Bernie Sanders Kicks Off ‘Fighting the Oligarchy Tour’ in West Virginia

WHEELING, W.Va.—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) brought his message of working-class empowerment to the Mountain State on Aug. 8, kicking off a three-day, four-event campaign to rally grassroots support in opposition to the moneyed interests in both parties.

A capacity crowd of some 2,500 turned out to hear the four-term senator and two-time Democratic presidential candidate at the city’s historic Capitol Theater.

Sanders’s 40-minute address argued that the last 50 years have seen a historic transfer of wealth from the mass of Americans to the wealthiest 1 percent of its citizens.

This accumulation, Sanders said, has concentrated great political power in the hands of a few, worsening the prospects of working people in terms of employment, education, and health.

Describing the political challenge as a battle against personal and corporate avarice, Sanders urged attendees to form a grassroots movement to wrest control from an entrenched, wealthy ruling class.

“So that is what our struggle is about,” Sanders said, “to take on the greed of these people and say, you know what? You cannot and will not have it all.”

“I am here to beg of you to organize around this state,” Sanders continued. “Get working-class people organized to stand up and fight the fight.”

Appeal to the Working Class

The event’s theme resonated with Susan Adams, 73, of Morgantown, West Virginia. “I’m really concerned about the country, whether we will have a republic or an oligarchy,” Adams told The Epoch Times. “I think we’re already in it.”

Ryan Richards, 26, of Fairmount, West Virginia, said concern about wealth and authoritarianism motivated him to attend the event. “With the threat of oligarchy and fascism creeping in, we have no choice but to support the people who are doing something about it,” he told The Epoch Times.

Preliminary speakers primed the audience for Sanders’s message.

Brian Butcher, a city councillor and deputy mayor of Morgantown, West Virginia, spoke of rents being raised by private equity firms buying up private housing.

Danielle Walker, a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, said, “We are no stranger to exploitation.” Alluding to early efforts to organize labor unions in the mining industry, she said, “We have been used for our labor, used for our bodies, used for our blood.”

Sanders continued the drumbeat in his remarks.

Citing a statistic that 60 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, Sanders said, “When every single day is a battle for survival, things happen to [people’s] minds.”

Noting that psychological stress can lead people to substance abuse or other unhealthy behaviors, Sanders went on to say that the life expectancy of working people is six years less than that of the wealthy.

Alanna Lowther-Smith, 24, of Clarksburg, West Virginia, said she had come to the event seeking an experience of camaraderie. “[I came here] knowing there are like-minded people who care for those around us,” she told The Epoch Times. “[I’m] hoping for a fire to be lit and people to see light and hope.”

Influence on Both Parties

While Sanders criticized President Donald Trump, a Republican, for what he called tax breaks for the wealthy, which he said come at the expense of health care, housing, and childcare benefits, he did not exempt Democrats from criticism.

“One of the reasons, in my view, that [Democratic presidential candidate] Kamala Harris lost this election is she had too many billionaires telling her not to speak up for the working class of this country.”

A moment later, he quipped, “We already have one party that represents the rich and the powerful. We don’t need two.”

Though nearly all the attendees we spoke with identified themselves as Democrats, some had little faith that the party was able to counter Trump or the influence of wealth.

Regarding the House and Senate, Richards said, “The attitude is that we can’t do anything about it. [Change] has to come from the bottom up. But it would be good to have some support from the top.”

Ken Suter, 62, of Rayland, Ohio, described himself as a registered Democrat who leans independent. He said he voted unenthusiastically for Democrats in the previous three elections, yet was more tolerant of the party’s effort to counter the Trump agenda.

“The Democrats are in the minority,” Suter told The Epoch Times. “I think they are waiting for people to feel some real pain” from the effects of Trump’s policies.

He said he doesn’t think Democrats know how to counter Trump at the moment.

Attempt at Unity

Sanders said one of his aims in coming to West Virginia was to expose what he sees as the impact of Trump’s agenda on the state’s working people.

“Trump talked a good game, but this is what, in fact, he has done,” Sanders said, pointing to both the extension of the 2017 tax cuts and some expected impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including the potential loss of health care by some 16 million people according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

George Junkins, 18, of Wheeling, a recent high school graduate who describes himself as an independent, laments the political divide in the country.

“There’s no longer any middle ground,” Junkins told The Epoch Times. “We have two groups who say it’s my way or the highway.”

Junkins thinks change will have to begin at the community level.

Some Republican voters did attend the rally, according to Amy Jo Hutchinson, an antipoverty advocate who also spoke at the event.

“There are Trump supporters, Trump voters, right here in this very room,” Hutchinson said. “I know because they came here with me tonight.”

Hutchinson told of the flood that devastated her small town, Triadelphia, West Virginia, in June, destroying 40 homes and claiming 12 lives.

“For the past 55 days, the only thing that has mattered in my community is that we created a space that allowed us to take care of ourselves,” Hutchinson said.

She added, “Party doesn’t matter when we need each other to stay alive, y’all.”

Emphasizing his theme that progress matters more than political affiliations, Sanders said: “Whether the Democratic Party is capable of making the changes that are needed, I don’t know. But if not, you make it for them.”