'Our Economic And Political Systems Are Broken': Bernie Sanders Rails Against Citizens United

4 months ago

During a "Fight Oligarchy" rally in Viroqua, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about wealth inequality and moneyed interests' influence on US elections.

Transcript

00:00And let us also be honest about it and acknowledge where we are.

00:06Essentially, our economic and political systems are broken in terms of the needs of the working

00:16class.

00:17Let me talk about our political system, and Becca touched on this for a moment.

00:24For the oligarchs, for the people on top, owning the economy is not enough.

00:30We have more concentration of ownership, impacts agriculture, impacts every aspect of our lives.

00:37You name the industry, a handful of large corporations own it, they control the prices that we pay

00:44and what happens to workers.

00:47But it is not just the economy that they control, that's not good enough for them.

00:53They now own the American corrupt political system, all right?

00:59I want you to think about it.

01:00Not too many people talk about it, but I want you to think about it and you decide in your

01:04own mind whether I'm right or I'm wrong.

01:08Ever since Citizens United, the worst decision the Supreme Court has ever made.

01:16What you have are billionaires with the freedom now to spend as much money as they want to

01:25elect their candidates, candidates they like, and defeat the candidates they don't like.

01:32In the last election, Elon Musk, Elon Musk himself spent $270 million to help elect Trump.

01:45Does anybody vaguely think that this is what democracy is about?

01:51No.

01:52You have, it's not, and by the way, what happens when you donate $270 million to somebody's campaign?

02:04You get what you paid for it.

02:07When Mr. Musk was appointed to run the United States government for three months, lay off

02:15thousands of federal employees, including 7,000 employees at the Social Security Administration,

02:24threaten his proposal was to lay off 80,000 employees at the Veterans Administration.

02:31Yeah, that's a real thank you to the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend

02:37this country.

02:38All right?

02:40And on and on, thousands of workers, scientists who are helping us combat major diseases.

02:49So Musk got what he paid for, but what I want to say, it is not just the Republican Party,

02:58it is the Democratic Party as well.

'Our Economic And Political Systems Are Broken': Bernie Sanders Rails Against Citizens United

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