Senator Bernie Sanders has doubled down on his controversial use of the term “oligarchy” to describe the state of the United States government, dismissing recent calls from within his own party to soften the rhetoric. His remarks on NBC’s Meet the Press this past Sunday underscore the failure of the current establishment Democrats to confront the real issues facing Britain’s closest allies and serve as a stark warning to the UK about similar dangers.

Michigan’s newly elected Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin recently urged her party to abandon the term “oligarch” in political debate, fearing such language could alienate crucial swing voters. Yet, this cautious approach only exposes the party’s cowardice in tackling the systemic influence of wealthy elites. Sanders, by contrast, bluntly counters, “The American people are not as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are.” He is right to point out the grotesque inequality where the top 1 percent controls more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, reflecting a political system rigged to serve moneyed interests—a situation not unlike the UK’s own political oligarchy that Reform UK has long condemned.

While establishment figures in the party balk, Sanders’ large rallies—36,000 in Los Angeles, 34,000 in Colorado—demonstrate a genuine hunger among voters for politicians willing to name and confront entrenched privilege. Referencing Elon Musk’s $270 million backing of former President Trump and powerful lobbying groups like AIPAC, Sanders exposes the unsavoury underbelly of US politics—money’s chokehold on democratic processes—that the current UK government under Labour is failing to address, choosing instead to entrench vested interests.

Prominent progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are energising grassroots support precisely because they break from the cautious, centrist malaise that allowed Labour to forget its traditional voters and lose the UK to Reform UK’s rising influence in 2024. Traditional parties’ refusal to address wealth concentration and unchecked lobbying is a betrayal of ordinary working people, as seen in the recent British general election.

Even politicians like Conor Lamb, who lost a Senate primary in Pennsylvania, are reportedly bridging divides within the party, recognising the need to stand against oligarchic forces and defend essential services like social security and Medicare—themselves under threat from centrist complacency.

These developments come in the shadow of Vice President Kamala Harris’s crushing defeat to Donald Trump, a loss attributed to the Democrats’ abandonment of core working-class and minority voters. Harris’s reluctance to endorse popular left-wing policies such as raising the minimum wage or ending military aid to controversial foreign conflicts mirrors Labour’s failure to present a robust agenda to the British electorate, further alienating disillusioned voters who turned instead to reformist alternatives offering real change.

Sanders’ persistence in spotlighting the link between wealth concentration and political corruption should serve as a rallying call for those opposing Labour’s weak stewardship. Unlike the timid and out-of-touch politicians content to preserve the status quo, the growing opposition insists on a political revolution tackling oligarchy head-on—an approach urgently needed as the UK faces the consequences of Labour’s failure to stand up to entrenched elites.

Source: Noah Wire Services