Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) called out Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), arguing that he was part of the push to elevate embattled Maine Democrat Graham Platner.
Platner, who is Maine&#8217;s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, has faced a litany of scandals since he entered the race — from a Nazi-inspired tattoo and dubious social media history to multiple accusations of troubling behavior and even rape. Fetterman told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday that Sanders ought to apologize for so aggressively pushing Platner.
WATCH:
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Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) on Bernie Sanders support for Graham Platner:
“Honestly I would really call Bernie Sanders to apologize for pushing this kind of predator more than anyone he helped elected” <a href="https://t.co/qMnv3HY4H4">pic.twitter.com/qMnv3HY4H4</a>
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) <a href="https://x.com/DSA_Watch/status/2074825834842521703?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Ingraham noted that almost across the board — with few exceptions, of which Fetterman was one — the Democratic Party had been all too willing to ignore the questionable items in Platner&#8217;s history, and she asked whether any of them should be held responsible for the ensuing situation.
&#8220;I refused to overlook that,&#8221; Fetterman replied. &#8220;But honestly, I would really call Bernie Sanders to apologize for pushing this kind of predator — more than anyone he helped [to] elect — and now apologize to the victims, especially the woman that she claimed that he raped her, so I don&#8217;t know why you want to keep pushing these kinds of people.&#8221;
&#8220;Maybe he should consider [sitting] a few out and stop pushing these kinds of communists, and now people like P. Hustle, now he has been credibly accused of rape — and that&#8217;s fairly recent, too, that was only less than five years ago,&#8221; Fetterman continued.
Fetterman has repeatedly challenged members of his own party over their support for Platner — and has argued that the scandals, even before the rape accusation, should have been disqualifying.

John Fetterman

Fetterman Calls Out Bernie Sanders For Elevating ‘Predator’ Platner

Fetterman: Bernie Sanders Should Apologize For Elevating Platner

Bernie Sanders

graham platner

Politics

Leftist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are concentrating their efforts on getting another radical leftist elected — this time in Michigan for the U.S. Senate. 
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are scheduled to host rallies across Michigan for leftist Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed on July 18 and 19. El-Sayed is in the middle of what&#8217;s expected to be a close race for the party&#8217;s nomination against Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens.
El-Sayed is running his campaign much like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with a heavy social media presence and large appeal among Muslims and young leftists. 
For the Fourth of July, he made a music video in which he danced to a Taylor Swift song on the pop star&#8217;s wedding weekend. &#8220;Happy Taylor wedding…err, July 4th weekend!&#8221; El-Sayed wrote in the caption above the video.
In another video, he took the song &#8220;I want to dance with somebody” and changed the lyrics to “I want to vote for somebody” while listing out his attributes. Stevens called out El-Sayed for his posts, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/us/politics/abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens-michigan-senate-debate.html">arguing</a> that he’s more focused on his own publicity than the people of Michigan. 
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Happy Taylor wedding…err, July 4th weekend! <a href="https://t.co/1s1blnoY4P">pic.twitter.com/1s1blnoY4P</a>
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) <a href="https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/2073429685870968917?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
El-Sayed portrays himself as a physician despite <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/12/abdul-el-sayed-doctor-physician-00916389">not</a> being granted a medical license. Like democratic socialist candidates who have recently won Democratic primaries, El-Sayed is defending past radical statements he has made. 
In a 2020 radio interview, El-Sayed <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/abdul-el-sayed-repeatedly-called-210836248.html">said</a>, “We are in a moment where a lot of our public conversation gets chewed down into 280 characters or less … I believe that we do need to defund the police in so far as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone or killing them on the streets.&#8221;
El-Sayed is currently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/politics/kfile-abdul-el-sayed-michigan-senate-defund-police-fact-check">defending</a> his remarks by saying he never called to defund the police. One year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, El-Sayed supported another lockdown in April 2021. He suggested businesses should be fined for trying to open their doors in the midst of the public health crisis.
His anti-Israel stance also sparked controversy last October when El-Sayed’s campaign sent a fundraising email on the anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel that made no mention of Hamas’ atrocities and blamed Israel for launching “a ground invasion of Gaza.” El-Sayed&#8217;s campaign later said the email was sent by mistake, but the leftist stood by the message in the email.
During his Senate campaign, he has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-not-a-socialist-michigans-mamdani-has-the-lefts-new-playbook-but-doesnt-want-the-new-label">called</a> for ICE to be abolished, while doubling down on his push for Medicare for all and tuition-free access to higher education. The Michigan primary is on August 4. 
Democratic-socialists have been on a recent tear, ousting decade-long Democratic incumbents in the primaries. In June, Democratic socialist Melat Kiros upset incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) in the primary for Colorado’s 1st congressional district. DeGette has served in Congress for longer than Kiros has been alive. 
In New York, three Mamdani-backed candidates swept their races. One of the candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier, defeated incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat despite past anti-American social media posts such as “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.”
A Fourth of July poll from the Cato Institute revealed that socialism is on the rise, as 53% of Gen Z and 40% of Millennials have a favorable view of socialism and are taking their new ideals to the voting booth.

AOC and Bernie Sanders

Bernie And AOC Focus On Pushing Radical Leftist In Vital Swing State

2026 Midterms

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democrats

Michigan

Senate

Socialism

Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday finally pulled his support for embattled Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner after a woman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dems-ditch-platner-over-rape-claims?author=Jacob+Wheeler&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Dems+Ditch+Platner+Over+Rape+Claims">accused</a> the leftist oyster farmer of rape. 
“I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine. In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside,” the Vermont senator <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/2074532964059197651?s=20">said</a>. 
It’s a stunning turnaround for the socialist who championed Platner on the campaign trail and, until now, stood firmly by the embattled oyster farmer despite numerous scandals.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that Graham Platner is the next senator from the state of Maine,” Sanders previously said. 
The dramatic change in tone follows a bombshell Politico story centering around a 41-year-old Maine resident Jenny Racicot who detailed an on-and-off relationship with Platner for more than two years. In late 2021, she claimed a “deeply intoxicated” Platner broke into her home and forced himself on her despite repeatedly telling the oyster farmer to stop.
“I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me,” she said to Politico. “I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, ‘This is no longer my choice.’” 
Racicot said she felt compelled to come forward after other women raised allegations against Platner.
“One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person,” she said to Politico. “I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.”
The woman told the outlet she connected with Platner on the dating app Bumble in 2019 and had consensual sex with him before the night he allegedly assaulted her. 
“I had been telling him these words, like: ‘No, don’t,’” she recalled to Politico. “And, the look on his face and realizing what was happening, I just realized that, like, I am in a situation where there’s no consent here.&#8221;
As of Tuesday afternoon, Platner had given no formal indication that he intends to drop out of the race, though he suggested he is reviewing the best path forward. Maine Democrats face a July 13 deadline to replace Platner on the ballot with another Democrat to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

GettyImages-2278039744

Bernie Sanders FINALLY Addresses Platner Rape Claim

Maine

News

Talk about a delayed reaction.
For months, Maine Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner sailed through scandal after scandal with the Democratic Party&#8217;s blessing intact. A tattoo tied to Nazi SS iconography? Fine. Old posts sneering at rape victims and calling rural Americans &#8220;stupid&#8221; and &#8220;racist&#8221;? Shrugged off. Cheering on the death of a wounded U.S. soldier online? Chalked up to a &#8220;dark period.&#8221; Steamy texts to other women while married? Overlooked.
Even a supposed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/politics/platner-maine-senate-girlfriends-relationships.html?searchResultPosition=9">New York Times exposé</a> detailing ex-girlfriends&#8217; accounts of controlling, physically rough behavior barely dented his support. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o8vE0Js_VE">waved the Nazi tattoo away</a> by calling Platner &#8220;a human being.&#8221; Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) went on national television days later insisting there was &#8220;no evidence of violence&#8221; and that this was his personal red line — a line, it turns out, that hadn&#8217;t yet been crossed in his eyes.
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Don’t forget that last time Graham Platner was accused of mistreating women, not only did Ro Khanna defend him, he flew out to Maine to campaign for him. <a href="https://t.co/P9CHvy8KUa">pic.twitter.com/P9CHvy8KUa</a>
&mdash; Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) <a href="https://x.com/EYakoby/status/2074222801116905511?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Big names stuck by him through it all: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and of course Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who campaigned at Platner&#8217;s side and later brushed off the mounting allegations of violence against women by <a href="https://www.press.org/newsroom/sanders-takes-aim-trump-mainstream-democrats-corporate-media-remarks">noting</a>, &#8220;There are people in the United States Senate right now who are not saints, I can tell you that.”
So what finally did it? A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/06/top-democrats-pull-graham-platner-endorsements-call-him-end-maine-senate-campaign/">fresh accusation</a> — this one alleging outright sexual assault, not just &#8220;toxicity&#8221; or bad boyfriend behavior. The moment the word &#8220;assault&#8221; entered the conversation, the dam broke. Senate Democratic leadership, including Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, suddenly found their outrage, declaring the allegations &#8220;incredibly disturbing&#8221; and demanding Platner exit the race immediately. Gallego reversed course and yanked his endorsement. Khanna, who just days earlier had drawn his personal red line well short of these claims, now says the accusations are &#8220;very serious and credible&#8221; and pulled his support too.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Oh, now it&#39;s bad?
&mdash; Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://x.com/redsteeze/status/2074243123505725775?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;but you were fine endorsing a literal Nazi, of course.
&mdash; Don Marshall (@RealDonMarshall) <a href="https://x.com/RealDonMarshall/status/2074259643698708760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Too little too late. You were cool w his Nazi tattoo. You were cool w his racist and misogynistic posts. You were cool W his trashing US vets. You are a disgrace.
&mdash; Anne Herzberg (@AnneHerzberg14) <a href="https://x.com/AnneHerzberg14/status/2074295331119063084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Warren joined the chorus urging Platner to step aside. Even Maine&#8217;s own state Democratic Party piled on, framing the flip as a matter of &#8220;judgment&#8221; and &#8220;leadership.&#8221;
Funny how judgment works.
The glaring holdout? Sen. Sanders — one of Platner&#8217;s earliest and loudest cheerleaders — who&#8217;s gone conspicuously silent, declining to answer questions about the new allegation altogether. In May, Sanders refused to answer a reporters&#8217; questions on serious allegations made against Platner.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
As Sanders continues to support Platner, here’s a flashback from May where Sanders snapped at a Fox News Digital reporter and condescendingly told him to “get a better job”
Talk about looking like a total 🤡 right now <a href="https://t.co/JVm5H19FnW">pic.twitter.com/JVm5H19FnW</a>
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) <a href="https://x.com/Cam_Cawthorne/status/2074486453728313635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The whiplash hasn&#8217;t gone unnoticed. Nazi tattoos, greenlit. Mocking a wounded soldier, greenlit. Explicit texts behind a wife&#8217;s back, greenlit. Allegations of shoving a girlfriend into a room and blocking the door, greenlit. But the second the word &#8220;assault&#8221; showed up in a headline, suddenly party leaders discovered principles they&#8217;d somehow misplaced for the better part of a year.
Platner, for his part, denies the latest claim but admits he&#8217;s &#8220;mindful of the political reality&#8221; it creates, and says he&#8217;s weighing his next move.
Maine law gives him until July 13 to bow out gracefully — or force his own party to keep defending the indefensible through November.

Maine Senate Candidate Graham Platner Holds His Primary Election Night Event

The Long List Of Democrats Who Ignored Platner’s Scandals

Elizabeth Warren

nazi tattoo

Ro Khanna

Sexual Assault

U.S. Senate

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are not hiding the ball. They despise America.
And now they and their allies are forming a winning coalition, not just in New York, but they hope, across America.
Three New York City congressional seats are now filled by DSA members or former DSA members. In L.A., another Democratic Socialists of America member may end up as mayor; in New Jersey, a former alleged al-Qaida mouthpiece will likely win a congressional seat; in Michigan, a terrorist supporter will likely be elected to the Senate; in Maine, a dude with a literal Nazi tattoo will likely end up in the Senate as well.
The rise of the Hate America crowd is the story here. It&#8217;s their pitch. It&#8217;s not a bug; it&#8217;s a feature.
I know a lot of people are saying, “No, no, they&#8217;re winning in spite of all that.”
Wrong.
This is how you win with young people. It&#8217;s how you signal that you&#8217;re not part of the machine.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/the-ben-shapiro-show-episode-2453?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The seeds of all of this were planted long ago. In 2008, the Democratic Party coalition turned into the Barack Obama coalition. By 2012, the Obama coalition had turned into the coalition of the oppressed; by 2016, that coalition of the oppressed had become the anti-Trump coalition.
And now the anti-Trump coalition is turning into the Hate America Coalition. Full-scale, all masks off now. The seeds were always there.
I often cite this quote from Barack Obama, from his 1995 book Dreams from My Father:
<blockquote>I have seen the desperation and disorder of the powerless, how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does in the lives of children on the South Side of Chicago. How narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know the response of the powerful to this disorder, alternating as it does between a dull complacency and when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware is inadequate to the task.</blockquote>
That sentence could have been written by Zohran Mamdani or any of the variety of Democratic Socialists of America candidates.
That is their entire matrix of thinking: All suffering all over the world is the fault of evil capitalist free-market systems, and what you really need is an America that apologizes for its presence in the world. They believe there is some sort of ideological solidarity between gang members on the South Side of Chicago  — who, after all, are victims of the system — and teens in Jakarta.
There was a reason Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright&#8217;s church for decades: he agreed with him. There&#8217;s also a reason Barack Obama loves Mamdani: Mamdani is Jeremiah Wright, except he&#8217;s much more smarmy, younger, and has a better beard. Bernie Sanders almost won the Democratic nomination in 2016, running against the Democratic Party as an open advocate of anti-American socialism.
He won the youth vote outright.
Now that the Obama-Sanders coalition has turned into the Mamdani coalition, it&#8217;s going to keep getting worse. Here is what the Democratic Socialists of America actually believe — their new platform:
Abolish the Senate, replace the president and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress. Defund the Department of War completely. Abolish all prisons; free Palestine (of course, naturally, because all complaints about Western civilization must be projected into love for a pseudo- state that loves terrorism); end sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran; abolish ICE, grant amnesty for literally everyone; open borders, public ownership of all major corporations, and remake the elections nationwide.
The ultimate goal: a Democratic socialist republic.
In 2012, the DSA had 6,500 members. By February of this year, that was over 100,000; by the end of this year, it would be shocking if they don&#8217;t have at least half a million registered members.
Left-wingers and legacy media interlocutors say all these Democratic Socialists of America candidates are winning based on “affordability.”
It&#8217;s not true. They&#8217;re winning primaries, not based on affordability, but from a bunch of white, college-educated voters. The Democratic Socialists of America is led by overeducated white people.
This professional, disproportionately white, useless class has been manufactured over the last 20, 30, 40 years in university classrooms. They&#8217;ve been majoring in absolute junk. They are unemployable losers who have never held a real job.
But they did go to the best colleges for years and then more years, and then they can&#8217;t get real jobs. So they end up as community organizers or agitators or political aides for crappy candidates who hate the country.
The Democratic Socialists of America is a make-work machine for college-educated losers. That&#8217;s what it is. And this is who these folks are.
The core group is useless people, pseudo-intellectuals, not particularly smart, but granted high degrees in useless crap, who now have extra time on their hands; they&#8217;re going to lead the revolution. The second group is people in the Democratic Party who are annoyed with the Democrats because the Democrats are constantly promising the world and failing to deliver, yelling about Trump, but they don&#8217;t give you enough.
The third group is the people who aren&#8217;t watching very closely.
The Joe Rogans or the Theo Vons who are perfectly happy, I am sure, to host members of the DSA and hit them with no difficult questions, but talk about how “revolutionary” they are and how they are “changing it up politically.” No deep questions, no serious policy ramifications, but they do make cool TikToks.
They never like to talk about solutions, but they do love people who will just complain about the “problems” with “the system,” because now you&#8217;re “in the know” and all the rest of the nonsense.
And then finally, you have the loyal liberals, right? The partisans. These are people who, if forced to choose between the psychotic Left and the Trump Right, will choose the psychotic Left every single time.
But it turns out the biggest group of Democrats is the order and opportunity Left. The hope for the Democratic Socialists is that the order-and-opportunity Left basically continues to vote alongside the Democrats.
If they were to do that, it would be a huge problem for the Republicans. But if Republicans reach out to that group, they could win. These are people who don&#8217;t hate capitalism but do hate crime, who want the border closed, who don&#8217;t love trans politics.
What these people actually want is moderation. That&#8217;s all they want: law and order; immigration law enforcement, although they don&#8217;t want raids in their workplace. They want capitalism but with the rough edges shaved off.
It&#8217;s an opportunity for Republicans. The more the Democrats push to the Left, the more opportunity there is for Republicans.
With that said, it would be dangerous to pretend that the DSA and its group are not a major threat.

Original_Sin

The Original Sin Behind The Anti-America Movement

Barack Obama

Ben Shapiro

Democratic Socialists Of America

Opinion

Zohran Mamdani

The civil war between the Democratic Party establishment and the far-Left rebels seeking to replace it has oftentimes been described as a kind of political Super Bowl, a showdown for the ages in which two powerhouses are set to collide with dramatic effect. Think immovable object meets unstoppable force.
And yet it’s turned out to be a drubbing; think Pop Warner team meets Kansas City Chiefs.
On Tuesday evening, three such rebels endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani prevailed over two sitting congressmen and the preferred successor of a retiring member. Among the winners: Darializa Avila Chevalier, a police, prison, and border abolitionist who believes the United States to be a “f*cking disgrace” and has expressed her disgust with interracial relationships featuring “ugly colonizer women.” Among the losers: Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a down-the-line progressive who led the 2019 impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump and was recently banned from a Brooklyn coffee shop over his support for the continued existence of Israel.
Priorities.
For his part, a visibly irritated Mamdani responded to a question about the targeting of Goldman with the declaration that “I have many political disagreements with Congressman Goldman when it comes to his votes and his views on Israel. What we saw online goes beyond that.” End of statement. The bare minimum, delivered without a trace of detectable sincerity — cold as ice.
These are the new Democrats: ruthless, vindictive, wannabe Bolsheviks eager to wage jihad against Western Civilization. Lest you dismiss that conclusion as loaded hyperbole, consider that Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a group Avila Chevalier helped found as an undergraduate and participated in antisemitic protests alongside as an alum — has been explicit about its objective: “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization. We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one … we seek community and instruction from militants in the Global South.”
It is remarkable that openly anti-American terrorist understudies are now the ascendant force within one of the country’s two major parties. After all, it was only a few years ago that Joe Biden won Team Blue’s presidential nomination not as a moderate, but as the personification of the median Democrat. But then again, this transformation, which to some might have appeared to occur all at once, should hardly come as a surprise. It’s actually the inevitable destination of a course charted long ago.
Mamdani has touted the victories of his three mini-mes as the triumph of a politics for “working people.” His claim to that mantle is belied by every conceivable data point imaginable. Avila Chevalier prevailed by 20 points among the majority college-educated and by five points in higher-income neighborhoods, according to the New York Times. In areas dominated by younger residents, she came out ahead by almost 25. Her opponent won lower-income areas by nearly 10.
A similar story played out in Goldman’s race; he lost younger neighborhoods by 24, and both majority college-educated and higher-income ones by 40. He won lower-income areas by 14.
The democratic socialist movement isn’t a program for working people; it’s a vanity project for privileged, well-off conformists who moved from one far-Left bubble in college to another in the Big Apple.
Progressives’ capture of and despotic rule over a panoply of influential American institutions — and most importantly the university — has fostered this radicalism. For decades, students have shipped off to schools where they’ve spent their formative years being taught by Left-wing professors, preached at by Left-wing administrators, and rewarded by their peers for pushing ever Leftward. Clout on campus is directly correlated with how willing one is to embrace the kind of politics advocated by Avila Chevalier and Mamdani. Higher tax rates, affirmative action, and foreign policy restraint are blasé on the quad. It’s socialist redistributionist schemes, reparations, and a fetishization of America’s enemies abroad — and Islamist extremists in particular — that get the blood pumping. And only just at this point, everyone knows that as an addict builds their tolerance, they require stronger junk to achieve a high.
At the national level, Democrats are now professing shock at the Mamdani sweep. One senior House member managed only a “Holy sh*t” and “Buckle up” after being contacted by Axios.
Spare them your pity. For decades, party leaders have not only indulged this wing but also absorbed their ideas. Upon taking his oath of office in 2009, Barack Obama embarked upon an apology tour to the Muslim World. In 1985, Bernie Sanders visited Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua and came back “impressed.” Three years later, he took a honeymoon to the Soviet Union shortly before its collapse and came back raving over the “strengths” of its system. This is the runner-up in each of the last two Democratic presidential primaries, mind you.
Both the former president and Vermont senator have embraced the ahistorical tale about how the United States invited Iran’s everlasting wrath by overthrowing its benevolent, democratic leader in 1953. <a href="https://www.commentary.org/articles/ray-takeyh/iran-1953-coup-america/">In truth</a>, it was the Iranians who ejected the power-hungry Mohammad Mosaddegh from his office. But thinly-disguised campus radicals like Obama and Sanders would never let the facts get in the way of their cartoonishly villainous conception of their own country.
And when antisemitic riots — an expression of anti-American and anti-Western sentiments as well as anti-Israel ones — broke out across the country in support of the deadliest pogrom since the Holocaust, all but a few elders either praised or turned a blind eye to them. Democrats’ shock is that of the man who feeds a fire with gasoline only to be consumed by it.
Tuesday was a victory for them, yes. But the democratic socialists won years ago, they just hadn’t started counting the votes until now.
***
Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite and a 2023–2024 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies.

New York Knicks Championship Parade & Ceremony

Gotham’s Takeover By Socialist Cartoon Villains Was Inevitable

Avila Chevalier

Dan Goldman

DW Opinion

The communist, America-hating revolution isn&#8217;t coming.
It&#8217;s already here.
Last night, the New York congressional primaries turned third-worldist America-hating New York mayor Zohran Mamdani into an electoral kingmaker. A series of his endorsed candidates defeated very liberal Democrats and replaced them with outright communist terrorist endorsers, fans of criminality, and America-haters.
According to these victorious candidates, America is a settler-colonial, genocidal, racist, fundamentally evil country that is now the moral litmus test for the new Democratic Party.
You must despise America. You must hate everything America stands for. These candidates make Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi look like Right-wing American patriots.
You might think that because this is all happening in New York, it doesn&#8217;t really affect you.
Wrong.
The Democratic Party of your parents is gone. Heck, the Democratic Party of 10 years ago is gone. It is being eaten alive by people who openly hate America.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/the-ben-shapiro-show-episode-2452?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
These are not people who are hiding the ball. These revolutionaries openly advocated for abolishing all prisons.
Yes, all prisons, as well as abolishing ICE and abolishing our entire Department of War.
They want limitless taxation for the kids. Limitless immigration. Taxpayer-funded abortion for all.
They see America as fundamentally evil and our allies as genocidal, while seeing our enemies, people who wish to kill Americans, as heroic.
I wish I were exaggerating. But last night in New York City, people who believe all of these things and say them openly swept very left-wing Democrats out of office in the primaries.
I can hear you saying it: “It&#8217;s just New York. Let New York be New York. Why should we care?”
But here&#8217;s the thing. This is all part of a very clever and concerted strategy by the far-Left, the Democratic Socialists of America, to take over the Democratic Party, to eat it, and then take over the country.
This is a multi-step process. This is a revolutionary process that has been carried out before in countries that are not the United States.
Step one: Eat the “normie” party, eat the Mensheviks. The Communist Party in pre-Soviet Russia was comprised of the communists, the Bolsheviks and other communists called Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks were run by Vladimir Lenin.
When you are running a revolution, the goal is to take over very, very blue areas with insane radicals and then purge the people who are from the regular far-Left.
Thus, the Bolsheviks had to purge the Mensheviks. The founder of Soviet communism, Vladimir Lenin — an idol for Hasan Piker and Zohran Mamdani — said, “The party must be purged of rascals of bureaucratic, dishonest or wavering communists, of Mensheviks who have repainted their facade, but who have remained Mensheviks at heart.”
The idea here is that typical Democrats are bad and the chief target. Understand: The radicals hate the traditional-Left folks more than they hate the Right, because they see them as obstacles to power. If they can purge those people, if they can get rid of the very, very Left- wing Democrats in Congress and replace them with people who are even more Left-wing, then they have a beachhead.
You start with a very, very blue area. You start with an area like Brooklyn. You start with areas that are located inside Manhattan, the Commie-core. You get rid of the people who are very, very far-Left, and you replace them with actual America-hating communists.
Now you have your beachhead. You can use this as a starting point to expand.
Step two: Claim victory. You treat the takeover of these areas as indicative of a sort of broad national upsurge in radical Left-wing sentiments. You claim that you&#8217;ve taken over the whole party, and then you threaten the normal leftists in your coalition. This is the sort of thing that Lenin would do.
Lenin famously labeled his opponents Mensheviks in Russian. That meant the minority faction, and he claimed that his faction was the Bolsheviks, meaning the majority faction, even though his faction was actually less popular in Russia than the Mensheviks.
Again, the idea is to create a false sense of popularity.
It’s the same here. The Democratic Socialists of America is taking over extremely blue districts with low vote totals, and then they are claiming that they have the run of the place and the momentum is with them.
You repeat it over and over and over. You let social media run with it, and young people who live online actually start to believe it. Because if you are online all day long, you see clips over and over and over of Zohran Mamdani, people cheering Zohran Mamdani, people cheering Brad Lander, and people cheering various psychotic candidates like Darializa Avila Chevalier.
You see that over and over: “This is the wave of the future. This is where we are going.”
If your life is online, you start to believe that the radical Left is the wave of the future — and this stuff is aimed at the kids, the 12 to 30-year-olds.
It&#8217;s a TikTok indoctrination campaign. This is not a political game for this election cycle alone. It&#8217;s how you turn a minority part of the Democratic Party, the Bernie Sanders psychotic wing, into the controlling faction of the Democratic Party.
You start by saying there is a silent majority that supports you, then you get very loud online, turn up the volume, win a couple of primaries, claim that you have the momentum — and momentum is the name of the game.
These folks are playing for a full-scale revolution among people too young to know better, and too impressionable to understand that reality exists offline.
Step three is to threaten everybody who&#8217;s a normal leftist that you&#8217;ll come for them, too. Then you let them cave to you. You make them feel insufficiently committed to the cause.
Dostoyevsky predicted this in a book called “The Demons” or “The Possessed.” Revolutionary characters in that book, who are supposed to be precursors to the communists, are amused about the possibility of cutting off 100 million heads, and one of the radicals says that it wouldn&#8217;t be hard to convince normal liberals to go along with them. He says I could make them go through fire. They&#8217;re not advanced enough.
The idea is that Mamdani is a thought leader; Sanders is a thought leader; Duvalier is a thought leader. The real problem with them is that they&#8217;re too committed. They just love truth and decency and justice too much. Sure, they&#8217;re not practical enough, but their principles are right; their hearts are in the right place.
Thus it&#8217;s not hard for the radicals to get Hakeem Jeffries or Nancy Pelosi or all the rest to say that it&#8217;s important to side with the DSA.
All you have to do is say, “What are you going to do? Cave to the evil Trump Republicans?”
If you force the normal Left to choose between Trump voters and the DSA, they will choose the DSA.
Step four: Rinse and repeat.
We&#8217;re all sitting here thinking, “Okay, fine. Let them try it. Let them try to run AOC on a national level. She’ll lose because the vast majority of Americans don&#8217;t believe this crap.”
But that&#8217;s not the point. If you lose, you just repeat steps one through three.
Again, the chief target here is not the Right — yet. The chief target right now is the normie Left. If you can attack the so-called normie Left here and you can destroy them, then you will take over one of the major parties. If you have a stranglehold on a major party, you have at least a 40% shot of winning national power, and then all you have to do is wait for your opponent to fall over face-first.
You can stroll into power no matter how much people write you off. Take over any party, and you are one step away from taking over the country. In other words, President AOC is not some sort of remote possibility. It is becoming quite possible.
And that&#8217;s why what happened last night in New York City is so important.
It affects you. It affects your kids and the country. If you&#8217;re not concerned, if you are not actually terrified by what&#8217;s going on in New York and the media&#8217;s willingness to play into it, the momentum is all with the DSA and the Democratic Party.
If you&#8217;re not terrified by that, it&#8217;s because you don&#8217;t understand the game.

GettyImages-2222802585

The Most Terrifying Political Takeover In America Just Accelerated

Leftists

New York City

Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was interrupted by far-Left anti-Israel protesters while defending an anti-Israel Senate candidate on Monday.
During an event for the National Press Club, a protester shouted about Israel while Sanders was defending Senate hopeful Graham Platner, who has a Nazi-linked tattoo and has been accused of abusing former girlfriends.
&#8220;Israel doesn&#8217;t need defensive systems! They&#8217;re a genocidal apartheid state!&#8221; a male protester shouted at Sanders. &#8220;And let me remind you, 59 years ago, Israel attacked the USS Liberty and killed 34 Americans!&#8221; The man was escorted out of the venue.
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;">  <iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/sgAiV01UqnCRRcLMcPOTtoHIdejbFZSOb?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=dfe2d892-c00e-4f34-a970-8e3ddc32aa2d&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=Bernie's%20defense%20of%20Nazi%20tattoo%20guy%20still%20isn't%20enough%20for%20a&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2Fe71122da-9c1e-4705-91b6-471906a07e6f.jpg&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
&nbsp;
At another point during the interview, a woman wearing a hijab stood up and shouted, &#8220;Israel needs to be stopped!&#8221;
&#8220;How dare you continue to support Israel when they keep killing Palestinians,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;There&#8217;s a genocide! Shame on you, Bernie, for not speaking up!&#8221; The woman was also escorted from the room.
Platner, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Maine, has previously claimed that he didn&#8217;t understand the significance of his tattoo, which was a symbol used by Nazi Germany’s SS. However, recent accounts reported in the New York Times seem to contradict that narrative.
&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna do everything I can to make sure that Graham Platner is the next senator from the state of Maine,&#8221; Sanders said at the event before the disruption.
After one protester was escorted out, Sanders turned his attention to Republicans to explain his support for Platner. &#8220;Republican super PACs have already lined up some $99 million just on TV ads to defeat him. Why is that? Do you think they&#8217;re worried about his views or what his relationships to women has been? I don&#8217;t think so. What they&#8217;re worried about is that he&#8217;s going to be a strong voice against oligarchy.&#8221;
The senator also connected Platner&#8217;s past controversies to having PTSD. &#8220;He&#8217;s [now] gotten his life together,&#8221; Sanders said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what is true or not true. &#8230; There are people in the United States Senate right now who are not saints.&#8221;
Sanders similarly dismissed Platner&#8217;s troubling background earlier this month, saying, “Is he a saint? I guess not. I don’t know too many saints here.”
Platner is expected to cruise to victory in Tuesday&#8217;s Democratic primary for Maine&#8217;s U.S. Senate seat after Democratic Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign at the end of April. Mills remains on the ballot, however, having never formally withdrawn, and has reminded voters that her name will still appear in the primary. The winner of the Democratic primary will challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in the November general election.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ex-platner-staffer-calls-bs-on-dems-excuse-for-nazi-tattoo-troubling-behavior">Ex-Platner Staffer Calls BS On Dem’s Excuse For Nazi Tattoo, Troubling Behavior</a>

Eating Their Own: Bernie’s Defense Of Nazi Tattoo Guy Still Isn’t Enough For Anti-Israel Radicals

Eating Their Own: Bernie's Defense Of Nazi Tattoo Guy Still Isn't Enough For Anti-Israel Radicals

anti-Israel

Leftist influencers appear to be bracing for another Graham Platner scandal, preemptively warning their fan bases not to buy into the next shoe to drop.
Platner is the embattled Democratic Senate candidate seeking to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). His campaign has been rocked by a series of personal scandals in recent weeks.
Out of the blue, left-wing political commentator Kyle Kulinski on Thursday claimed “The New York Times is about to run an anti-Platner smear&#8221; from a &#8220;right-wing operative.&#8221;
Keith Edwards, another left-wing commentator and strategist, said the Times story would be about <a href="https://x.com/keithedwards/status/2062557351928828070?s=20">Platner sexually assaulting a woman.</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
They’re about to say Platner SA’d a woman <a href="https://t.co/Gb2eUehJQd">https://t.co/Gb2eUehJQd</a>
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) <a href="https://x.com/keithedwards/status/2062557351928828070?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
“It&#8217;s in the story. WaPo racing to get it out as well. I&#8217;m hearing it&#8217;s more than one woman,” he said. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
It&#8217;s in the story. WaPo racing to get it out as well. I&#8217;m hearing it&#8217;s more than one woman.
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) <a href="https://x.com/keithedwards/status/2062591865073869125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
With questions and rumors swirling, conservative influencers pounced. 
“So the Democrats are going to defend Graham Platner during his sexual assault allegations while simultaneously accusing Susan Collins of committing a cardinal sin by voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, whom they opposed because of sexual assault allegations,” <a href="https://x.com/CarolineWren/status/2062588889240375502?s=20">GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren said on social media.</a> “This should be fun.” 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
So the Democrats are going to defend Graham Platner during his sexual assault allegations while simultaneously accusing Susan Collins of committing a cardinal sin by voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, whom they opposed because of sexual assault allegations….
This should be fun. <a href="https://t.co/Tv97NyvalH">https://t.co/Tv97NyvalH</a>
— Caroline Wren (@CarolineWren) <a href="https://x.com/CarolineWren/status/2062588889240375502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2026</a></blockquote>
The Bernie Sanders-backed leftist is working overtime to salvage his campaign after damaging revelations about his personal conduct. The Maine Senate Democratic candidate recently made a trip to Washington to rally establishment support as a wave of opposition research uncovers personal misconduct and raises questions about his suitability to serve in the U.S. Senate.
“I&#8217;m not confident of anything,” Sen. Sanders (I-VT) said when <a href="https://x.com/frankthorp/status/2062553965577838771?s=20">asked about potential new Platner revelations.</a> “I didn&#8217;t get any assurances, alright, we got other things to worry about right now. We&#8217;re worried about massive income and wealth inequality and a corrupt campaign finance system. Why don’t you write about that?”
Over the weekend, The Daily Wire exclusively <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-graham-platner-has-active-profile-on-predators-paradise-messaging-app">reported</a> that Platner created an account on the Kik platform, which the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has described as a “predator’s paradise.” The revelation followed another weekend disclosure that his wife, Amy Gertner, previously flagged that her oyster-farmer husband had exchanged sexually explicit texts with as many as a dozen women.
The one-two punch appeared to cross a red line for at least one Democratic senator. 
&#8220;Well, he lied to everybody. He said that there wasn&#8217;t any after his Nazi tattoo situation, and now there&#8217;s more and more other things, so he already lied about that,” <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2062573608350744741?s=20">Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) said.</a> 
“So I assume, you know, it&#8217;s like they say, for every ranch you see in Texas, there&#8217;s 50 that you haven&#8217;t seen. So I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s plenty, a lot of more ranches in P Hustle&#8217;s life.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
NEW: Senator John Fetterman slams fellow Democrat and embattled Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner following a string of damaging personal controversies.
&#8220;Well, he lied to everybody. He said that there wasn&#8217;t any after his Nazi tattoo situation, and now there&#8217;s more and more… <a href="https://t.co/bacJZN8fl8">pic.twitter.com/bacJZN8fl8</a>
— Fox News (@FoxNews) <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2062573608350744741?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2026</a></blockquote>

Senator Bernie Sanders Holds Fighting Oligarchy Event With Senate Candidate Graham Platner

Lefty Influencers Go Into Hyperdrive Ahead Of Next Graham Platner Scandal

Brett Kavanaugh

Maine Democrats

Scandal

Scandals

Sex Scandal

Susan Collins

On Monday, hard-left Vermont senator Bernie Sanders offered a suggestion that would cripple America, declaring he would introduce the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would “give the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America through a one-time 50% tax, not on profits, but on stock.”
“The creative work of millions and hundreds of millions of people has been stolen by the wealthiest people in the world,” Sanders ranted. “The time has come to reclaim what was stolen from us.”
He launched into his typical class-warfare argument: “No longer would the future of AI be dictated by a handful of big tech oligarchs while the rest of the world sits back and watches them do what they want. Secondly, it would guarantee that the trillions potentially created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us, not simply to make the richest people on Earth even richer.”
WATCH FROM TODAY&#8217;S EPISODE OF MORNING WIRE:
  <iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; border: 0; height: auto;" title="DW Player" src="https://public.dailywire.com/preroll-player/embed.html?playback-id=28KB9NSv9T9NC2RNItZyaMAizXANuiVB&amp;ad-tag-url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubads.g.doubleclick.net%2Fgampad%2Fads%3Fiu%3D%2F61914415%2Fdw.video.article%26description_url%3Ddailywire.com%26url%3D%26tfcd%3D0%26npa%3D0%26sz%3D640x480%26min_ad_duration%3D5000%26max_ad_duration%3D60000%26gdfp_req%3D1%26unviewed_position_start%3D1%26vpos%3Dpreroll%26output%3Dvast%26plcmt%3D1%26env%3Dvp%26vpa%3Dclick%26vpmute%3D0%26impl%3Ds%26correlator%3D%5Bcachebuster%5D" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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“The future of AI must not be decided behind closed doors in Silicon Valley,” he raged. “It must not be dictated by billionaires seeking to maximize their power and profits. It must be decided by workers, parents, teachers, artists, scientists, communities, and the American people.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I will soon be introducing a bill to give the public a 50% ownership stake in the largest AI companies in America.
This would guarantee that the trillions created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us — and block oligarch decisions that harm the American people. <a href="https://t.co/y3ERWOsRfs">pic.twitter.com/y3ERWOsRfs</a>
&mdash; Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/2061631422188626083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Here are the reasons Sanders is completely wrong, and even dangerous:
First, a one-time 50% tax on stock — not profits — would hit these companies just as they reach the public markets. Anthropic has already filed for an IPO, with OpenAI expected to follow this fall. Faced with the government claiming half their equity, investors would walk away from those offerings, collapsing the very valuations that would generate Sanders&#8217;s &#8220;trillions.&#8221;
Second, companies would reincorporate outside the U.S. to avoid classification as a &#8220;large AI company.”
Third, Investors who might fund the next AI company would redirect to other markets.
Sanders claims AI was built on &#8220;stolen&#8221; collective intelligence. This kind of argument could be used to nationalize any information-based industry.
Here is where Sanders’ position is dangerous:
China&#8217;s government spends funds to support its AI companies, such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Huawei. But because American AI companies are supported by private capital, this enables the AI companies to move much faster than their foreign competition.
And the military and intelligence applications of AI — drone autonomy, signals intelligence, logistics, cybersecurity — depend on the speed of the private sector to support them.
The core of capitalism is people taking risks. Punishing the innovators and risk-takers is essentially anti-American.
The AI giants in America are racing against China. If Sanders gets his way, his government fund would own a smaller stake in AI companies that either left for greener pastures or were outraced by competitors who didn’t have such shackles placed upon them.

Senators Sanders And Menendez Discuss SALT Deductions At Press Conference

Bernie Sanders Wants To Cripple America’s AI Advantage

Bernie Sanders Wants AI Wealth Fund That Would Cripple America's AI Advantage

Artificial Intelligence

Kevin O’Leary recently raised a stink when he <a href="https://x.com/CryptoMikli/status/2056365855508693008">suggested</a> that young people save money rather than spend it on dining out. More specifically, he said, “Can’t stand it when I see kids who are making 70 grand a year spending $28 for lunch. I mean, that’s just stupid. Think about that in the context of that being put into an index and making 8-10% a year for the next 50 years.”
Predictably, the internet was not pleased. Replies variously blamed boomers for making things up, boomers for driving up the cost of lunch, and boomers for destroying the economy through inflation. Which, okay, whatever. The cause isn’t really germane to his point, which is that reality exists, and the reality of spending a bunch of money on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsp2bC0Db8o">slop bowls</a> makes it hard to save and build wealth.
It also overlooks the fact that it’s really easy to cook simple meals and pack them in a lunchbox. Failing that, a used Walmart bag or even just a Tupperware dish will suffice. Seriously, you don’t need to eat a mediocre $15 burrito bowl every day to survive, particularly when you could, you know, make your own burrito bowl for much cheaper.
People eating out every day are not living it up, ordering a steak and a few martinis. They’re grabbing good enough food and eating at their desks, depositing a disgusting amount of crumbs in their keyboards as they pretend to pay attention to meetings. Mr. Wonderful is right to call them out. He’s trying to help. He’s making a very valid point about spending.
Let’s round down and extrapolate some numbers to prove his point. Perhaps $28 is a little high. One can eat inside Cava and tip for around $20. Let’s go on the low end and assume that someone works 47 weeks per year after vacation and holidays. That’s 235 days per year, which means spending would be $4,700 annually.
With just one year of brown bagging it, that would produce a return of $376. As such, bring on the avocado toast! But, actually, the thing about investing is that it isn’t gambling. You have to set it and forget it. By the end of year 50, that $4,700 would be around $221,000, and that’s only investing once. If you invested that $100 a week for 47 weeks per year for 50 years into an index earning 8%, by the end of year 50, you’d have something in the neighborhood of $2.8 million. You know what you can afford a lot of with $2.8 million?
Granted, you would still have to spend on food, so let’s look at how much it would cost per week to make your own slop bowls. You’ll want some protein. As of this exact moment, boneless, skinless chicken thighs in my area are going for $3.72/pound. Three pounds will cover five days, so we’re sitting at roughly $12 after tax. Throw in a 32-ounce bag of rice, and you’re up to $14. Add a few avocados at $0.60 each, and you’re up to $16. A few cans of black beans will add around $4. So, for roughly the price of one meal in Cava, you’ve got a week’s worth of bowls. It’s pretty Spartan, though, bordering on subsistence living.
So, let’s kick it up a notch, because this isn’t hard. Ovens exist. Skillets exist. Air fryers and Instant Pots exist. The internet exists. AI can be used for more than ridiculous memes and videos designed to fool boomers. I asked ChatGPT, for example, to put together a monthly meal prep plan based on Cava, Chipotle, and Sweet Green, including all ingredients and recipes. The costs jump up to $50 a week, but look at <a href="https://chatgpt.com/share/6a0e0648-63f0-83ea-83b7-51b0c67ba08c">how easily this can be done</a> and how much you can save to put in that index fund.
Of course, there are also peanut butter sandwiches and Ruffles, a meal I often took to my first corporate job. Tuna fish with fresh lemon, an avocado with salt, lemon, and hot sauce, and fresh cucumber slices with salt and lemon juice is another meal I’ve eaten many times while sitting at a desk. A grilled chicken breast can be substituted for the tuna. Crackers are optional for both.
Nice meals out are nice. They’re a treat for times when you’re craving something that doesn’t make sense to make because there are too many inputs, like an Italian sub. Or they’re for a celebration. Or because first dates usually don’t want to come to your house. Eating out isn’t a requirement for living; eating is.
So, instead of getting mad at O’Leary for reminding you that you’re not an oligarch, stack that paper and work on becoming one. Did Bernie Sanders stop at complaining about millionaires and billionaires? No, he kept working until he was a millionaire so he could save words and focus on billionaires. If Bernie can do it, including <a href="https://www.cornucopia.org/2016/02/foods-presidential-candidates-love-the-most-scrambled-eggs-mexican-food-and-more/">bragging</a> that he’s “pretty good on the grill,” so can you. Now get out there and start shopping, just make sure you <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/whole-foods-has-its-own-jail-for-shoplifters-just-ask-the-sushi-thief">pay for everything</a>.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin&#8217; Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cookin-up-a-story/id1624969096">here</a>. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4.

1950s SMILING MAN…

Eat This, Not That! — Make Brown Bag Lunches Great Again

Kevin O'Leary

Personal finances

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called on high-ranking Democratic Party leaders to crack down on billionaire and corporate-backed spending in primary races despite endorsing candidates affiliated with billionaire-aligned funding networks.
In a recent letter to DNC Chair Ken Martin and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the Democratic socialist and several Democratic senators called on the party to require all primary candidates “to pledge opposition” to such funding. 
Left-wing Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) also signed on.
The demand reflects Sanders’ longtime critique of dark money and his broader focus on reducing the influence of what he describes as “the oligarchy.” 
Political action committees do play an outsized role in American politics, thanks to a <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/08-205/index.pdf">landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling</a> allowing super PACs and corporations to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money. 
“If the Democrats are going to be honest and consistent in terms of their concerns about money and politics, they’ve got to clean up, in my view, their own house immediately,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/us/bernie-sanders-super-pacs-democrats-primaries.html">Sanders told the New York Times.</a> “That means getting super PACs out of Democratic primaries, congressional as well as presidential.”
Sanders’ purity push clashes with his own endorsements, as he has recently backed candidates tied to political networks that receive significant funding from wealthy donors.
Two of those candidates, <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1960828546898698364">Bob Brooks </a>in Pennsylvania’s 7th District and <a href="https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/2008240587900592331">Sam Forstag</a> in Montana’s 1st District, are supported by The Bench, a left-wing group devoted to “recruiting and supporting the next generation of Democratic leaders.” 
“Getting these campaigns off the ground is hard, especially in districts where Democrats don’t usually compete. That’s where The Bench comes in. We help strong candidates launch with the tools they need to succeed—from communications and digital strategy to fundraising and staffing—so they can focus on what matters most: talking with voters and winning tough races,” <a href="https://www.thebench.org/about/">the group states. </a>
An investigation by <a href="https://www.levernews.com/the-new-democratic-machine-and-the-billionaires-behind-it/">The Lever, an investigative news outlet,</a> dove into the financial network behind The Bench and a related group, Majority Democrats, describing the two super PACS as part of a “new Democratic machine” fueled in part by billionaire donors. 
The Lever reported that the new fundraising machines are “both tied to a single venture capitalist-turned-secretive Democratic adviser.” 
“Under this umbrella, the influence network is dispersing millions through a sophisticated nesting doll of political action committees (PACs), nonprofits, consultancies, and LLCs, while sharing the same big-money donors, political consultants, and often the same policy proposals,” the report said. 
Both The Bench and Majority Democrats appear “to be intervening in campaigns’ day-to-day operations to an unprecedented degree,” according to The Lever. Both super PACs have raised $8 million this year, mostly from tycoons like hedge-fund manager Stephen Mandel and Nvidia board member Tench Coxe, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/billionaires-dark-money-fuel-questions-ahead-of-2026-midterms/?ref=levernews.com">CBS reported this month.</a>
The Bench is also backing candidates in battleground districts facing crowded primaries, including <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/marlene-galan-woods/">Arizona’s 1st</a>, <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/shannon-bird/">Colorado’s 8th</a>, <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/matt-maasdam/">Michigan’s 7th</a>, <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/denise-powell/">Nebraska’s 2nd</a>, <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/cait-conley/">New York’s 17th</a>, and <a href="https://www.thebench.org/candidates/johnny-garcia/">Texas’s 35th.</a>
The Daily Wire reached out to Sen. Sanders&#8217; office for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.
DNC Chair Martin, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/us/bernie-sanders-super-pacs-democrats-primaries.html">according to the New York Times,</a> “couldn’t agree more” with Sanders&#8217; demands but said the entire party would have to step up and make commitments to rid dark money from primaries.  
“Real, permanent, pervasive change will require all of our partners — across the legislative branch and the entire Democratic ecosystem — to join together in this work,” he said.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Bernie-Backed Candidates Affiliate With Billionaire-Backed Groups

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