Drumpf is happy for you to die We

I just want to express my immense gratitude to this brave soul, Bernie. I’m so honored to have had the chance to meet him in person. We desperately need more politicians like him. He will be vindicated. No one has more friends than Bernie, and he ain’t going anywhere. Keep up the great fight Bernard Sanders! So many of us are under dark clouds and we are so proud of you and inspired by you! Thank you for using your power to serve the people!

Hi all, with the RFK hearing yesterday I've been dragged into arguing about Bernie's stance on health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. He pledged that donations over $200 to his campaign from large pharmaceutical and health insurance companies would be refused.

There is data to be found claiming that in the 2019-2020 election cycle his campaign received ~1.4 million dollars from companies under this umbrella (link attached). But I'm trying to find where the legwork has also been done to calculate how much money he had returned/refunded to donors who are associated with those companies. There is data on the FEC website about how much was refunded to each donor but all of the donors are listed by name and there is no way to filter by association or industry.

If anyone knows where I can find this information it would be super helpful.

Link: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?code=H04&cycle=2020&ind=H04&mem=Y&recipdetail=S&sortorder=U&t0-search=Sand

Edit: added link

Where are the lawmakers? Surely the system isn't threatened by 1 "man".

Serious question because I cannot fathom helping Republicans get any confirmations or pass anything at this point.

From Bernie's email list, 1/26/2025:

For years and years in the corporate media, you'd only heard the word 'oligarch' preceded by the word 'Russian.' But oligarchs aren't uniquely a Russian phenomenon or a foreign concept.

No. The United States has its own oligarchy.

When I first started talking about this, many people didn't understand what I meant. Well, that's changed.

When the 3 wealthiest men in America sit behind Trump at his inauguration, everyone understands that the billionaire class now controls our government. They also understand that one of the major functions of government policy will be to make these incredibly rich people even richer and more powerful.

When those same 3 men control some of the largest media and information distribution channels in America, everyone understands that the billionaire class now controls our media. They also understand that one of the major functions of that billionaire owned media (think Musk and twitter) will be to manufacture massive amounts of disinformation and outright lies.

When 1 of those men spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Donald Trump and another used his power as a newspaper owner to withhold an endorsement of Kamala Harris, everyone understands that the billionaire class now significantly controls our politics, as well. They also understand that one of the major functions of our political system is to maintain the pretense that we are a real democracy when, in fact, the average citizen has less and less impact over what goes on.

But it is not just Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Today in America we have more income in wealth inequality than we have ever had. We have more concentration of ownership in the financial services sector, health care, agriculture, transportation energy, food and housing than we have ever had. We have more media consolidation than we have ever had. And we have a political system that is increasingly controlled by the billionaire class.

Add it all together and what you see is a nation and world trending very strongly toward oligarchy – where a small number of multi-billionaires exercise enormous economic and political power over everyone else. Increasingly, government is just one more entity owned by these enormously powerful forces.

So, in the midst of all of this, where do we go from here?

First, we don’t have time to moan and groan and bury our heads in despair. Yes. Many of us are angry and frustrated at a Democratic Party establishment that continues to turn its back on the needs of working people. But our job now is not to look back, but to look forward.

Let me be clear. One of the tools that the Oligarchs use to maintain their position of power is to make it appear that real change is impossible, and opposition is useless. They have the power. Ain’t nothing we can do about it. That’s the way it is and always will be. Give up trying.

Fortunately, these masters of the universe are wrong. Very wrong.

What history has always taught us is that real change never takes place from the top on down. It always occurs from the bottom on up. It occurs when ordinary people get sick and tired of oppression and injustice - and fight back. That is the history of the founding of our nation, the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement and the gay rights movement. That is how we elected dozens of progressives to Congress and made the Congressional Progressive Caucus one of the most important entities in the U.S. House of Representatives. That is the history of every effort that has brought about transformational change in our society.

It won’t be easy but, together, we will educate, organize and build an unstoppable grassroots movement around a progressive agenda that is based on the principles of justice and compassion, not greed and oligarchy. Together, we will lead the fight to create the kind of nation and world we know we can become.

Sisters and brothers, we are right now in the midst of a struggle between a progressive movement that mobilizes around a shared vision of prosperity, security and dignity for all people, against one that defends oligarchy and massive global income and wealth inequality.

It is a struggle that, for ourselves and future generations, we cannot lose. Let us go forward together.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

(I am Canadian and curious). I know Bernie has been a political figure for a very long time, and was mayor or Burlington for years.

Since he has "withdrawn from the race" and left America to dish it out in a weird bi-party political reality, is he still an "elected politician"? What is his official role and what power does he have other than to assemble the left and help organise grassroots solutions? Is he a Senator of Vermont? Can he actually change legislations etc?

Thanks for all clarification! I love Bernie and am just curious as to what he can do concretely and his wikipedia page doesn't really answer this question.

I'm going to change my voter registration from Democrat to Independent. It's a step I can make today. And if it's good enough for Bernie, it's good enough for me. I refuse to feel powerless.

They’re almost all like this. Do they not know they can add a more flattering title card?