Bernie Sanders provides clear-eyed reason why he urges some Americans to run as independents.

Bernie Sanders provides the vision that the Democratic Party must message to win again. In many areas, only a progressive independent could win. I am sure they will caucus with Democrats.

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Bernie Sanders has answers for running independents.

Podcasts (Video — Audio)

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Summary

Bernie Sanders tells Meet the Press that America’s deepening oligarchy demands fresh political strategies. He argues that when the Democratic label presents an obstacle, working-class candidates should feel free to run as independents, provided they remain committed to policies that raise wages, guarantee healthcare, and tax the wealth of runaway billionaires.

• Bernie Sanders says one man, Elon Musk, now owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of U.S. households.

• He notes 60 percent of workers still live paycheck to paycheck, and millions of seniors survive on roughly $15,000 a year.

• Faith in both major parties has cratered, so Sanders urges ordinary people to enter politics “inside or outside” party lines.

• His focus is on raising the minimum wage, passing Medicare for All, and curbing corporate money that influences both parties.

• The host contrasts this vision with Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who warns about Trump but offers no bold economic program.

Progressives should applaud Sanders’s call to break the stranglehold of donors. Whether candidates carry a “D” or an “I,” the mission remains the same: confront oligarchy, deliver universal social goods, and build a multiracial democracy that serves working people instead of billionaires.

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Premium Content (Complimentary)

Senator Bernie Sanders’s exchange with Meet the Press laid bare the contradiction at the heart of modern American politics: voters routinely tell pollsters they want universal healthcare, a living wage, and a tax code that reins in the wealth of billionaires, yet the two governing parties deliver the opposite. Sanders’s answer—encouraging working-class candidates to run as independents when the Democratic label is toxic—represents neither a vanity third-party bid nor a swipe at President Biden. It is, instead, a hard-headed strategy for breaking the cartel-like grip that big donors and consultant culture now exert over the electoral pipeline.

A diagnosis rooted in material reality

Sanders begins with the numbers. Elon Musk’s hoard now exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 53 percent of U.S. households, a statistic that reads like parody yet comes straight from inequality researchers tracking the 2025 Forbes list. Meanwhile, 66 percent of all consumers—and an alarming 69 percent of Gen Z—live paycheck to paycheck, amplifying their economic precarity even if they earn middle-class salaries. At the opposite end of the life cycle, more than 17 million older adults struggle on incomes below twice the poverty line; millions survive on roughly $15,000 a year, and 15 percent of senior women depend on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income. These figures reveal an economy designed to enrich asset owners while leaving workers, students, and retirees to compete for scraps.

Why independents—and why now?

Faith in the major parties has collapsed. Gallup finds that barely one-third of Americans express satisfaction with the way democracy functions, and party identification now tilts Republican only because so many voters have abandoned any partisan label at all. Sanders argues that, in counties where the Democratic brand elicits eye-rolls due to decades of triangulation, a populist independent can pierce the fog of culture-war ressentiment and discuss kitchen-table economics without the baggage of consultants whispering, “don’t scare swing donors.” Local media echo the point: after the bruising 2024 midterms, Sanders told reporters that independent campaigns are a necessary antidote to working-class disillusionment. The message resonates because it targets power, not personalities.

The Democratic Party’s vision gap

The video host’s critique lands hardest on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Asked recently whether Democrats offer a compelling vision for the future, Schumer pivoted to the apparent dangers of Trump’s authoritarianism, yet never articulated how his caucus will guarantee housing, cancel medical debt, or decarbonize the grid. Progressive lawmakers, such as Rep. Ro Khanna, have voiced similar frustration, touring red-district town halls to demand a bolder agenda. Sanders’s “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likewise bypasses Beltway talking heads and meets voters where they work—Amazon warehouses, community colleges, union halls—insisting that material gains, not messaging tweaks, will beat Trumpism.

From critique to blueprint

The senator’s prescription is unapologetically social-democratic. Raise the federal minimum wage to $17, legislate Medicare for All, and fund tuition-free public college via a surtax on Wall Street trades. End dark-money dominance by reversing Citizens United and replacing it with publicly financed elections. Expand the National Labor Relations Board’s budget to enable workers to unionize without fear. And, crucially, pass a 2-percent annual wealth tax on fortunes above $50 million, a measure that would scrape a mere sliver from Musk’s portfolio yet generate hundreds of billions to rebuild public housing and electrified transit.

These policies poll “north of 60 percent,” but they rarely reach the House floor because leadership worries about swing-district donors. Running as an independent offers insurgent candidates the freedom to champion an agenda that marries class justice with multiracial democracy without seeking permission from the DCCC. In states with sore-loser laws or stringent ballot requirements, some will still opt for a Democratic primary lane. Still, Sanders’s point is about strategic flexibility: meeting local electorates where they are, not where K Street thinks they should be.

A progressive path forward

Critics warn that independents could spoil races and hand victories to Republicans bent on gutting Medicaid and privatizing Social Security. First, independents can caucus with Democrats once elected, preserving legislative math. Second, refusing to confront oligarchy courts an even worse fate: permanent minoritarian rule buttressed by billionaire cash and gerrymandered maps. The stakes are existential. Either progressives broaden the electoral map with candidates untethered from corporate money, or they watch a right-wing movement—bankrolled by the very oligarchs Democrats claim to oppose—consolidate power.

In urging ordinary people to “get off the sidelines,” Sanders revives a radical American tradition that spans the Farmers’ Alliance, Eugene Debs, FDR’s labor-backed Democrats, and the Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Summer volunteers. Each broke ossified party structures to expand democracy downward. Today’s progressive insurgents inherit that legacy. Whether they wear a “D” or an “I” matters less than whether they center workers over wealth. If the Democratic establishment fails to offer such a vision, independents will, and Bernie Sanders is betting that voters, squeezed by rent, medical bills, and student debt, will reward them for it.

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