Senator Bernie Sanders has a message for Fox News readers: The United States is increasingly a country of have and have nots, and it will “move rapidly down the path of oligarchy and the rule of the super-rich” unless the people and political leaders fight for a government and economy that works for everyone.
The Vermont Independent who caucuses with Democrats framed the two Americas as “the people vs. the billionaires” in an op-ed published Friday by Fox News.
In his article, Sanders specifically calls out three billionaires—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, each of whom has signaled support U.S. President-elect Donald Trump—for their staggering wealth.
“In this America, the three wealthiest men (Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg) own more wealth than the bottom half of our society—over 165 million people. And their wealth is skyrocketing” he wrote.
After favoring President Joe Biden in 2020, Elon Musk became a major backer of Trump on the campaign trail this year, donating more than quarter of a billion dollars via political action committees to Trump and other GOP candidates ahead of Election Day. He’s since been tapped to play a role in the incoming administration’s efforts to cut government spending and regulation, and already made a demonstration of his political influence by helping to tank a proposed spending deal that had bipartisan support.
Meta and Amazon, the respective companies of Zuckerberg and Bezos, have already given or said they would give a million dollars each to Trump’s inaugural fund. A number of other large and powerful U.S. firms have donated to the inaugural committee.
Sanders’ piece doesn’t address these specific connections to Trump, but he does denounce the political spending by economic elites more generally unleashed by the “disastrous” Citizens UnitedSupreme Court ruling.
“During the 2024 election cycle, just 150 billionaires spent nearly $2 billion to buy politicians who support their agenda and to defeat candidates who oppose their special interests. Billionaires who represent just .0005% of our population accounted for 18% of total campaign spending,” according to Sanders.
“That is not democracy. That is not one person, one vote,” he wrote.
Sanders has penned opinion pieces for Fox in the past, including about topics like the moral imperative to combat climate change—an issue that runs counter to Fox’s usual editorial slant.
His latest piece decries inequality in America, a common talking point for Sanders, but also goes after billionaire ownership of large swaths of the media.
“Never before in American history have so few media conglomerates, all owned by the billionaire class, had so much influence over the public. It is estimated that six huge media corporations now own 90% of what the American people see, hear, and read,” Sanders wrote. “This handful of corporations determines what is ‘important’ and what we discuss, and what is ‘unimportant’ and what we ignore.”
He also lambasted concentration of ownership in the economy: “In sector after sector—healthcare, agriculture, financial services, energy, transportation—a handful of giant corporations control what is produced and how much we, as consumers, pay for their products.”
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