributions do not have to be disclosed. In other words, Mr. Anti-Elite-Corruption has a personalized service through which you can send him large sums of money without having to reveal your identity to anyone except him. No risk of outside influence there. Of the $240,000 in Substack income, it remains unclear how much came from ordinary subscriptions and how much was funneled through this feature. Imagine a Republican politician collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars through a newsletter with this feature. We would be treated to an endless barrage of television monologues about “dark money,” the “billionaire class” (probably pertaining in some form or other to AIPAC) and the existential threat to our democracy. Let us then question who benefits from an inflammatory narrative. Vindman has profited handsomely off the war of public opinion that he helped create. And now, all of that fame has conveniently become a launchpad into those very same seats of power. Awfully convenient. This is hardly uncommon for an anti-elite champion, of course. Bernie Sanders made millions off of his books — all fiery critiques of capitalism. As in the case of Mr. Sanders, Vindman’s defenders will rush to argue, “But he earned that money! Aren’t you the proponents of earned wealth?” Yes, we are. The objection is not that Mr. Vindman earned a lot of money in commentary. It’s that he built a brand around criticizing people for profiting from political power, and then converted his own proximity to power into wealth and influence. Public discourse can always benefit from a healthy dose of skepticism. The political commentariat is not a disinterested or unbiased third party. Now that Mr. Vindman has ensconced himself in the lucrative world of influencers, his judgement on what constitutes a disaster deserves some scrutiny. If voters are really facing a crisis of credibility in politics, they ought to be wary of a man whose road to office is being paved with the gold of Resistance hysteria.