US Vermont senator’s tour with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes has been drawing record-breaking crowds since February
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.
Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here tour has been drawing massive crowds. Aided by the progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the team set the record in Tempe, Arizona, for biggest-ever political rally in that state three weeks ago. In Denver, Colorado, more than 34,000 people showed up – a career-high crowd for the 83-year-old Sanders. Saturday in Los Angeles saw another record: at least 36,000 people packed a downtown park.
They need a different slogan. This fighting over one side or the other “taking America back” in a tit for tat is ridiculous.
That’s exactly what we need to do though. Billionaires have stolen the American dream from tens of millions of people.
How specifically?
The sad fact is the American dream has been diminished (not entirely stolen) by fellow Americans voting contrary to the policies that enriched them and earlier generations. Free trade with poor countries we couldn’t compete with, attacking unions/right-to-work, redlining, suburban flight, restrictive zoning, NIMBYism. None of these were caused by Billionaires. Even now, they’re kept in place by fellow Americans who see housing as an investment and who’ve gotten theirs and want to keep the casino going.
Well the simplest thing is we as individuals cannot compete against a company with billions of dollars of capital at their disposal. I can’t get into manufacturing hats for example because Amazon can copy what I make, manufacture it overseas for a tenth of the price, and sell it anywhere in America.
Billionaires have enough money to turn into political power to influence the very policies that allow for right-to-work, redlining, etc to exist. The Pinkertons are a great example of attacking unions and organized labor completely funded by private capital.
Americans vote while billionaires like Elon Musk alter their perceptions of what to vote for.
You could get into that easily before the tariffs. Paying Chinese companies and drop shipping via Amazon FBA. It’s quite possible you can via other countries, China is the only one I’m familiar with.
Amazon is a publicly traded company. You’re not competing with Bezos. 65% of Americans have money in the markets, most with a 401k that likely invests in Amazon.
I’d agree with you that they can influence discourse, but prior to Musk buying X, in 2022, the platform was (per CNN’s Harry Enten) overwhelmingly liberal. As of after the election, it was 48% Democrat/47% Republican. So he shifted it towards the 50/50 in the population vs every other site including this one