Bernie Sanders Issues ‘Oligarchy’ Warning About Elon Musk

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-issues-oligarchy-warning-about-elon-musk-2004263

43 comments

  1. Warnings don’t help unless they result in political power.

    That requires consistently voting over multiple election cycles.

    Elon Musk has the best AIs working overtime to make you *unenthusiastic* about voting. It’s working.

  2. This is the average idiot’s “Let them eat cake.” moment of clarity. And instead, the Oligarchs have successfully distracted the peasants with tales of secret spy drones until the moment is too late. Embarrassing…

  3. God bless bernie sanders. The kind of person americans need but not the kind we deserve. May he forever be seen as the missed FDR of the 21st century.

  4. Elon is only one billionaire, albeit the most prominent one. There are 13 billionaire appointments so far. Can you spell “Oligarchy?” It seems pretty clear what our “Dear Leader” Donald is assembling here.

  5. Can we stop acting like we haven’t had Oligarchs the entire time? Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, Spreckles, Kochs, Gates, Buffet, Murdoch, etc. We used to call ’em Robber Barons, Moguls, Captains of Industry, Magnates, Industrialists, Job Creators,etc etc. All synonyms meaning the same thing. We just use different words for OUR rich bastards.

    It’s not new. Musk is just being more upfront about the shenanigans. How many bills do you think the Koch brothers killed with a phone call? Musk is just doing it with a tweet. It’s fucked, but with Citizen’s United that’s how the game is played even more-so than previously.

    I mean, just do the math. [The Harris campaign spent nearly $2BILLION](https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/kamala-harris/candidate?id=N00036915)(as of Oct 26th) on a losing campaign. She received less than 500mil from small donors. You think the mega donors to her aren’t oligarchs? Just cause they might agree with you on a few issues doesn’t make them anything else. And that’s not to mention the news and ad media companies that are actually pocketing the majority of the cash. Not one will actively call for a change that will impact their bottom line.

    The entire system is fucked. And sadly, we keep voting for the same broken shit. It’s always between a [douche and a turd.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7pfsneLSSM) They, the oligarchs, wont let anyone who might actually change shit get anywhere near the levers of power.

    Musk’s power play sucks. But he is just another symptom, he isn’t anything new. There’s no call for sweeping changes. They just want THIS guy out. Kick ’em all out.

    /rant

  7. 1 person=.0000001 vote. $1 billion= 535 votes. Welcome to Putin’s world … where you have to have LOTS of $$$$ to have a voice.

  9. Well, I guess MAGA has finally found its very own Soros doing whatever it accuses Soros is doing.

  12. Hopefully this oligarch will soon meet the same fate as recent Russian oligarchs.

  13. A warning? Dude this has been out in the open for many years

  14. Where is the left donors that want to fund lawsuits and get dirty? Everyone seems to be afraid of him

  15. Does the avg person in the US know what Oligarchy means? Back in 1990(?) the studio changed the name of the Bond movie from License Revoked to License to Kill because people didn’t know what revoked meant.

  17. We saw Musk buying his way into the Presidency, literally buying votes. Nothing happened.

    Watching what has taken place since before Trump and Musk are even in the White House has left me with a deep sadness.

    How overt the corruption is is unprecedented. The richest man in the world has bought his way into being acting President. A South African no one voted for.

    We are fucked as a country.

    The capital takeover, the resulting lack of checks and balances on corruption, Congress insider trading, bribery. The Democrats have failed us. Our politics as a whole have failed us.

  22. The primary billionaire oligarchs driving Texas politics are Farris Wilks & Tim Dunn, both Christian nationalists. Do you have folks like this in your states, or is Texas especially unlucky?

    ProPublica – [A Pair of Billionaire Preachers Built the Most Powerful Political Machine in Texas. That’s Just the Start.](https://www.propublica.org/article/tim-dunn-farris-wilks-texas-christian-nationalism-dominionism-elections-voting)

    “Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks are poised to take their Christian nationalist agenda nationwide.”

    Texas Monthly – The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy ([4 min intro video](https://www.texasmonthly.com/video/tim-dunn-profile-behind-scenes-russell-gold/) | [Article](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/billionaire-tim-dunn-runs-texas/))

    “The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians.”

    Texas Monthly – [The Campaign to Sabotage Texas’s Public Schools](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/campaign-to-sabotage-texas-public-schools/)

    “But by far the most powerful opponents of public schools in the state are West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and the brothers Farris and Dan Wilks. Their vast political donations have made them the de facto owners of many Republican members of the Texas Legislature.”

    YouTube – [James Talarico Condemns Christian Nationalism at the Texas Democratic Convention](https://youtu.be/Atj03AXtV8U) (3:28)

    “We’ve talked about how Greg Abbott is defunding our public schools, but I don’t want to get off this stage until I call out those two West Texas billionaires who are pulling the strings behind the scenes.

    Their names are Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.”

    “I believe that people of faith and Christians in particular – including me – have a moral obligation to speak out against this perversion of our faith and the subversion of our democracy.”

    Y’All-itics – [“We’re gonna go so far to the right that we’re wrong.”](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/were-gonna-go-so-far-to-the-right-that-were-wrong/id1486881900?i=1000653102034)

    “[Y’All-itics] The first part of the question is, what kind of changes would you like to see inside the GOP today?

    [Texas Rep. Glenn Rogers] Well, there needs to be more recognition of who’s in control. And how they’re controlling our party. I read something last week, a survey that showed that only 20% of Republicans have ever heard of Tim Dunn or Farris Wilks. So there’s a lot of lack of information about who’s really in control.“

  23. It is too late, bud. 12 billionaires are taking cabinet positions. 320 members of Congress are millionaires. The world’s second dumbest billionaire can openly blackmail Congress to kill a budget bill and shutdown the Government with fucking tweets because nobody ever bothers to tell him to fuck off.

  24. The purpose of the DOGE isn’t to improve “efficiency.” It is to demoralize and cripple any federal agency that Musk doesn’t like, which means any agency that enforces environmental protections or workers’ rights.

  27. Yeah Bernie. We knew that a very very long time ago… Got any other great words of wisdom for us?

  28. After this latest debacle around the funding bill, It’s beginning to look a lot like billionaires are running the government, and they’re not even in office yet.

    Trump is already making demands of congress, along with his billionaire backers. He proposed raising the debt limit so his next administration can spend recklessly on implementing whatever crackbrained policies come to mind, not to mention all of the special interest players, corporate cronies, rich MAGA loyalists, social climbers and finance “bros” that Trump is appointing to his administration.

    Inauguration is still a month away, and we’re already getting a sense of the corruption, cronyism and conflicts of interest in store for us come next term.

    While one of the richest men on the planet has literally paid his way into Trump’s administration, not only contributing hundreds of millions towards his presidential campaign, but also turning Twitter into a bastion of far-right propaganda and misinformation, essentially running election interference for Trump, and in a way that’s far more subversive than anything Trump has ever *accused* Democrats of doing.

    This MAGA coalition is more emboldened than ever, empowered by Trump’s rise to power again, and the fact that Republicans will have a majority in both houses and a SCOTUS packed with kowtowing conservatives.

    And maybe the worst part is that Trump doesn’t have a handle on things. Republicans are going to take advantage of his ego, his mental instability, the transactional nature of his relationships, among other things, to enact a far right agenda through him.

    But first, they’ll try to establish a unitary executive with broad, unchecked powers, privileges and immunities, an executive branch ruled by a king more or less. From there, they’ll seek to cripple the independence of most government agencies and put them under the direct control of this executive. At the same time, there will be an effort to cleanse these agencies of civil servants whose jobs didn’t previously rely on their level of loyalty to the president and the MAGA agenda. Executive actions like Schedule F will help them fill whatever positions are left with staff whose fealty lies first with Trump, not with the American people.

    We’re already looking at a total restructuring of the government that fills the needs of the few at the expense of the many. A plutocratic, oligarchical, kleptocratic—whatever you want to call it—regime, whose main goal will be to consolidate power and create what can only be conceived of as a one party system or state. If it can be achieved, Republicans won’t hesitate to try and achieve it.

    We’re encroaching on some familiar territory. This is *not* populism, which is one of my main gripes with this whole thing. Republicans have the audacity to run on some kind of populist platform, when in reality, they better represent a modern age of the robber baron with corrupt ties to politicians. And it’s baffling just how much of the American electorate believes otherwise.

  30. General strike. They got shit without the means of production.

  31. Yep, should be finishing his 2nd term.

    Blah blah blah

    Bernie was the way.

  32. Are Americans this ignorant to think that oligarchy is not live and well in America, and proxy presidents are not a thing? America needs to wake up! Your democracy is dying.

  33. An edgelord (Musk) and internet troll (Trump) running the US into ground. And both now own right wing social media platforms in direct competition. Will Xitter make a merger play for Truth Social? Further lining the Orange one?

  36. Most Americans don’t know what Oligarchy means. Use “Billionaire mobsters.”

  37. You don’t seriously think tRump actually wants to run the administration. He just wants the title and power. Last time, he spent most of his presidency on the golf course.

  38. Nah. Elon will get too big for his britches and Trump will drop him like a bad habit.

  39. Democrats need to become the ANTI-OLIGARCHY Party.

  40. It’s wild to me that it took Musk for people to realize what we’ve been for a long time

  42. It’s the Bern who cried wolf at this point. Bernie’s been screaming oligarchy for decades and nobody fucking listens.

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