Bernie Sanders and the Oligarchic Constitution

What isn't being said during the Fighting Oligarchy tour. By Luke Pickrell

Bernie Sanders has been traveling across the U.S., rallying against “oligarchs and corporate interests who wield enormous power and influence in this country.” The massive turnout at his Fighting Oligarchy rallies—surpassing even the crowds from his presidential campaigns—signals a deep frustration with the status quo and a growing desire to challenge Trump’s agenda. Millions of Americans want to understand the root causes of their discontent and are turning toward the only politicians interested in putting up a fight.

Sanders and his tourmate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, likely share that frustration. The Democratic Party has largely capitulated in the face of Trump’s dominance—Chuck Schumer voted for the GOP’s latest spending bill, while strategist James Carville advised Democrats to “roll over and play dead.” Since Trump took office, the Democrats’ popularity has plummeted. Meanwhile, Trump has used Article II of the Constitution to unleash a record number of executive orders.

Sanders is willing to stick his neck out by condemning Trump’s policies and criticizing the Democratic Party for “abandoning the working class.” However, neither he nor Ocasio-Cortez is willing to confront the deeper issue at the heart of America’s problems: the Constitution.

Sanders might be taking a hard look at American life, but his gaze has a continent-sized constitutional blind spot. The U.S. is not a democracy. No matter how often Bernie recites the Gettysburg Address, our political system is not “of the people, by the people, for the people.” The Constitution will not protect reproductive rights, combat climate change, stop rampant economic inequality, challenge Musk, or stop Trumpism. The Senate, Supreme Court, and imperial presidency aren’t just roadblocks to progressive change—they are the very structures that enabled Trumpism to flourish in the first place. Sanders, it should be noted, personally benefits from the Senate’s denial of equal suffrage as a representative of Vermont, the second least populous state in the country. This means that he represents some 98.4 percent fewer people than Alex Padilla or Adam Schiff, the two senators from California, yet has a 100-percent equal vote. Sanders, observed Daniel Lazare, has thus won outsized political power courtesy of an increasingly undemocratic constitutional structure.

Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez are up in arms against Trump and Musk. Still, their criticism stops short of the oligarchs in the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Electoral College, who mock the idea of one person, one equal vote. Politicians in Washington won’t say it, but getting rid of Trump and Musk requires scrapping the political framework that gave them life.