We keep assuming conservatives defend the rich because they think they’ll be rich someday, and, sure, they would love to be. But it’s more nuanced than that: they defend the rich because they believe the rest of us need the rich. We’d be lost without them. There should be no shame in being beneath the rich, not if the right people are rich; no shame in being a cog in the machine so long as the machine produces something beautiful. There is a real fear that everyone filling their proscribed role is the only thing keeping us from complete and total not-the-fun-kind-of anarchy. There is honor in being in your place and doing your best with it. Most especially if your place isn’t at the very bottom.

https://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/183630833477/new-episode-of-the-alt-right-playbook-called

It's said he and elsewhere that the reason non-rich people are like this is because they hold onto some delusion (consciously or subconsciously) that they could be rich one day. Something something American Dream.