Bernie Sanders meets the moment and shows an anti-oligarchy path in Iowa Opinion
IOWA CITY — Inside Iowa City’s Englert Theatre, the mood was electric Saturday morning in advance of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ noon talk. Some showed up at 7:30 a.m. Several thousand lined six to eight blocks in freezing temperatures, prompting organizers to open up a second venue.
Beneath the excitement and rock-star reception was a palpable mix of indignation, angst and fear. The America we knew just over a month ago seems to be slipping away, and we don’t know how to stop it. We watch core elements of domestic governance and global diplomacy be mocked and stomped on, populations abandoned and jobs stripped away by President Donald Trump’s multi-billionaire top appointee — wielding a huge chainsaw and laughing.
In his talk titled “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here,” Sanders, the Vermont senator best known for his commitment to working people, had a tough job balancing hope with reality. “These are very, very tough times,” he acknowledged. “It can become overwhelming. We will be at this full time.”
He was in Iowa and before that Nebraska to call attention to a budget reconciliation bill Trump supports that’s before the U.S. House. It gives $2 trillion in tax breaks to the top 5% of the wealthy, which Sanders said would be achieved by cutting Medicaid, supplemental nutrition programs and education. This, he underscored, at a time when the top 1% own more than the combined wealth of the bottom half of Americans, in a country with the lowest life expectancy of any major one, where working-class people die six or seven years earlier than the average. And in this, the wealthiest country in the world, one in four seniors lives on less than $15,000 a year.
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Rekha Basu is a longtime syndicated columnist, editorial writer, reporter and author of the book, “Finding Your Voice.” She retired in 2022 as a Des Moines Register columnist. Her column, “Rekha Shouts and Whispers,” is available at basurekha.substack.com.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2025/02/25/bernie-sanders-shows-anti-oligarchy-path-iowa-city/80281521007/
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