In his Johns Hopkins address, Sanders offered a big-picture reading of this moment in international relations. For him, the ideological struggle of the 21st century doesn’t pit a liberal, democratic America against illiberal, authoritarian opponents, but instead pits liberal, democratic peoples everywhere against illiberalism at home and abroad. It’s a “worldwide movement toward authoritarianism, oligarchy and kleptocracy” against one toward “strengthening democracy, egalitarianism, and economic, social, racial and environmental justice.” In this conception of the world, President Trump is just one of many “demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to gain and hold on to power.”

These movements don’t emerge out of nothing. Sanders contends that they are fueled by the enormous disparities of wealth and opportunity that define global capitalism. This is the subject of his Westminster College speech — an attempt to link domestic economic issues to relations among states. “This planet will not be secure or peaceful when so few have so much, and so many have so little — and when we advance day after day into an oligarchic form of society where a small number of extraordinarily powerful special interests exert enormous influence over the economic and political life of the world,” Sanders said, adding later that “inequality, corruption, oligarchy and authoritarianism are inseparable.”

As for culprits, Sanders has a list. His Johns Hopkins address lists Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia as part of this global nexus of corruption and autocracy. He also singles out American billionaires like Robert Mercer and Sheldon Adelson for “promoting a shared agenda of intolerance and bigotry” as part of a “common front” of authoritarianism. And while Sanders was silent on Venezuela in these speeches, he has criticized the government of Nicolás Maduro in other venues, attacking its authoritarianism and suppression of democracy while rejecting intervention by the United States.

If these are the conditions of international relations, then the aim of American foreign policy should be to stand against this rising tide of illiberalism and oligarchy. For Sanders, the United States must create a global order that can constrain authoritarian states and bring democratic accountability to global capitalism. It must also embrace the cooperation necessary for tackling climate change and other transnational challenges, building “partnerships not just between governments, but between peoples” and recognizing that “our safety and welfare is bound up with the safety and welfare of others around the world.”

For this project to succeed, however, Americans must also strive for fairness and equality in their own country. “If we are going to expound the virtues of democracy and justice abroad, and be taken seriously, we need to practice those values here at home,” Sanders says.