Bernie Sanders is touting the support of a newly released team of celebrity endorsements that includes actor Will Ferrell, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
The list of VIP backers was posted online on Friday, a few hours after Sanders appeared onstage at a New York City event alongside actor Mark Ruffalo.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign, which has often cast itself as an anti-establishment movement fuelled by the grassroots support of everyday voters, referred to the celebrity backers as “artists, musicians and cultural leaders”.
Earlier in the day, Sanders was introduced to a packed crowd at the Town Hall fundraiser by Ruffalo, who has himself donated $825 to the Sanders campaign. Sanders is eschewing white tablecloths and ornate chandeliers that ordinarily provide the backdrop to presidential fundraising in favor of crowded, raucous rallies to raise money for his campaign.
In July his campaign said it had collected at least $15m, primarily in small donations.
Ruffalo said he was “in service” to the independent senator from Vermont, who is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
The actor argued Barack Obama’s presidential election seven years ago, and Donald Trump current lead polls of Republican primary voters, indicate the country thirsts for political change.
“The stage is set for a mass disruption,” Ruffalo said. “People are looking for something different – even in our brother Donald Trump.”
Sanders delivered a more than 40-minute address, where he laid out his agenda for the transformation he likes to call a democratic revolution.
This agenda includes a laundry list of progressive issues, including universal healthcare, a $15 minimum wage and the return of Glass-Steagall, the banking act which limited banks’ ability to partake in risky trading.
He did not mention Hillary Clinton, his main competition for the Democratic nomination, but instead attacked the Republican party for failing to address the interests of most Americans.
“In my view, the Republican party has an agenda, which is basically a fringe agenda representing maybe 5, 10, 15% of American people,” Sanders said.
He pinned the success of the Republican party on creating divisions. “For decades now, they have been dividing our people up,” Sanders said. “They have been dividing white from black, straight from gay, men from women, people born in this country from people not born in this country.”
Sanders also criticized the 16 candidate-deep GOP field for failing to discuss income equality or criminal justice reform during the party’s debate on Wednesday, which he live-tweeted responses to while watching it on television.
“I couldn’t take it,” said Sanders, who said he had to throw his phone away and stop watching after two and a half hours of the three-hour event.
“The only way we transform this country is when millions of people get actively involved in a political revolution,” Sanders added. “Welcome to the revolution.”
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