Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) published an op-ed on Fox News, slamming the political power of billionaires in the U.S. and increasing wealth concentration, arguing the country is moving down
“the path of oligarchy.”
Sanders, who in November secured his fourth term in the Senate, wrote that the country is diverging in two opposite directions: the billionaire class and the rest of the the U.S.
“We are in a pivotal and unprecedented moment in American history,” he argued in the op-ed published Friday. Either we fight to create a government and an economy that works for all, or we continue to move rapidly down the path of oligarchy and the rule of the super-rich.
The former two-time presidential candidate slammed the top 1 percent, calling out Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, specifically, and claiming the trio “own more wealth than the bottom half of our society — over 165 million people.”
This piece from Sanders comes as President-elect Trump has selected a handful of billionaires to join his administration and after many Democrats, including Sanders, slammed Musk for opposing the bipartisan deal to avoid government shutdown, which faltered due to Trump allies’ opposition. Some have pointed to the latter as an example of the billionaire’s growing influence in Washington.
Throughout the op-ed, Sanders ripped the campaign finance system, which he regularly bring up, as well as the “inadequate” health care system and billionaire’s ownership of social media platforms, such as Facebook, X and Truth Social.
The senator argued in the op-ed that in the second version of America, working-class people struggle to attain “basic necessities of life” as the uber-wealthy purchase yachts, mansions and private islands.
“In this America, over 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck, millions work for starvation wages, 85 million are uninsured or underinsured, more than 20 million households spend over half of their limited incomes on rent or a mortgage and over 60,000 die each year because they can’t afford to go to a doctor on time,” he wrote.
The Vermont independent, who caucuses with Democrats, also touched on what he views as the increased concentration of ownership on Wall Street and in the media industry, arguing that this, alongside income inequality, are primary points of concern.
“It is estimated that six huge media corporations now own 90 percent of what the American people see, hear and read,” he wrote. “This handful of corporations determines what is ‘important’ and what we discuss, and what is “unimportant” and what we ignore.”
Sanders issued a call to action against these developments, stating there are two paths forward: the ruling billionaire class or democracy and justice.
“That is not democracy,” Sanders said about billionaire influence. “That is not one person, one vote. That is not what this country is supposed to stand for,”
“In his Gettysburg Address in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spoke about ‘a government of the people, by the people, for the people.’ Well, today, we have a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class,” he added.
