Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour event at Arizona State University, Thursday in Tempe, Ariz.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
TEMPE, Ariz. – Sen. Bernie Sanders has emerged as a leading voice for voters opposed to President Trump’s rapid push to dismantle the federal government — and frustrated with the Democratic Party’s response.
Sanders and his fiery form of economic populism attacking the growing influence of billionaires and corporations in politics are not new, but interest in both message and messenger has been renewed by Trump’s second term and the outsized role Elon Musk has played in cutting federal spending and pushing agencies to fire workers.
“Well, when I talked about oligarchy over the years, I think for some people it was an abstraction,” Sanders said in an interview with NPR. Now though, “people understand you have to be blind not to see that what we have today is a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.”
But the independent senator from Vermont said, at the same time, the Democratic Party has also turned its back on the American working class and suggested the party capitalize on this moment by championing policies that address things like income inequality, health care and climate change.
“If they do that, I think working people will come back into the fold,” he predicted. “If not, I suspect the party will continue to decline.”
Thursday, Sanders kicked off a western swing of his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with rallies in Las Vegas and Tempe, Ariz. joined by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The pair spoke to an overflow crowd of thousands inside and outside the Mullett Arena at Arizona State University about the threat they say Trump and his allies pose to American voters and the government.
“We will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy,” Sanders pledged, speaking directly to Trump. “We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on the working families of this country. No, you’re not going to destroy Social Security. You’re not going to destroy Medicaid. You’re not going to destroy the Veterans administration.”
Friday, Sanders’ communications director said more than 30,000 people showed up in Denver, Colo. to hear him speak, a larger crowd than any event during his two presidential runs.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a rally on Friday at Civic Center Park in Denver. Sanders’ communications director said the crowd numbered 30,000, a new record for a Sanders event.
Chet Strange/Getty Images
In the first months of Trump’s return to the White House, his Department of Government Efficiency effort led by Musk has seen chaos and confusionfrom widespread terminations of government contracts, federal workers and attempted wholesale elimination of agencies and departments.
While Democrats do not hold Congress or the White House, Ocasio-Cortez said voters still have power to push back against Trump administration policies that she says mask the true divide in the country between “those at the very, very top and their endless greed costing the lives of everyone else.”
“Ironically, the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” she said. “And that’s important, because the same billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country derive their power from dividing working people apart.”
The Democratic Party is unpopular, too
While a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds a majority of voters feel down about the state of the country and that Trump’s agenda is being rushed without considering its impact, that displeasure also extends to the Democratic Party.
An NBC news survey from last week finds the party’s popularity at an all-time low, driven by dissatisfied Democrats who want their elected officials to actively counter Trump’s agenda instead of trying to find compromise.
That sentiment was on display at the Sanders rally in Arizona, where volunteer Clarissa Vela said Democrats need to “stop biting their tongues and get loud” to tell voters what they plan to do about unpopular changes pushed by Trump.
“They need to organize themselves, because that’s all that the only way this is going to work,” she said. “They need to show their faces everywhere they go, and they’re going to be so exhausted. But at the end of the day, if we want to take back our democracy, that’s what we’ve got to do. No war was ever won by sitting on your couch. You know what I mean?”
After decisive losses in November, Democrats elected new party leadership to helm the national infrastructure but have no singular figure driving the response to the early days of Trump’s return to the White House, let alone a unified message.
Democratic voters — and some lawmakers — are unhappy with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to help Republicans avert a government shutdown after House Democrats argued against supporting the spending plan.
What comes next?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., right, takes a photo with supporters after speaking during a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour event at Arizona State University, Thursday in Tempe, Ariz.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
As larger and larger crowds attend Sanders’ events and more people call for a shakeup within the Democratic Party’s strategy, a recurring question has popped up: why don’t more Democrats sound like Bernie Sanders?
For one: Sanders isn’t a Democrat, though he caucuses with them. Sanders has been in Congress for three decades and is arguably the best-known progressive in Washington. Vermont’s politics and demographics are also more friendly to Sanders’ views than other battleground districts in the Trump era.
While other elected Democrats might not be sounding the alarm using the same rhetoric as Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, the rising backlash to Musk and DOGE in particular has seen some in the party begin to adopt similar framing to go after Republicans.
Earlier this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz spoke at an event in Eau Claire, Wis., one of many places where Democrats have held town halls in GOP-represented districts where constituents have expressed anger at Musk-inspired cuts to the federal government.
Walz took aim at Trump and Musk and implored Wisconsin voters to show up for a key state Supreme Court election April 1. He also mentioned ways the party needs to step up and regain voter trust on key issues.
“We’re going to have to have a conversation that Democrats, quite honestly, have skirted around, that America’s health care system is still incredibly broken in a way that doesn’t serve people,” Walz said. “It’s incredibly frustrating.”
For his part, Sanders is not surprised his longstanding message seems to be resonating with people across the ideological spectrum:
“Because if you’re a working class Republican, you don’t think it makes a lot of sense to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in this country and then cut the [Department of Veterans Affairs], go after Social Security and make $800 billion cuts in Medicaid,” he said. “Republican, independent, Democrat… very few people think that makes any sense at all.”
