BERNIE IS BACK!

Bernie Sanders in Colorado

Yes, Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, who has been serving in the U.S. Senate since 2007, and ran for President in 2016 and 2020, is back on the campaign trail fighting Donald Trump's oligarchy. He is being accompanied by the Progressive New York Repreesentative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In my mind, Bernie had two questionable presidential losses. One, 2016 against Hillary Clinton, orchestrated by the DNC, and two, 2020, against an insurmountable presumptive candidate, Joe Biden.

Okay, Bernie is 83, will be 87 when he would run. But don't forget AOC, only 35, and certainly capable of taking over the presidency if something happened to Bernie. She'd make a great vice president for the Bern since they obviously have the chemistry. And we are seeing a new Bernie Sanders with his current focus on defeating Donald Trump's oligarchy. Not that he had forgotten his working class ideology, it is just obvious today that a strong force from the left is needed to conquer the would-be king.

My wife and I still receive emails from Bernie and just this past week he alerted us to his current trip through Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. The rallies drew 34,000 in Denver, another 11,000 at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Arizona, heavily Republican, had crowds of 15,000 with thousands more watching online. And Nevada numbers aren't clear but the campaign quotes in the thousands. Bernie's and AOC's group said they expected a total of 51,000 for the trip. Arizona, Colorado alone had 60,000.

In his email, Bernie expressed frustration of the last Democratic votes between those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024. Also noted was the loss in this election of working people, young people and Latinos. In other words, the Dems have completely lost contact with their base. Added to this is the fact that the Democratic Party has the lowest approval rating in decades. The Bern asks why and answers his own question. The establishment politicians just don't get it anymore.

The good news is that Americans across the country have had it with oligarchy. His three state rally speaks to this end indicating a need to reject the corporate wing of the party and head for the grassroots. People don't want authoritarianism and the huge tax breaks Donald Trump plans for the wealthy people of this country in favor of shifting the emphasis back to working class families. Voters are fired up nationwide, illustrated by the fact that thousands came out to Bernie/AOC meetings in Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan and Wisconsin.

American Oligarchy by Mother Jones

This is what Bernie had to say at the Denver rally...

“In the hundreds of rallies that I have done, we have never, ever had a rally as large as this,” Sanders said. “And Denver, your presence here today is not just significant for Colorado. You are sending a profound message all over the world. The whole world is watching, and they want to know if the people of America are going to stand up to Trumpism, oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

There's more...

“Abraham Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Sanders said. “Well, Trump has a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires. And what these guys are busy doing right now is going after Medicaid, going after Social Security, going after nutrition. The rich want to get richer and they don’t care who they step on.”

Bernie Sanders has been talking about oligarchy for years, reports NPR, but, now he talks about his favorite subject...

"...the Democratic Party has also turned its back on the American working class and suggested the party capitalize on this moment by championing policies that address things like income inequality, health care and climate change."

I have thought, and still believe, that the Bern should have won in 2016. There was talk that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida representative and head of the DNC at the time, did some finagling that won the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton. Clinton, of course, who blew it in the last lap and we ended up with t-RUMP's first term. And it was then the seeds were sowed for the oligarchy Bernie Sanders is fighting today. Here is one of his recent statements...

"We will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy," Sanders pledged, speaking directly to Trump. "We're not going to allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on the working families of this country. No, you're not going to destroy Social Security. You're not going to destroy Medicaid. You're not going to destroy the Veterans administration."

Although the Democratic Party has become unpopular, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

said, "voters still have power to push back against Trump administration policies..." and adds...

"Ironically, the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together," she said. "And that's important, because the same billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country derive their power from dividing working people apart."

Americans are sick of Trump in only the short time he has been in the White House. I don't know what it will be but I sense we are on the cusp of reestablishing our democracy. 

 

Selective wealth and power will bring America to its knees

It is called an oligarchy, "a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few," according to Dictionary.com. And the current oligarchs are, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. If ever, any one of the three ran their business with the customer's best interest in mind, this all vanished when Donald Trump was sent to the White House for the second time.

It's like all the rules were discarded, the direction of the country changed to reflect rights only for the chosen. For those of you who put the White House maniac back in office, one can only assume you had a total memory loss of what this lunatic did the first time in this position. And, you must also have your head in the sand if you don't see the destruction to the United States Donald Trump has promised. Here's the scenario from The Guardian...

One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see.

Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything.

Now, addressing each oligarch individually, starting with Jeff Bezos...

"On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets”. 

"Anything inconsistent with this view would not be published, according to his statement. “Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

"The Post’s opinion editor, David Shipley, promptly resigned, as he should have."

 Defending “personal liberties and free markets” means simply supporting Donald Trump and his far-right ideologies, also turning a once great newspaper into bush league journalism.

Next is Mark Zuckerberg...

"Mark Zuckerberg, the second-richest person, has followed suit, allowing Facebook to emit lies, hate and bigotry in support of Trump’s lies, hate and bigotry."

Zuckerberg has reneged on promises to improve the security of FB users' personal information for years, selling much of this private information to advertisers actively. 

And now Elon Musk...

"Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, bought Twitter in 2022, laid off everyone who was filtering out hateful crap on the platform, renamed it X and turned it into a cesspool of lies in support of Trump."

Musk, with the "play-like" government department, DOGE, has all but decimated several U.S. agencies and fired millions of employees without cause, many of which had to be called back in desperation.

Each, in his own way, has put this country into a jeopardy that could work in three different ways to put this country over the edge. The American dream is no longer just to own a home; we've now added the idea of shared equity, that is to bring the classes together when it comes to the standard of living. This won't work under an oligarchy.

 

Bernie Sanders Sayings

Re. Oligarchy: The poor are disenfranchised, not by law, but in fact. The young think that voting has little to do with them or their prospects. Ordinary citizens have decided that the political process is likely to fail them, and so they vote in even smaller numbers.

Bernie Sanders Sayings

An oligarchy is a form of government in which a small group of people hold power. It seems that a smaller and smaller group of citizens are determining our nation's future.