Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be the avatars of the anti-Trump resistance over the next few days as they cohost major rallies in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.
Capping a number of solo appearances by each of them around the country, these two prominent voices in the fight back against the Trump regime will appear together in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon, in Tempe, Ariz., on Thursday evening; in Greeley, Colo., early Friday afternoon; in Denver late Friday afternoon; and in Tucson on Saturday morning.
“Why are we doing that?” Sanders asked in a video announcing the tour. He answered:
We’re doing that because I believe that all over this country people are profoundly disgusted with what is going on here in Washington, D.C. They see our great nation moving toward an oligarchy, where Elon Musk and other billionaires are running the government. They’re seeing the Trump administration moving us toward an authoritarian form of society, usurping the constitutional responsibilities of the Congress, challenging the courts. They’re seeing Republicans in Congress proposing to give massive, massive tax breaks to billionaires, cut back on the needs of our veterans, cut back on Social Security, cut back on Medicaid, cut back on education, so that the rich can become even richer.
Sanders and AOC represent the fighting alternative to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who last week helped pass a GOP-led stopgap funding bill – embodying the Democratic failure to stop Trump’s ravaging of the government and constitutional restraints.
i don’t know how you expect people to engage with this without a definition of what you consider or don’t consider “fighting oligarchy.” as just one illustration: is AOC being so adamantly anti-Amazon that her district missed out on one of their megafacilities not, for example, pretty clear anti-oligarchy work? how about her supporting the Amazon Labor Union? and Bernie has literally a 40 year history of fighting for working class demands!
I think I was pretty clear I was talking about the rallies and not their voting records. To me it seems like these rallies lack a coherent goal; they don’t actually tell their followers to do something other than call one’s congressmen. The whole thing just invited the question “okay, what then”.
i think demonstrating popular opposition to a flagrantly bought and corrupt administration which is being visibly puppeteered by one of the richest men in the world–and tying that to Sanders’s longstanding crusading for the working class and how they are structurally oppressed by capitalism and the oligarchs who benefit from it–is a pretty coherent goal, and one that Bernie has been extremely open about in talking about the tour and why he’s doing it, but sure:
I see. “Demonstrating popular opposition” that’s… Uh… Something, I guess. It might have been less disappointing if there was no goal to be honest. That aside it’s still missing the final touch; what are people meant to do in and after attending these rallies? Just… Exist?
unless you’re actively doing political work yourself, i genuinely do not care (and nobody else should care either) what you think is useful or useless advocacy. you do the work, if you’re so strongly opinionated that how Bernie is going about this is the incorrect approach–but don’t complain that other people are doing things “improperly” if all you ever do is post or craft opinions. socialism already has far too many people who speak but do not act.
do you think that people become class conscious and politically aware of the necessity of socialism through their own volition? these rallies are political education and political mobilization–they are making people aware of the relation between what is happening in their country and the economic structure that facilitates it, and getting them back into being politically engaged in the first place (because many of them probably ended their political engagement in November, and are not used to caring about this stuff outside of the usual cycle of American electoralism).
quite simply: there will never be a mass socialist movement without people like Bernie doing stuff of this sort–there is no basis for socialism in the American public as a whole, and this is and has to be the first step in rectifying it. and once again: even if you have criticisms, i don’t think you currently have a right to voice them, considering you don’t sound like you’ve done a second of politically educating the people around you. if i’m wrong, feel free to demonstrate that–but bluntly you sound like a poster who is all talk but no action.
My longer reply got deleted before I could send it so I’ll just summarize:
First, I never said I was a socialist. Second, America doesn’t have the time to take it slow and educate people about the dangers of capitalism; Trump is already arresting critics of his regime. Third, this is a time of crisis; you can skip the stage of political education and jump straight to action (which aside from building class solidarity and confidence convinces bystanders to join in). Fourth, everyone has the right to voice criticism. Fifth, where I come from political education is both irrelevant (the price of bread already has everyone hating the ruling regime’s guts) and impossible (the government will literally just arrest or disappear you). Sorry I can’t pass your little purity test; now actually do something something so you don’t end up like us. To quote the article:
well then i definitely don’t care what you have to say in terms of criticism—if you’re not a socialist then the ideological framework from which you make that criticism is incorrect on merits and an incorrect basis on which to build a political movement which will ever resolve the crises you identify here. these crises are symptomatic of capitalism and a product of it;[1] you cannot separate the economic system out here, nor will superficial political and economic reforms ever prevent what is happening now in America and Europe from occurring again in the future.
you need only look at the Nordic and Finnish democracies—where genuinely social-democratic reforms still define many aspects of society and are load-bearing aspects of the contemporary political culture—to illustrate this. they still have massive problems with reactionaries, would-be authoritarians, and open fascists gaining political credibility; but this is unsurprising if you recognize that, at the end of the day, they still live in a hegemonic economic system which cannot exist without necessarily impoverishing some people to make others wealthy, and creating debilitating social and political inequities. you will never deprive reactionary politics of their oxygen and grievances until this is resolved, and socialism is the only economic system which can bring this about.
luckily, i am. most of my waking hours are spent doing behind-the-scenes political work, and i can also literally point you to some of the public-facing work i’m doing well in advance of our next elections. see, just as a sample, my Support 2026 and Oppose 2026 lists, or my For a “Bill of Rights” Package in Every State, County, and City which lays out an electoral strategy for American socialists to adopt and whose basic planks i’m pushing for within DSA in the lead-up to this year’s convention. don’t put your slothfulness and excuses for why you can’t do political work on me, a person actually doing political work as a volunteer day job because i want the things i believe in to be built in my lifetime.
and in the specific case of Trump, he is literally the stand-i for a “successful” capitalist to many people ↩︎
So… I’m not really pro-capitalism as you’d likely conceive of that term, but either way I’m criticizing tactics here. No matter what your preferred destination is you need to push the gas pedal or you’re getting nowhere.
I don’t think you get me. You likely don’t have until 2026. A lot of the infrastructure for a full authoritarian takeover is already in place.
If not wanting to get arrested and tortured (again, this is not a hypothetical) is slothfulness then… Uh… Okay?
i don’t know what you think “not really [being] pro-capitalism” means, but the fact that you can neither straightforwardly state that you believe in socialism nor elaborate substantively on your economic beliefs is an indicator you’re just some sort of radical liberal. and that’s fine–and radical liberalism is nice and all for this moment–but it is not a serious ideological system with credible tactics that will eradicate fascism or solve the inequalities and inequities that create the basis of right-wing authoritarianism.
okay, let’s suppose this is true: what would you like me as an individual to do besides what i am already doing. help organize a general strike? one is already being organized for 2028, and you can’t exactly spin up the infrastructure for one of those in a matter of months unless you operate under a very incorrect idea of how unions work. a strike is a massive financial, political, and organizational commitment–to say nothing of how a strike necessitates buy-in from the workers who engage in it (perhaps 40% of whom are in favor of the current administration, and would thus need to be convinced to organize against it).
or maybe you propose some sort of political violence? maybe firebombing a government office or assassinating an elected official? aside from op-sec considerations, those would be very stupid ideas to take up. bluntly: we’ve been there and done this. most left-wing political violence in the West does nothing to substantially harm the state, and frequently, it actually legitimizes authoritarian violence in the eyes of the public. the primary base of support for ideas like this are ultraliberals and ultraleftists who confuse the spectacle of political violence for meaningful political action–people who, in other words, think the most transgressive action they can take is the most correct one.
and if not these, what else? organize boycotts? people already do those. organize public marches? people already do those, to the point where it’s impossible to keep up with all of the ones being organized. organize sit-ins and other nonviolent protest? people already do those. i don’t know what you expect here that isn’t already happening.
if you aren’t willing to face meaningful political consequences for what you believe in, then what tactical or ideological advice could you possibly have that i should care about? the law has already pacified your politics and your convictions into uselessness–you have essentially stated you won’t fight for what’s right because it would inconvenience you.
this is also contradictory to what you’re arguing in the first place: how is this position of yours any different from Sanders’ supposed failure to meet the moment with tactics and radical politics? if fighting for what’s right means potentially being arrested and tortured then, yes, as unpleasant as such a commitment sounds you should be willing to be arrested and tortured!