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BERNIE’S ANTI-OLIGARCHY TOUR IS SHOWING DEMS HOW TO FIGHT  
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Zeeshan Aleem
March 12, 2025
MSNBC
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_ Sanders is doing some things that Democrats ought to pay attention
to. He 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.” _

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It’s a dark time for left-of-center Americans. The Democratic
Party’s reputation is in tatters, even with its own base
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Progressive activists and groups are protesting President Donald
Trump’s authoritarian seizure of the federal government’s
administrative operations
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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
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“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
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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
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“We are here to say loudly and clearly that in our great nation we
will not accept oligarchy,” Sanders said
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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
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“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
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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.”
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Democrats have voted
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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
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he was moved by Sanders’ declaration that “despair is not an
option.” In times like these, those words can be an essential
salve. 

_Zeeshan Aleem
[[link removed]] is a writer
and editor for MSNBC Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and
Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The
New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can
sign up for his free politics newsletter here
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_MSNBC [[link removed]] is a cable news channel that
broadcasts news and liberal political commentary. It is owned by
NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, and is headquartered at 30
Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, New York City. _

* Bernie Sanders
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* Oligarchy
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* Donald Trump
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* Anti-Fascism
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