Video by Trevor Noah. Who Owns America? Bernie Sanders Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
When Senator Bernie Sanders sat down with Trevor Noah, he didn’t sugarcoat it. “We live in an oligarchy,” he said. “And we live in an open oligarchy.”
He argued that billionaires and mega-corporations dominate wealth, media, and politics. Elon Musk’s fortune exceeds what the bottom half of American households own combined, while financial giants like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard steer corporate decision-making across industries.
“This is oligarchy,” Sanders said. “It’s not just about money—it’s about power.”
📺 Media That Shapes Outrage
Sanders warned that oligarchs don’t just hoard wealth—they shape what Americans get angry about. Corporate media, he argued, keeps public outrage focused on cultural flare-ups rather than the economic forces driving inequality. “People are furious about issues that are real, but not about who really has the power,” he said.
By spotlighting hot-button fights, media corporations obscure the deeper story: wages flat for decades, healthcare and housing unaffordable, unions weakened, and the wealthiest rewriting the rules.
⚡ The Broken System — and How Anger Is Used
Sanders said it’s no mystery why people are angry: wages have barely moved in decades while housing, education, and healthcare costs have soared. “People are working longer hours for lower wages, their kids can’t afford to go to college, and they can’t afford to buy a home,” he told Noah.
“The system is broken,” Sanders repeated. Polls show voters across the spectrum agree. But where he sees an opening for change, Donald Trump seizes the same anger and channels it elsewhere.
“Trump says, ‘You’re right, you should be angry. And the enemy is immigrants, or the enemy is Black people, or the enemy is women.’” For Sanders, that is demagoguery — taking legitimate frustration with a rigged economy and misdirecting it toward scapegoats.
For Sanders, the choice is stark: let anger be weaponized against the powerless, or organize it into collective action that confronts the corporate power driving inequality.
✊ The Power of Grassroots Campaigns
Sanders insisted hope still exists. He pointed to Zohran Mamdani’s upset win in Queens as proof that entrenched power can be beaten when ordinary people organize.
Mamdani, a housing organizer with no corporate backing, mobilized volunteers and small donors to take on a well-funded machine candidate—and won. For Sanders, this is the model: campaigns built on people, not billionaires.
“That’s the kind of politics we need to build,” Sanders said. “And that’s why the establishment tries so hard to stop it.”
🧭 America’s Value System
Beyond policy battles, Sanders and Noah dug into a deeper issue: values. What does America celebrate—and what does it ignore?
Sanders argued the prevailing culture rewards greed and excess while dismissing solidarity and fairness. He called it “hyper-capitalism”: a system where success means “making as much money as you can, stepping on people to do it, and flaunting it.”
Noah noted how much of American life—from reality TV to politics—elevates selfishness as a virtue. Sanders countered with a different vision: a society where success is measured not by billionaire fortunes but by whether people have healthcare, education, and dignity at work.
“It is about saying that human beings are more important than the drive toward unlimited profits,” he said.
🏥 Healthcare: What’s Reasonable vs. What’s Crazy
Healthcare, Sanders said, is the clearest example. “What is reasonable is what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee healthcare to all people.”
By contrast, the U.S. spends “twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other nation,” yet millions remain uninsured or underinsured. Families go bankrupt over medical bills, and people die because they cannot afford insulin or cancer treatment. “That is crazy,” Sanders declared.
💵 Affordability and Democracy
Sanders told Noah that real transformation requires a mass movement and stronger trade unions. Asked if democratic socialism is still a dirty word, he replied that it’s actually popular with young people. At its core, he said, it means democracy not just at the ballot box but in daily life: affordable healthcare, affordable education, affordable childcare, and fair wages.
He pointed to Scandinavia, where even conservatives accept these basics. Healthcare is a right, higher education is free, childcare is affordable, wages are livable, and unions are strong. In Vermont, worker-owned companies give employees real power over leadership and profits, leaving them more engaged and productive.
“This is not radical,” Sanders stressed. “But the system tells you it is—and that’s what drives me crazy.”
🤖 The Coming Shock of Technology
Looking ahead, Sanders warned about the disruption AI and robotics could bring. Millions of jobs in trucking, retail, and service could disappear, he said, raising a larger question: “What is the purpose of an economy?”
Is it just efficiency and profit, or is it to make life better for human beings? Unless addressed, he cautioned, automation will deepen inequality and insecurity.
🏘 Rebuilding Community
For Sanders, the erosion of shared spaces is as urgent as economic reform. “We are social animals,” he said. Yet as workplaces atomize and towns hollow out, people feel isolated, turning to social media echo chambers rather than neighbors.
He called for a revival of genuine community — unions, neighborhood centers, spaces where people work and solve problems together. Without that, he suggested, democracy itself becomes fragile.
🧭 Choosing a Different Compass
Sanders’ message to Noah was part diagnosis, part call to action. America, he said, is already an oligarchy—but it doesn’t have to remain one.
With organization and solidarity, ordinary people can still reclaim the political system. But that requires more than new laws; it demands a different set of priorities. For Sanders, replacing a culture of greed with one of dignity, fairness, and community starts with concrete steps—publicly financed elections, universal healthcare, stronger unions, worker ownership.
And it won’t come from Washington alone. The shift, he insisted, depends on whether ordinary people organize, demand change, and live out those values in their own communities.
