Fight Oligarchy summary

At Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, the three wealthiest Americans – Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg – sat directly behind him. Behind them stood 13 more billionaires Trump had nominated to head federal agencies. The spectacle was a stark contrast to Lincoln’s Gettysburg vision of government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” This was more a government of, by, and for the billionaire class.

Trump wasted no time delivering for his oligarch allies. His “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed in July 2025, handed the top one percent more than $1 trillion through tax cuts. Large corporations received another $900 billion. It was the largest wealth transfer in contemporary America – and it came alongside massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition programs, and education. Trump also pursued aggressive anti-union policies, effectively shutting down the National Labor Relations Board and breaking major federal trade unions. His rhetoric about waste and fraud in Social Security laid the groundwork for privatizing core programs.

In 1886, Chicago workers organized to demand an eight-hour workday – a radical idea at the time. Their request was simple: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will.” At a rally in Haymarket Square, a bomb exploded, killing workers and police. Authorities arrested labor leaders despite no evidence linking them to the violence. Four were executed. The bosses wanted to make an example of them, to show dire consequences for anyone who stood up for themselves. But the workers eventually won anyway. The eight-hour workday became law.

That pattern repeats throughout American history. When people organize against entrenched power, they’re told change can’t happen. But it does. Nelson Mandela said it best: “It always seems impossible until it is done.”

On March 8, 2025, Sanders held a rally in Warren, Michigan, joined by Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers. Four months earlier, during the general election, Trump had come to Warren and drawn 4,000 people. Now, with no one running for anything, the Fighting Oligarchy tour brought out 9,000. People were fired up about taking on the billionaire class.

The tour had started in late January with unexpectedly massive turnouts. In Omaha, Nebraska – a Republican district with a Republican congressman, governor, and two senators – organizers secured a union hall for 800 people. The RSVPs kept coming. They moved to a hotel ballroom that held 2,600, but still had to turn away 800 more. The pattern repeated in Iowa City, Iowa, and in Kenosha and Altoona, Wisconsin.

A 2023 Pew Research Center poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe life for people like themselves is worse today than it was 50 years ago. Think about that. We have lifesaving drugs, computers, smartphones, streaming entertainment, and countless modern conveniences that didn't exist in 1973. Yet most people feel life has gotten worse. Only 19 percent are satisfied with how things are going. Why? Because wages have stagnated, housing is unaffordable, health care is broken, and the quality of life has deteriorated even as oligarchs accumulate unimaginable wealth.

Trump positioned himself as the change candidate, but he’s only delivered change to benefit oligarchs while he’s betrayed working families. He didn’t campaign on giving a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent while cutting Medicaid for 15 million people. He didn’t campaign on raising health insurance premiums by 75 percent for 20 million Americans or taking away free school meals from 16 million kids. He didn’t campaign on doubling student loan payments, firing 7,000 Social Security Administration employees, or gutting veterans’ health care. He didn’t campaign on breaking unions or creating a $50 billion voucher program that will gut public schools.