Rich will keep getting richer, says Bernie Sanders -- unless US leaders have guts to take on powerful corporations

"If we don't have the guts to take them on, we'll continue to have plans, we'll continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer, and everybody else will be struggling."

In a fiery closing speech at the 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Florida Thursday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders said compelling campaign rhetoric and detailed policy proposals will do nothing to alter America's deeply unequal status quo if U.S. leaders are not willing to take on Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, and other powerful corporate forces standing in the way of progressive change.

"Nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry."

—Sen. Bernie Sanders

"I suspect people all over the country who are watching this debate are saying, these are good people, they have great ideas," said Sanders. "But how come nothing really changes? How come for the last 45 years wages have been stagnant for the middle class? How come we have the highest rate of childhood poverty? How come 45 million people still have student debt? How come three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America?"

The answer, Sanders said, is that "nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry."

"If we don't have the guts to take them on, we'll continue to have plans, we'll continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer, and everybody else will be struggling," the Vermont senator concluded.

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Sanders's closing speech was widely viewed as his strongest moment of the night, and progressives celebrated the senator's willingness to name the corporate forces invested in upholding a system that has enriched a small slice of the population while leaving most of the public with soaring healthcare costs, stagnant incomes, and a polluted environment.