Bernie Sanders Urges Unions To Stand Up And Use Their Power To Crush The Koch Brothers

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called on unions to rise up and join his political revolution to defeat the Koch brothers during a speech in Nevada.

At the Nevada State AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, Senator Sanders said:

Today, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the Koch brothers, the second wealthiest family in America, is prepared to spend some $900 million this election cycle — more than either the Republican cabal or the Democratic Party is likely to spend.

Why? What do the Koch brothers want? Let me tell you.

The Koch brothers and their billionaire allies don’t just want to cut Social Security, they want to eliminate Social Security; they don’t want to just cut Medicare, they want to eliminate Medicare; they don’t just want to cut healthcare at the VA, they want to eliminate the Veterans Administration; they don’t want to just cut the Postal Service, they want to eliminate it; they’re not only opposed to increasing the minimum wage, they don’t believe in the concept of the minimum wage; they don’t want to just cut the estate tax, they want to abolish it.

In other words, the Koch brothers and the billionaire class want it all. They want to give Americans the “freedom” to live in poverty working for $3 or $4 an hour without healthcare, without childcare, without a pension, without the ability to send their kids to college, and without any hope that their children will have a higher standard of living than they do.

And they understand that the major obstacle standing in the way of their extreme, right-wing agenda is the trade union movement.
That’s why they have fought so hard to eliminate unions in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and all over this country by ending collective bargaining rights.

And, that’s why I believe that we need to create a political revolution in this country of millions of workers, veterans, the elderly, the disabled, people of color standing together and telling the billionaire class that enough is enough! Your greed is destroying this country. You cannot have it all! You cannot continue to get tax breaks while children in this country are going hungry.

This country belongs to all of us, not just to a handful of millionaires and billionaires.

Senator Sanders was correct. For the Koch brothers to be defeated, unions are going to have to flex their muscles. Unions don’t have the money to match the Kochs, but they have something more important.

Union members are some of the best organizers in the country. The Kochs have the dollars, but unions have the ability to get out the vote.

Ordinary Americans can’t beat the Koch brothers in a dollar for dollar battle, but they can out vote the billionaires. The Kochs and other wingnut billionaires were routed in 2012 because regular Americans went to the polls and voted.

The political revolution that Bernie Sanders is leading is a movement of the people. Sanders has not only tapped into the anger of ordinary American.

Senator Sanders is giving them an avenue for action, and the action that the Koch brothers fear the most is millions of Americans coming out to vote on Election Day.