We Didn’t Start the Fire

Choosing Democracy in an Age of Greed

It started with a speech. Not a rallying cry from a campaign stage or a carefully scripted soundbite, but a full-throated warning delivered on the Senate floor. On March 26, 2025, Bernie Sanders stood up and said what so many of us have been feeling but haven’t heard echoed in power: that we are living in an oligarchy disguised as democracy. That billionaires are writing the rules while the rest of us try to keep the lights on. That the foundations of our democracy—economic, constitutional, human—are buckling under unchecked greed.

This wasn’t just rhetoric. It was a gut-check. And paired with the “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies he and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been holding across the country—packed stadiums, working-class crowds, people tired of being spoken for—it feels like something is shifting. Or maybe it's more accurate to say: the dam’s been cracking for years—and now we’re finally hearing the water roar through.

I didn’t need Bernie Sanders to tell me the system is broken—but hearing him say it with that much clarity reminded me just how far we’ve drifted from the promise of American democracy.

In his blistering speech, He named what too many politicians tiptoe around: we are no longer a functioning democracy—we are an oligarchy with good PR. The kind where billionaires slash programs they’ll never need while the rest of us learn to live with less and call it freedom.

He described what he called the “two Americas,” and if you’ve paid rent this year, tried to fill a prescription, or dared to hope for a public education that doesn’t bankrupt teachers—you already know what he meant.

One America lives behind gates and flies around in private jets. It owns islands and space shuttles and buys its way into every branch of government. The other America skips doctor visits because the deductible is too high. It budgets for groceries like it’s a math exam. It hopes the check clears before the car breaks down. This isn’t a metaphor. It’s real life for the vast majority of Americans.

I’ve seen teachers in my community take second jobs. A police officer I spoke to spends $20,000 a year on child care. Seniors are expected to live on $15,000 annually. These aren’t isolated stories—they’re a chorus. People in grocery store aisles, watching the price of eggs rise again, doing mental math in the checkout line while another billionaire launches themselves into space. They’re not just watching prices rise—they’re watching the ceiling on their choices fall.

And now, with figures like Elon Musk slashing public programs while lobbying for trillion-dollar tax breaks, the cruelty isn’t even quiet. Efficiency is the excuse. What we’re seeing is a hostile takeover—billionaires hollowing out public systems so they can profit off what remains. This isn’t reform. It’s pay-to-play democracy—where access goes to the highest bidder.

What disturbed me most in Sanders’ speech wasn’t just the statistics—it was how normal they’ve started to feel. We’ve come to accept that democracy means choosing between two candidates funded by the same class of donors. That “public service” can mean dismantling public infrastructure. That criticism of power is punished—not answered—but punished. Suing media outlets, intimidating judges, undermining the Constitution: these aren’t policy disagreements. They’re the scaffolding of authoritarianism.

Sanders called it what it is: a government where economic power has become political power. And both parties have played along. If Republicans sell off the government, too often Democrats lease it—at a discount. Billionaires hedge their bets on both sides because money doesn’t have a party. It has an agenda.

And still, somehow, the American people keep showing up. They vote, care, organize. They gather warmth in the cold. Sanders said he’s seen the anger in the streets—in Arizona, Vermont, Wisconsin—and he’s right.

This isn’t apathy. It’s exhaustion.
It’s the look you give when you’ve been gaslit for years—when you’re standing in the middle of a dumpster fire, and someone finally says, “No, you’re not imagining it. It really is burning.”

I used to think voting was enough. That if I picked the lesser evil, I’d done my part. But these days, I wonder if that belief—that choosing the least harmful option and walking away—quietly built the very system I now fear. Maybe the rot began in all those quiet elections I skipped, thinking nothing would change—and then wondering how things got so far from what I believed this country could be.

We still live in two Americas. But one of them is rising.

We’re standing at a crossroads. The choice isn’t just about the next election. It’s about whether we accept a future run by a handful of men who already have everything—or whether we fight for something more collective, more human, more just.

This greed—it’s not just human nature. It’s been designed, brick by brick. And what’s built can be dismantled. If greed is an addiction, maybe solidarity is the antidote. Because democracy can’t survive on paper alone—it lives or dies in the spaces between us.

Sanders reminded us we’ve been here before. We’ve faced monarchies, fascism, recession—and we’ve fought back. Not as two parties, but as people. We can do it again. But only if we stop mistaking passivity for peace. Only if we stop pretending that oligarchy with better branding is democracy.

So yes, it’s burning. But maybe that’s not where the story ends.
Maybe the question isn’t just who holds the match—but who’s willing to stand in the light, even when it burns.
We didn’t start the fire. But we still get to decide what rises from the ashes.