The early days of Trump 2.0 have seen an accelerating trade war, persistent inflation, and vicious attacks on immigrant workers. Now, he’s demanding big cuts to Veterans Affairs, public education, Medicaid, and a whole host of other social spending workers are forced to rely upon. Millions of workers reject these naked attacks and open bigotry, and are urgently looking for a way out.

In this vacuum, Bernie Sanders’s national “Fighting Oligarchy” tour has drawn crowds of tens of thousands of people eager to fight back against the Trump administration. 2,500 people showed up at one of the first rallies, in Omaha, defying expectations of a turnout of 800. In the weeks that followed, the tour quickly picked up steam. In Phoenix, 15,000 turned out, followed by 23,000 in Tucson. In Denver, more than 34,000 attended, making it the largest-ever event in Bernie’s career, and the city’s largest political rally since 2008.

Without a real revolutionary alternative, Bernie is one of the only mainstream figures speaking to this progressive sentiment. This explains why, despite having bent the knee to the Democratic establishment so many times in the past, he is able to draw large crowds. Workers desperate to fight back have nowhere else to turn.

Beware of false prophets and reformism!

On tour, Sanders talks about the working class “coming together” to fight oligarchy, declaring “Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the DC beltway.” We couldn’t agree more! But who does he propose we unite around?

His stop in Nebraska offers a hint. Sanders brought together an unholy alliance to share the stage with him—a local government official, a labor union bureaucrat, and the executive director of the Nebraska Democratic Party. Not exactly an anti-establishment “A-Team.”

Sanders’s posturing calls to mind the biblical warning, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.”

Bernie is again calling for a “grassroots movement” against the billionaires. There was just such a grassroots movement behind him during his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs. Both times, the DNC blatantly maneuvered against him, and he capitulated to the powers that be.

Unfortunately, Sanders is peddling his same old class-collaborationist elixir. While tapping into legitimate discontent, he aims to divert it back into the safe channels of the rotten, discredited Democrats.

On his tour, Sanders summed up the history of American foreign policy this way: “For 250 years, the United States has supported democracy.”

How can he zigzag so easily between denouncing the billionaires only to portray their violent subjugation of countless nations and peoples as “supporting democracy”?

The answer is rooted in Sanders’s reformist politics. He may well be sincere in his desire to fight for the working class. But he’s also committed to remaining within the bounds of capitalism. It’s impossible to support working-class struggle while at the same time supporting the class rule of our exploiters.

The party of “good billionaires”

Perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than Sanders’s relationship to the Democratic Party. Back in November, he chastised Democrats for their inability to raise demands for the working class.

But post-election talk is cheap. Where was this criticism when he lined up behind Clinton, Biden, and Harris? Harris was backed by more billionaires than Trump! How can he “fight the oligarchy” while supporting one wing of the ruling class against the other?

He could be using his platform to launch an independent party for the working class. Such an initiative would take off like wildfire in the current political climate. Despite his talk of running independent candidates, Sanders is putting all his efforts into bringing the Democrats back to life at a time when they are more discredited than ever.

The chair of the DNC thinks they should still seek donations from “good billionaires.” Why do Sanders and the “soft left” cling to this party of supposedly “good billionaires,” while wringing their hands about “the corruption of the two-party system”? Because they have no confidence that the working class can overthrow capitalism and run society ourselves. If your starting assumption is that the capitalists can never be defeated, then politics becomes a question of which wing of the enemy class to back.

Workers need a party of our own

In 1989, Sanders correctly explained that the “corporate-controlled Democratic and Republican parties … have no substantive ideological differences and are, in reality, one party—the party of the ruling class.” However, having spent decades in the halls of bourgeois power without the counterweight of a Marxist program and a revolutionary party, he long ago abandoned any pretense of building a workers’ party. In fact, since 2016, he has actively confused the matter, peddling the idea that the capitalist Democrats can somehow be “transformed.”

Millions have drawn the conclusion that the Democratic Party is a dead end. Workers need a party based solely on our strength, fighting for our own class interests. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans believe “a third major party is needed.” One poll taken last November found that 72% of registered voters think the US political and economic system needs “major changes” or should “be torn down entirely.” Another found that 48% of young people agree with the statement “it doesn’t matter who wins elections, nothing changes.”

The liberal-socialists have nothing serious to offer the millions who now reject both parties. The RCA is building a party to give voice and direction to the class rage teeming throughout society. Unlike Sanders, we don’t want to tinker with capitalism, “save democracy,” or merely “tax the rich.” We aim to tear down the system of exploitation entirely, establish a worker’s government, and seize the oligarchy’s ill-gotten plunder to meet the needs of humanity.