Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are striking a chord.
The socialist firebrands have been criss-crossing the country, attracting some of the largest crowds of their careers. Their rallies are bigger than any other events currently being held by Democrats, and party figures of all stripes are taking notice.
To progressives, it’s nothing short of a revival. And many Democrats, including those with ties to the party establishment, are just breathing a sigh of relief that they might finally have found a rallying cry in the face of the GOP’s all-out control of the federal government.
“I’m so proud and so excited by every Democrat at every single level who is getting out there,” said Malcolm Kenyatta, a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee who has criticized Sanders in the past. “This is not left versus right. This is about flight versus fight.”
Sanders’ advisers said that two-thirds of people who registered to attend his recent events have never come out to see him or donated to him before. Progressives view it as a new opening to pull the party in a more populist direction.
But it is worrying some moderate Democrats who fear Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez could tug the party to the left at a time when it is rudderless and turn off swing voters in the process.
Matt Bennett, a vice president at the center-left group Third Way, said he is glad that the rallies are “giving people an outlet for that anger” against Trump. But he argued that “crowd size is the worst metric in American politics” and “it is important that they not repeat the mistakes that the far left has made that helped get us into this mess in the first place.”
For people in Sanders’ orbit and other liberals, the audiences he has drawn with Ocasio-Cortez mark a moment they have been waiting to arrive for years.
It’s not that Sanders’ well-worn speeches about the plight of the American worker and the rise of the billionaire class have changed. They haven’t. But the Democratic base looks like it has. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s victory, Democratic voters are furious at their own leaders, crashing their town halls and tanking their party’s approval rating in polls.
“There is a very important project of transforming the Democratic Party, or frankly bringing the Democratic Party back to its FDR-era roots,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who has joined Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez on their tour.
Sanders’ advisers said the tour is, in part, an effort to point a way forward for the Democratic Party. In a memo about the rallies sent to supporters, top Sanders aide Faiz Shakir argued that the country is in the midst of a “populist revolt,” and contrasted the independent senator’s popularity in recent polls to the low approval ratings of the Democratic Party.
Sanders’ aides said another, more immediate goal of his “Fight Oligarchy” tour, which has included stops in Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona and elsewhere, is to put pressure on GOP lawmakers in battleground districts to vote against cuts to Medicaid, tax cuts for the wealthy, and other Republican fiscal plans.
The Sanders team has compiled the names and email addresses of people who attend the events, and sent them messages via email and text encouraging them to call their members of Congress and pressure them to vote against the GOP budget blueprint. Sanders’ operation has also started to hire organizers in some of the states he has been visiting.
Ari Rabin-Havt, Sanders’ former deputy campaign manager, attended some of his recent rallies and said he talked to a number of people who did not back Sanders in the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections. Some told him that they had been dismayed by the lack of energy in the Democratic Party compared to 2017, when people marched in the street against Trump after his first victory.
“A lot of the people I spoke to were there because they saw two leaders who represented their desire to fight,” he said.
The tour by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, which is expected to include more stops in the coming weeks, also takes place as the progressive movement starts to look toward a post-Sanders future.
Sanders, who is 83, is said to not be interested in running for president for a third time in 2028, sparking anxiety on the left about what comes next. Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters have floated her as a potential future presidential candidate. Some Democrats have also encouraged her to challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the 2028 primary in New York after he enraged members of his party by voting to advance a GOP funding bill that prevented a government shutdown.
“People are looking for a fighter. That’s core to who she is,” said Lauren Hitt, a former top aide to Ocasio-Cortez. “She’s never been someone who’s afraid to speak up and speak out. And I think there’s a real desire for more leaders like this.”
And no matter what her future prospects, she is drawing audiences now from her perch in Congress — and alongside Sanders. Joe Caiazzo, a former aide to Sanders’ presidential campaigns, suggested that he and Ocasio-Cortez’s messages are resonating in part because of the alternative in Washington.
“We’re living this oligarchy right now,” he said. “Everything that Bernie believes and warned us about was on display at the inauguration when the oligarchs of this country sat in front of the Cabinet nominees.”
