Fighting Oligarchy Tour Devolves Into Fueling Hypocrisy Express

Democrats can’t even do socialism right.

America’s two highest-profile socialists once had real Marxist street cred. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was a young barista who steamed her way into public service. Bernie Sanders is a U.S. senator from Vermont with a vaudeville-grade Brooklyn accent. Endearingly rumpled, he appeared to embody the phrase “living paycheck to paycheck.”

These two joined forces early. Their Grandpa-and-Granddaughter-of-Government-Overreach shtick was almost touching in an old-timey way—much like flipping through faded photos of Truman-era coal miners, sipping soup from lunch-pail Thermoses.

They’ve come a long way, baby!

Now known simply by her initials, like FDR and JFK, the Gotham congresswoman recently was spotted flying first class on Jet Blue to a “Fighting Oligarchy” rally in Las Vegas. Another passenger, named Tracy, told The New York Post: “AOC is fighting the system one first-class mimosa at a time.”

There was a time when Sanders denounced “millionaires and billionaires.” But then his own rising net worth and burgeoning real-estate portfolio forced him to whittle that slogan down to just “billionaires.” During a 2020 debate, former New York City mayor and then-presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg quipped: “The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses.”

AOC once berated elite transportation’s gold standard: “For real, how many private jets do these CEOs need?” she demanded to know in 2023. “It is insatiable. It is unacceptable.”

AOC recently fled that position swiftly enough to break the sound barrier. Defiling Earth Day 2025, she and Sanders were caught this week traversing the American West on a private jet. Their Bombardier Challenger 604 reportedly cost $15,400 per hour to operate. This staggering sum would devour three months of a median-wage worker’s $59,228 annual salary.  

Extravagance aside, “Private jets emit an estimated 10 to 20 times more CO2 per passenger than commercial flights,” Terra Watts of Yahoo Entertainment observed. “In one five-hour private flight, a Bombardier Challenger can produce over 25 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of what the average American emits in an entire year.”

Sanders seems sanguine about generating more than his fair share of so-called “carbon pollution.” His Friends of Bernie Sanders campaign committee torched $221,723 on private-jet trips in 2025’s first quarter alone. Fox News Digital published Federal Election Commission records that show Sanders spending $1,902,855.79 on such flights during his 2020 presidential bid.

Even stalwart Democrats hate watching these limousine liberals become private-jet proletarians. One appalled strategist told The Hill: “If you’re going to make climate your brand, you better live it. The optics here are a nightmare.” 

Regardless, these social-justice warriors still hammer the uber-wealthy.

Fighting Oligarchy’s website excoriates “corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.” The site boasts that it’s “Paid for by friends of Bernie Sanders (not the billionaires).” Sanders said on April 15: “We will not accept a rigged economy, where working people struggle while billionaires become richer.”

On April 12, Joan Baez serenaded Sanders and AOC. “Ain’t gonna let those lousy billionaires turn me around!” she sang before an impressive crowd of some 36,000 in Los Angeles.

But this is just atmospherics compared with the fattest slice of flimflam in Democrats’ “Fighting Oligarchy” crusade. If AOC, Sanders, and the Left really want to torpedo oligarchs, they can start by returning each and every donation from these multibillionaires, whose net worth Forbes has certified. For its part, OpenSecrets.org tabulated their contributions to liberal super PACS and outside groups in the 2024 election:

• Michael Bloomberg ($105 billion net worth; $45,636,784 in left-wing political gifts)

• Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings ($5.2 billion; $9,298,669)

• LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman ($2.4 billion; $24,885,600)

• Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz ($17 billion; $50,000,000)

• Hyatt hotels heir and Gov. JB Pritzker, D-Ill. ($3.7 billion; $11,501,250)

Until the Democrat Left refunds its own billionaires’ political dollars and pledges never to accept another dime from these plutocrats, the “Fighting Oligarchy” juggernaut will prove as enduring as a private jet’s contrails.

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