The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has confirmed his interest in running for president in 2016 with a blistering prescription for mending America’s “broken democracy” that would position him significantly to the left of Hillary Clinton.



In a speech at the Brookings Institution that underlined both the vibrancy of his economic critique and his distance from the political mainstream, Sanders, a 73-year-old liberal firebrand who runs as an independent but caucuses with the Senate’s Democrats, said he was giving “serious thought” to mounting a campaign – though he acknowledged it would be a long shot.

“At a time when the middle class is disappearing, when we have grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, when climate change threatens not only this country but the entire planet, when you have a handful of billionaires in the process of buying the United States government and our political system, I think it is imperative that we have candidates who stand up for the working families of this country who are prepared to take on the big money interest,” he said.

Sanders insisted he would only run if he felt there was a realistic chance of winning and did not want to run a “futile campaign”.

“I also understand political realities, and that is when you take on the billionaire class, it ain’t easy,” he said. “So to do it well, we would have to put together the strongest grassroots movement in the modern history of this country, where millions of people are saying, you know what? Enough is enough.”

Openly ridiculed by the Washington establishment as someone whose campaign would be quixotic at best, Sanders nonetheless outlined policy ideas that are commonplace in many other wealthy countries – such as universal healthcare and free access to higher education – and claimed there was more support for his views than those of most of the potential Republican candidates.

He also echoed criticism of economic inequality increasingly made, albeit less forcefully, by a number of more establishment contenders.

“Today, the top one-tenth of 1% – that is the wealthiest 16,000 families – now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%,” said Sanders. “The top 25 hedge fund managers made more than $24bn in 2013 which is equivalent to the full salaries of more than 425,000 public schoolteachers. Anyone really think that is morally acceptable, economically acceptable? Is that really what our country should be about?”

Sanders, the former mayor of Burlington and the longest-serving independent in Congress, also argued that supreme court decisions to reverse campaign finance limits meant “billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase the candidates of their choice” and oppose economic reform.

“The billionaire class now owns the economy, and they are working day and night to make certain that they own the United States government,” he said. “Now, I know that people are not comfortable when I say this, but I want you to take a hard look at what’s going on, take a deep breath, and you tell me whether or not we are looking at a democracy or whether or not we are looking at an oligarchy.”

Sanders refused to say whether he would seek the Democratic party nomination or run as an independent but rejected suggestions that he would risk helping Republicans by running as a third-party candidate like Ralph Nader.

He also played down fading rumours of a similar challenge to Clinton from like-minded Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren.

“I knew Elizabeth Warren before she was Elizabeth Warren,” said Sanders. “I’m not sure that Senator Warren is gonna be running for office.”

The prospect of an even more radical challenge for the White House from someone seen as an outsider even in the Democratic party led to repeated teasing by EJ Dionne, a Washington Post opinion writer, who hosted the event, but Sanders insisted he remained optimistic that public support was growing.

“I think we have the capacity to bring change to this country and we have done it in recent years,” he said, pointing to social progress on race, homosexuality and disability that was once unthinkable. “I think what we’re up against now, by the way, is something tougher, though. Because you are taking on the greed and the power of a billionaire class, of the Koch brothers who are out to destroy social security, Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera, bring us back to the 1920s, and have the money to try to do that.”