Bernie Sanders is Succeeding While Democrats Flounder
The progressive Vermonter is traveling around the country attacking billionaires — and is finding a huge audience.
Anthony Constantini
March 03, 2025
_WHAT’S HAPPENING_
With the Democrats having lost control of both Congress and the White House, the party has found itself rudderless and with a record-low approval rating. Democrats’ latest attempt to pick up steam was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ new nickname for Trump — “Captain Chaos” — which was mocked ruthlessly from both sides of the aisle.
One individual, however, has been seeing massive success in spreading his message against the Trump administration: Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
_THE FACTS_
→ Sen. Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, has been touring the country for the past few months, campaigning against “oligarchy.” He has taken his message to places like Omaha, Nebraska, and Iowa City, Iowa.
→ Most recently, he announced he would tour Republican-held congressional districts in Wisconsin, which will host an election next month to decide who controls the state’s top court.
→ Sanders’ viewership often reaches six figures, and a recent video of his resonated with nearly 3 million people.
→ The left’s claims that the United States is an oligarchy gained new energy when former President Joe Biden, in his farewell address, claimed “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
→ While Biden immediately left the political stage, Sanders has taken the baton and run with it, highlighting cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
→ Sanders has critiqued the imagery of the Trump administration as the president surrounds himself with billionaires like Musk, Howard Lutnick, and Linda McMahon.
→ He has also highlighted the Trump administration’s plans to lock in the 2017 tax cuts, which Sanders portrays as more favorable to the rich than to the working class.
→ The Vermonter is campaigning with individuals affected by Musk’s cuts, such as former park rangers.
→ Sanders has taken to the airwaves in a series of to-the-camera videos and national interviews, such as one last month with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, where he critiqued Musk’s cuts to USAID, calling them unconstitutional.
_INSIGHTS_
While Donald Trump was able to capture the Republican Party in a grassroots, populist tide, the much more powerful Democratic establishment successfully blocked Sanders from the nomination twice. Although he is gaining massive attention around the country, at 83, Sanders is older than former President Biden and will not be able to lead his movement into the future. His natural successor, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), may not have the same appeal nationwide, nor the approval of party insiders.
The Trump administration and MAGA movement should take note of Sanders’ success. President Trump has sought to refashion the GOP into a worker’s party; he selected the labor-friendly Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Secretary of Labor, reached out to unions like the International Longshoreman’s Association, and gained support from the Teamsters. But if Trump allows Musk to continue his sometimes unfocused cuts, they could open a path for Sanders and his acolytes to resonate with enough Americans to reject the current administration.
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