The so-called “Bernie Oligarch Tour” is not the open, grassroots movement it pretends to be. It’s exclusive for a reason: control. Narrative control. Crowd control. Mass manipulation. Beneath the veneer of progressive populism lies a far more familiar structure, one designed not to liberate, but to contain.
Historically, the American two-party system has been a masterclass in controlled opposition. Each time genuine political energy begins to threaten the establishment, it is swiftly absorbed, redirected, or neutralized. We saw it with Occupy Wall Street, diffused and dismissed. We saw it with the civil rights and antiwar movements, surveilled, infiltrated, and disbanded. And more recently, we saw it with Bernie Sanders’ own campaigns in 2016 and 2020: mass movements full of energy and promise, only to be methodically undercut by a Democratic Party more concerned with maintaining elite consensus than delivering justice to the working class.
Ask yourself: who bankrolls these Bernie tours? Who determines who gets to speak, what gets said, and what kind of questions get asked? Why are groups like Workers Strike Back, Socialist Alternative, or other independent grassroots movements rarely, if ever given a platform on these stages? Because their message is unscripted. Their critique is real. And their loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party, it’s to the people.
The goal of these tours is not to empower the masses, but to pacify them. To recapture those disillusioned by the failures of the Democratic Party and guide them, once again, back into the arms of a system that has time and time again betrayed them. It's a soft, sleek rebranding of hope, packaged with applause lines and safe slogans. A revolution in rhetoric only.
Let’s not forget: Bernie, whatever his original intentions ultimately endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 after being kneecapped by the DNC. He did it again in 2020 with Biden. Both times, at the critical moment when the people demanded a break from the duopoly, Sanders redirected their energy back into it. That isn’t leadership, it’s gatekeeping.
So use these events wisely. Don’t just attend organize. Don’t just clap, question. Spark conversations that go beyond the script. Remind your peers: the system thrives on your nostalgia, your loyalty, your willingness to compromise. But real change doesn’t come from curated tours or carefully managed spectacles. It comes from the bottom up from strikes, from solidarity, from sacrifice, from the gritty, unfiltered truth most politicians are too scared or too comfortable to tell.
We’re not the enemy we’re the memory. The conscience. The ones who refused to forget what happened, how it happened, and why it will keep happening unless we break the cycle.
If we want something real, something that doesn’t evaporate every four years. We have to stop playing by their rules. Let’s not be managed. Let’s be mobilized.
Thanks for listening. Let’s keep it real. Let’s keep it moving.
