Summary
Sen. Bernie Sanders is touring Iowa and Nebraska to rally against “the oligarchy,” aiming to energize progressives rather than launch a 2028 presidential bid.
At 83, he seeks to shape the Democratic Party’s future, arguing it lost in 2024 by neglecting working-class voters.
He hopes to influence budget battles and the 2026 midterms, targeting GOP lawmakers in battleground districts.
With Democrats lacking clear leadership, Sanders’ prominence and focus on economic inequality could define the party’s direction in the Trump-Musk era.
But is capitalism really the issue here? As far as I can tell, you can put in place any economic agenda, if people just vote against themselves and if laws are actively ignored, the economic policy doesn’t really matter?
You are right that you can have authoritarian policies in any economic system, but capitalism in America has led to our authoritarianism. Capitalism does this as it relies on single ownership of the means of production, so it inherently centralized power and wealth.Think about the oligarchs, they control how wealth is distributed through their companies. If their workers had a say in the sharing of the profits, there is no way people would vote to give people enough wealth to control the globe while screwing over the rest of us. Also, if people are more individualized, like in America, they vote less on their group benefit, and what they see as their own benefit. This leads to fascism’s easy rise to power, but putting the blame on others.
Laws are often ignored in history through periods of change; I’d say it’s a matter of people agreeing or disagreeing with them.
In this case, it’s about a very strong push by very wealthy people to trick masses of followers into thinking their billionaire daddy’s are fighting for them.
Ostensibly, that push would be harder if there was not such a uniform path to wealth disparity where one idiot owns so much.