Bernie Sanders and AOC Go Hunting for Oligarchs – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Outrage Against the ‘Oligarchs’

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have hit the road with a vengeance, barnstorming the nation under the banner of “Fighting Oligarchy.” Their latest stop, a raucous March 21, 2025, rally in Denver, drew over 30,000 fired-up supporters — Sanders’ biggest crowd yet. The duo’s pitch is simple: America’s drowning in billionaire excess, and only steep taxes — think an 8 percent wealth levy or 70 percent marginal rates — can save us from the clutches of these modern-day robber barons.

The faithful cheer, TikTok buzzes, and the pair basks in the glow of populist stardom. It’s a hit with the (misinformed) base, no question. But beneath the noise lies a muddled crusade that’s less about principle and more about political theater — and it’s poised to hurt the very people they claim to champion.

‘Oligarchy’: A Word Twisted Beyond Recognition

The term “oligarchy” once meant rule by a wealthy few, a straightforward jab at concentrated power. Today, it’s morphed into something darker: a shorthand for business tycoons who bribe their way to riches in corrupt, authoritarian states. In Russia, post-Soviet oligarchs like Roman Abramovich snatched state assets through cozy deals with Putin’s clique. In China, billionaires rise and fall at the Communist Party’s whim — Jack Ma’s a billionaire one day, a ghost the next. These are societies where wealth signals bribery and corruption, not contribution.

Confucius saw this dynamic centuries ago: “In a well-governed state, to be poor and lowly is a shame; in a poorly governed state, to be rich and honored is a shame.” In China, riches often mean you’ve played the Party’s game — corrupt, despised, and rightly so. Contrast that with the U.S., where most billionaires — Jeff Bezos with Amazon, Elon Musk with Tesla, Warren Buffett with his market mastery — build something unique and original. They innovate, employ millions, and fuel an economy that’s the envy of the world. Are they perfect? No. But they’re categorically not oligarchs in a dictatorial regime, such as Russia or China. Here, success usually tracks with merit and risk-taking — worthy of respect, not pitchforks.

A Selective War on Wealth

If Sanders and AOC truly loathed concentrated wealth, they’d cast a wider net — especially since leftist billionaires often outnumber and outspend conservatives among active donors, fueling Democrats to outpace Republicans, sometimes doubling their presidential election cash. Instead, their “oligarch” label targets those who appear to lean right — Musk, Bezos, the Kochs — while liberal titans like Buffett ($130 billion) and George Soros ($7 billion) skate free.

Musk’s Twitter takeover or Amazon’s tax dodges get blasted, but the support of radical Democrat candidates and Black Lives Matter by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Tides Foundation? Silence.

It’s not wealth they hate — it’s wealth in the “wrong” hands. For example, they have no problem with the federal government’s $6.9 trillion 2025 budget.

But while the feds eventually have to face the voters, there are other unchecked hoarders that never seem to tweak the ire of Sanders and AOC: The nonprofit sector — universities like Harvard with its $50 billion endowment, hospitals, and 501(c)(3)s — controlling over 10 percent of the entire economy and living largely off taxpayer subsidies. Uniformly leftist, these outfits house America’s “managerial class” — a true power concentration Sanders and AOC conveniently ignore. This isn’t principle — it’s politics dressed up as justice.

Punishing Success, Hurting the Middle

The Sanders-AOC crusade isn’t just hypocritical — it’s dangerous. By demonizing wealth and big corporations, they’re brewing a culture of resentment that could drive America’s job-creators away. Tax the rich too hard, and they’ll bolt — France learned this in 2012 when its 75 percent supertax sent millionaires packing to other countries. Or worse, they’ll “lie flat,” as China’s disillusioned youth call it, scaling back the risks that built their empires.

When the titans of industry go on strike, it’s not the elite who bleed — it’s the middle class. Small businesses, which employ nearly half of U.S. workers, thrive under the canopy of big firms. Shrink that ecosystem, and jobs dry up, wages stall, and families feel the pinch.

Sanders and AOC sell this as a fight for “working people,” but their selective outrage and soak-the-rich schemes threaten the engine that keeps America humming. Confucius would see the irony: in a well-governed land, they’re shaming the wrong crowd — and risking a poorer nation for it.

Let’s send them to China to take on the real oligarchs — imagine them rallying in Beijing, megaphones blaring about wealth taxes and class struggle. That would be wild. Problem is, they wouldn’t last a minute — China’s not big on free speech, and they would land in a cell faster than they can shout “fight oligarchy.” Plus, the irony: They’d be railing against a system that’s already redistributing wealth, a dream they adore.

In the U.S., their hunt is a misfire we can’t afford.

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Shaomin Li is a Professor of International Business at Old Dominion University.