It’s a dark time for left-of-center Americans. The Democratic Party’s reputation is in tatters, even with its own base. Progressive activists and groups are protesting President Donald Trump’s authoritarian seizure of the federal government’s administrative operations, but their crowds lack the size and vigor of his first term.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has stepped into the void with a national “Stopping Oligarchy” tour. He’s visiting Republican-held districts in swing states and red states, and he’s drawing big and energetic crowds with little lead-up time. “He drew a crowd of 4,000 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday night. He faced another 2,600 or so the next morning a few hours away in Altoona, Wisconsin, a town of less than 10,000 residents,” The Associated Press reports. “And his crowd of 9,000 in suburban Detroit exceeded his own team’s expectations.”
Even during a time of rock-bottom morale on the left, there remains an appetite for combative and progressive populism.
The popularity of Sanders’ tour is an indicator that, even during a time of rock-bottom morale on the left, there remains an appetite for combative and progressive populism. And while Sanders’ speeches sound a lot like the ones he’s delivered his entire career, their enduring popularity suggest a model the Democratic Party establishment needs to emulate to pull out of its tailspin.
Sanders’ anti-oligarchy tour is a kind of return to form for the independent and democratic socialist. Between the end of his 2020 presidential campaign and Joe Biden’s departure from the White House, Sanders was absorbed into the Democratic Party establishment and served primarily as a surrogate for Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Now he’s looking quite a lot like he did as an insurgent presidential candidate. That isn’t to say that Sanders has White House ambitions in 2028 — he’s 83 years old and says his current term is likely his last in the Senate. But he is returning to what he knows best: gravitating toward the people and stoking grassroots energy.
There are a few things Sanders is doing well that Democrats in Washington ought to pay attention to. Sanders is using the theme of oligarchy and class domination as an overarching message. “We are here to say loudly and clearly that in our great nation we will not accept oligarchy,” Sanders said to the roaring crowd in Kenosha last week. “We will not accept authoritarianism. We will not accept kleptocracy. We’re here to make it clear that we are going to fight back and we are going to win.”
The focus on class is common sense, given the Democrats’ struggles on economic messaging. It's also necessary for Democrats to recapture their working-class base and reverse the growing sense among voters that they lack a universal economic vision. As Politico reports, “A majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are 'more focused on helping other people than people like me,' according to an internal poll conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research.”
In contrast to some Democrats, Sanders isn’t looking down the list of marginalized groups that Democrats support and throwing them under the bus to win over conservatives. Instead he’s calling attention to Trump’s alliance with enemies of the working class as an issue that transcends party affiliation.
There’s also something to be said about giving the people a pep talk. Sanders is repudiating Democratic strategist James Carville’s advice to the party to “roll over and play dead.” Some Democrats have voted in favor of GOP-led legislation on immigration, backed Trump’s Cabinet nominees and declined to use all the procedural maneuvers at their disposal to slow down the Republican agenda. That in turn has alienated some of the already-disenchanted Democratic Party base.
But Sanders is not trying to keep his head down and ride out the storm. He’s trying to get people fired up and feeling like they have agency. A young farmer who attended Sanders’ Kenosha speech told Vanity Fair that he was moved by Sanders’ declaration that “despair is not an option.” In times like these, those words can be an essential salve.
