Fight Oligarchy. That is the message Vermont senator Bernie Sanders gave when he spoke to a packed ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Omaha last month. This was the start of his tour across the country where he is delivering information, statistics and action steps for opposing what he calls, “a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.”
Oxford Languages defines oligarchy as a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution. Sanders explained how today the U.S. government is “rapidly moving toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of multi billionaires not only have extraordinary wealth, but unprecedented economic, media and political power.” Sanders explained what he saw first hand at Trump’s inauguration,
“I was there at the inauguration, and seated right behind Trump was Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerburg, the three wealthiest people in America right behind the president as he is getting sworn in.” Sanders went on to describe that behind Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg were 13 billionaires who Trump nominated to be in his cabinet.
Sanders explained how the president is surrounded and working for the wealthiest people in this country while working families across the nation are struggling to make ends meet. In addition to that he mentioned that we currently have more income and wealth inequality in the United States than ever before.
“Musk, Bezos and Zuckerburg who stood behind Donald Trump have more wealth than the bottom half of American society [some] 170 million people,” said Sanders. Sanders described how 60% of Ameicans are living paycheck to paycheck, 60,000 Americans die every year because they can’t afford to go to a doctor, and one out of every four Americans can’t afford the high cost of prescription drugs that the pharmaceutical industry charges.
“Oligarchy is about Political Power in a way that we have never seen in the history of America. It’s about people like Elon Musk contributing 270 million dollars to Trump’s Election campaign. But it is not just Musk… and it is not just Republicans, billionaires contribute to the Democratic party as well,” said Sanders.
He went on to explain that, “Democracy is not about billionaires buying elections; it’s about one person, one vote and that is why in my view we gotta move to public funding of elections,” he said.
Sanders went on to explain the influence and power that Elon Musk holds in our country after contributing a massive amount of money to Trump’s campaign, describing Musk as, “The most important person in the Trump Administration.”
He went on to say that the Trump Administration has,
“eviscerated major agencies like USAID who are providing the help that the poorest people in the world need to stay alive…. They have eviscerated the consumer safety protection board, which has helped ordinary Ameicans gain billions and billions of dollars from the illegal actions of banks and corporations.”
Sanders made a point of discussing the potential harmful impacts of a budget resolution or “reconciliation bill” which has since passed through the House of Representatives.
“What it does is give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and the top one percent,” said Sanders. He explained that these tax breaks will be paid for by cuts to programs that working class people desperately need.
Sanders urged people to talk to their representatives about issues such as this that are important to them. He explained how the system will try to tell you that you are powerless but that is not true. Sanders mentioned that phone calls can change people’s minds.
“These telephone calls work,” he said. “Because generally speaking members of Congress are just influenced by their campaign contributors… if people wake up at the grassroots level and say ‘hey you better pay attention to us or you ain’t going back to Washington’ they will listen,” said Sanders.
