Sanders brings 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour to Michigan, targets wealth inequality

Bernie Sanders arrived in Kalamazoo on a Saturday in late August to tell a packed Miller Auditorium that the American experiment was being hollowed out by the very wealthy. More than a year before the midterm elections, the Independent senator from Vermont had come as part of his "Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here" tour—a six-month swing through swing states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania that had now landed in Michigan. The crowd filled the auditorium and cheered as he took the stage.

For forty-five minutes, Sanders trained his focus almost entirely on the economy and the concentration of wealth. He called Congress "corporately owned" and attacked campaign finance laws that he said benefited both major parties equally. He singled out Elon Musk's appointment to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, framing it as a payoff for the roughly $270 million Musk had spent supporting the 2024 campaign. "If any of you want to become an important person in government, all you have to do is find a candidate, raise $270 million and you're in business," Sanders said, his voice carrying the weight of a man describing a system he saw as fundamentally broken.

The economic argument was his main thrust. Sanders pointed to the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour, and called for it to be raised to $17. He spoke with visible intensity about life expectancy in America, claiming it lags behind other developed nations. The disparity, he argued, fell hardest on working people: "If you are working class in this country, you will live seven years shorter lives than the wealthy." Wealth inequality, he told the crowd, had reached levels never before seen in American history. The American people, he insisted, would not accept oligarchy or authoritarianism.

Sanders touched on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Trump administration, but these were secondary to his economic message. He spent more time on government programs like Medicare and on wages than on direct criticism of Trump. He expressed concern about artificial intelligence and spoke of a loss of community in modern America. He framed 2025 as a difficult moment for the country, but one that could be overcome if Americans thought ambitiously rather than small. "It's time we started thinking big, not small," he told the crowd.

The second half of the rally belonged to Abdul El-Sayed, the U.S. Senate candidate Sanders had come to endorse and the former director of Detroit Public Health. El-Sayed criticized what he called the "Big Beautiful Bill," saying it gutted Medicare. He called Sanders the original voice in Congress on holding corporations accountable and led supporters in a chant: "Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all."

The Republican response came quickly. Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, issued a statement immediately after Sanders' rally ended. He accused Sanders and Michigan Democrats of prioritizing tax increases over wage growth, citing Sanders' voting record on taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. "For working families, these tax cuts can make the difference of whether they get by through the end of the month," Rogers said. "Michigan Democrats say tax them anyway. They've completely walked away from working families."

Sanders left Kalamazoo headed for Chicago, the next stop on his tour. The midterm elections were still more than a year away, but the shape of the Democratic argument was already taking form: that the system had been rigged by the wealthy and their political allies, and that only a fundamental restructuring of how money moved through politics could fix it.