Bernie Sanders is currently waging war against billionaires. The senator from Vermont fiercely criticized people like Elon Musk, who “spends millions on the election areas,” while the general public has only one vote.
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“Billionaires own our political process,” Sanders declared through a fiery tweet. “Does that sound like a real democracy to you?”
This statement quickly led to a hot debate as supporters and critics exchanged fire at each other. Some seemed to agree with Sandern where others responded with charges of hypocrisy; most pointed at the Democratic mega donor like George Soros.
“The former went down with:” @BernieSanders So can George Soros? Wtf Bernie?” while another added, “Big Pharma owns you,” a reference to Sanders’ past campaign funding.
But not Sanders’ base. “Preach Senator Sanders!” cheered one supporter, while another slammed the system: “People who are net negative taxpayers get to vote. Don’t seem fair to me.”
It even gets wacky when one user takes an entirely different tack, accusing Sanders himself of being a millionaire-and totally ignoring that he doesn’t even compare with the billionaires he’s criticizing in wealth.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters hopped in saying that Democrats spent more than Republicans. “Democrat party outspent the republican by a factor of 2,” boasted one.
Sanders, of course, has long been a champion for this sort of political dustup-railing against the corporate dollar evils in political life-and this latest explosion of his comes just as the caffeine in American politics begins to heat up for the coming 2028 election: Who really runs American democracy?
As the responses began pouring in-some of them supportive-some viciously scath-ing-it became all too apparent: Sanders still knows how to shake the tree.
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That is for time to tell. But for now, a question looms: If billionaires really run the show, what do those like us have left?