Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist from Vermont who has literally never held a private sector job in his life, has spent the past few months crisscrossing the United States, rallying against what he calls an “oligarchy” threatening American democracy. This is an obvious exercise in projection. From Omaha, Nebraska, to Iowa City, Iowa, and now targeting Republican-held congressional districts in Wisconsin ahead of a pivotal state Supreme Court election in April 2025, Sanders has positioned himself as the torchbearer of a “progressive resistance.” His “Fighting Oligarchy” tour has drawn significant attention from the rudderless far-Left, with viewership often reaching six figures and a recent video amassing nearly 3 million views. Sanders’ neo-Marxist message resonates with a segment of the far- and radical-Left emboldened by former President Joe Biden’s farewell address, in which he warned of “an oligarchy taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence” that endangers democracy itself. Yet, beneath the propagandistic fervor and viral optics lies a deeply flawed ideology—Democratic Socialism—as championed by Sanders. His campaign against “oligarchy,” his critiques of the Trump administration’s billionaire-heavy roster, and his attacks on policies like the 2017 tax cuts and the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts reveal not a coherent vision for America, but a patchwork of economic fallacies, political opportunism, and moral posturing. Sanders’ rhetoric and ideology, along with Democratic Socialism as a whole, are not only impractical but also disingenuous, relying on exaggerated class warfare narratives that fail to withstand scrutiny. Sanders’ self-identification as a Democratic Socialist invites immediate skepticism when one examines the term’s historical and practical implications. Democratic Socialism, in theory, seeks to blend socialist economic principles—centralized control of production, wealth redistribution, and the abolition of private profit motives—with democratic governance. Yet, Sanders’ version of this ideology often veers into a muddled hybrid, neither fully socialist nor pragmatically democratic, raising questions about its intellectual coherence. Historically, socialism has been associated with state ownership of the means of production, as seen in the Soviet Union or Maoist China, where economic centralization led to inefficiency, stagnation, and authoritarianism. Sanders distances himself from these examples, pointing instead to Scandinavian countries like Denmark or Sweden as models. However, these nations are not socialist in the traditional sense—they are market economies with robust welfare states, high taxes, and private enterprise thriving alongside significant government intervention. Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen famously rebuked Sanders in 2015, stating, “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” Sanders’ insistence on the “Democratic Socialist” label thus appears more as a branding exercise than a precise ideological commitment. This mislabeling matters because it obfuscates the policy debate. Sanders rails against “oligarchy” and billionaires like Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, and Linda McMahon, who populate the Trump administration, yet his solutions—massive government expansion, wealth taxes, and nationalized industries like healthcare—do not align with the flexible, market-driven systems he claims to admire in Scandinavia. Instead, they echo the top-down control of traditional socialism, which has consistently failed to deliver prosperity without sacrificing individual liberty. His critique of the Trump administration’s billionaire class, while emotionally compelling, lacks a clear alternative that avoids the pitfalls of centralized power—ironically, the very thing he accuses oligarchs of wielding. Sanders’ central thesis—that America is sliding into an oligarchy—gained traction when Biden echoed it in his farewell address. The image of Trump flanked by billionaires at his inauguration, coupled with Musk’s DOGE-led cuts to federal agencies like the intensely corrupt and ideologically agendized USAID, fuels Sanders’ claim that a handful of ultra-wealthy elites are seizing control of democracy. Talking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February 2025, Sanders called Musk’s USAID cuts “unconstitutional,” arguing they bypass Congress’ authority over appropriations. His “Fighting Oligarchy” tour amplifies this narrative, spotlighting affected individuals like former park rangers laid off due to National Park Service reductions. As an aside, Sanders is also dead wrong about the DOGE effort sidestepping congressional appropriations. DOGE is a repurposing of the congressionally funded United States Digital Service (USDS), an agency created under the Obama administration in 2014. The US Constitution allows a President to manage the Executive Branch as he sees fit, including rebranding and repurposing without the need for congressional input or approval. But then, a constitutionally illiterate Democratic Socialist probably would know that. But is America truly an oligarchy? The term implies a small, unelected elite governing without accountability—a description more fitting for Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, and Maduro’s Venezuela than a constitutional republic with regular elections, checks and balances, and—to the extent that it is—a free press. Sanders points to wealth concentration as evidence, noting that Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg collectively hold more wealth than the bottom half of Americans. This disparity is real (Forbes estimated their combined net worth at $911.7 billion in early 2025) but wholly irrelevant. Wealth alone does not equate to political domination. Consider the 2024 election: Kamala Harris outspent Trump by a wide margin, raising over $1 billion with support from progressive billionaires like George Soros and Reid Hoffman, yet she lost decisively. Musk’s $270 million in campaign spending, while significant, was dwarfed by the Left’s war chest. If money guaranteed power, Harris would be president, not Trump. This suggests that electoral outcomes hinge more on voter sentiment than billionaire checkbooks—a reality Sanders conveniently glosses over. His portrayal of Musk as a puppet master, pulling strings via DOGE, ignores the broader democratic process that installed Trump and his administration, however imperfect some my consider it to be. Moreover, Sanders’ focus on “oligarchy” cherry-picks data to fit his narrative. The US economy remains dynamic, with entrepreneurship and upward mobility still possible, as evidenced by Musk himself—a South African immigrant who built his fortune through innovation. Wealth inequality is a challenge, but labeling it an oligarchy oversimplifies a complex system where power is distributed across elected officials, corporations, and citizens—not just a cabal of billionaires. A chief propagandistic cornerstone of Sanders’ critique is the Trump administration’s plan to lock in the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA), which he portrays as a giveaway to the rich at the expense of the working class. In Iowa City, he argued that these cuts exacerbate inequality, funneling benefits to billionaires while slashing funds for Medicaid, education, and housing. This rhetoric plays well to his tunnel-visioned, radically Leftist base, but the economic reality is more nuanced—and Sanders’ alternative is much less viable than he admits. The TCJA reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and lowered individual rates across income brackets. Critics like Sanders highlight that the top 1% reaped disproportionate gains—an estimated 20% of the total tax relief, according to the Tax Policy Center. Yet, the cuts also boosted economic growth, with GDP rising 2.9% in 2018 compared to 2.3% in 2016, and unemployment falling to a 50-year low of 3.5% by 2019. Wage growth for low- and middle-income workers outpaced that of the top earners in 2018-2019, per Census Bureau data, contradicting the narrative of exclusive elite enrichment. Sanders’ solution—reversing these cuts and imposing steep wealth taxes—ignores the trade-offs. Higher corporate taxes could deter investment, as seen in pre-2017 America when companies hoarded cash overseas to avoid the 35% rate. His proposed wealth tax, modeled on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s plan, would face practical hurdles: capital flight, valuation disputes, and constitutional challenges under the 16th Amendment. France’s wealth tax, abandoned in 2017 after driving 60,000 millionaires abroad, serves as a cautionary tale. Sanders’ economic vision promises fairness but would deliver stagnation—a lesson history teaches but he refuses to learn. Sanders’ outrage over Musk’s DOGE cuts, particularly to USAID and the National Park Service, exemplifies his tendency to prioritize pseudo-moral indignation over pragmatic governance. In Omaha, he stood alongside former park rangers, decrying their layoffs as evidence of billionaire indifference. On CNN, he labeled the USAID cuts unconstitutional, citing the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which forbids the executive from withholding Congressionally appropriated funds without legislative approval. Legally, Sanders has a point—US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan’s February 2025 ruling suggested the administration’s funding freeze “potentially run[s] roughshod over a ‘bulwark of the Constitution.’” Yet, his broader critique falters when the understanding that DOGE actions are not aimed at ending funding, but weeding out waste, corruption, and outright fraud, are considered. DOGE aims to slash federal spending by $2 trillion, targeting inefficiencies in a $6.8 trillion budget. USAID, with a $50 billion annual allocat