The Democratic Party’s identity crisis has spilled into full public view as left-wing firebrand Bernie Sanders lashed out at Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin for daring to challenge his favorite buzzword: oligarchy. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sanders sneered, “The American people are not as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are,” adding fuel to a growing civil war among Democrats following President Trump’s decisive reelection and Republican victories in both chambers of Congress.
Slotkin, a more centrist Democrat trying desperately to keep her party tethered to reality, recently told Politico that calling America an “oligarchy” doesn’t resonate with average voters. In other words, she’s concerned about optics. Sanders, of course, doubled down on his doom-and-gloom talking points, insisting Americans “understand very well when the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.”
It’s classic Bernie: If you don’t buy into his economic hysteria, you must think the American people are stupid. But the real story here isn’t about whether the U.S. is an oligarchy — it’s about a Democratic Party devouring itself in the wake of electoral defeat.
As Sanders and his ideological sidekick Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez march around the country on a so-called “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” drawing crowds of self-proclaimed revolutionaries, moderate Democrats like Slotkin and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are trying to clean up the messaging dumpster fire. Walz recently told The Atlantic that Democrats should ditch elitist jargon like “oligarch” and “food insecurity” and instead just talk like normal people — say, calling it “hunger.”
It’s a message that’s unlikely to land with Sanders, who is too busy accusing billionaires like Elon Musk of masterminding the Trump administration, as if this were some Bond villain plot.
Amid the chaos, Sanders insisted, “The party is on the same page.” That’s a laughable claim. From Slotkin’s rebuke to Walz’s verbal eye-roll, it’s clear the only thing uniting Democrats is their inability to agree on anything — let alone how to take on Trump. The far-left has hijacked the party, and even some Democrats are starting to notice the ship is sinking.
For conservatives watching from the sidelines, the spectacle is delicious. The same party that spent years preaching unity and tolerance is now knee-deep in an ideological bloodbath. As Sanders rants about oligarchs and Slotkin tries to salvage what’s left of a relatable message, Republicans are back in power — and Democrats are too busy eating their own to do anything about it.
Let them fight.