You don’t have to be rich to be socialist, but it sure helps.

Just ask Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who, with her husband, has a net worth of $12 million.

To be a successful socialist like millionaires Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders, you must con people into believing it is not them, but other millionaires, who are ripping off the system at the expense of you, the working class, or the working poor.

Sanders, who did not have two dimes to run together when he left New York years ago to morph into a Vermont politician, now owns three homes and has an estimated net worth of $3 million.

It is like the way Warren, a one-time Republican who as a college professor who was going nowhere until she became a phony Cherokee with high cheekbones and a diversity hire by Harvard. She was then chosen to run for the Senate as a Democrat.

By contrast, fellow Massachusetts Democrat U.S. Sen. Eddie Markey, who left the Malden working class the day he was elected to Congress 50 years ago, has a net worth of only $4 million.

So obviously, he must be doing something wrong, even though he lives in a fine million-dollar home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife and uses Malden as a voting address.

Besides becoming rich and famous through politics, the three politicians are alike in their attacks on President Donald Trump and the billionaires that Trump is allegedly making even richer through his big, beautiful bill at the expense of the poor.

There was a time when Warren, Sanders, and Markey used to attack millionaires. But after they became millionaires, they upped their game to go after billionaires.

But one rich Democrat they will not attack is fellow Democrat J.B. Pritzker, the burly billionaire governor of Illinois whose net worth, according to Forbes, is $3.7 billion. That’s billion with a B.

While Warren, Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani — the Muslim Democrat Socialist they support in the New York mayor’s race — would strip billionaires of their wealth through confiscatory taxation, Pritzker gets a pass even though Mamdani has vowed to abolish billionaires.

“I don’t think we should have billionaires,” Mamdani, 33, who has never held a real job outside of the New York Assembly, has said, which aligns with the socialist rhetoric of Warren and Sanders.

If he were a true socialist rather than a naïve dabbler, Mamdani would call for the abolition of millionaires, too. But that would mean losing the support of Warren, Sanders and all the rest of the millionaire Democrats in politics.

Let me know if you ever heard of a member of Congress, not sent to prison, who retired poorer than when he was first elected.

However, while Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, may be a progressive Democrat, going after his billions is a billion or two too far.

Socialists and progressive Democrats believe in going after your money, not theirs.

Asked about Mamdani’s remarks about abolishing billionaires during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last week, Pritzker said, “How much money you have doesn’t determine what your values are.”

Translated, that means, “Don’t even think about it, Mamdani.”

“I’m a Democrat,” Pritzker said, “because I believe that we’ve got to stand up for our democracy and against the MAGA Republicans who are literally trying to take away people’s rights all across or country.”

Just don’t touch his money.

Speaking of taking away people’s rights, Pritzker, two weeks ago, signed a bill mandating that all public school students undergo an annual mental health screening test.

Supporters say the test is designed to identify early signs of depression, anxiety, and trauma. Opponents say it will trigger all three.

Maybe Warren, who claims Mamdani is the future of the Democrat Party, should take the test first.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is a billionaire. (AP)