Summary
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Donald Trump and Elon Musk at a packed Arizona rally, accusing them of harming working-class Americans and promoting oligarchy.
Sanders denounced corporate CEOs as “major criminals” exploiting workers, while Ocasio-Cortez called for stronger Democratic leadership.
Rallygoers urged Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer after he supported a Republican funding bill.
The rally, part of Sanders’ “Stop Oligarchy” tour, follows criticism of the Democratic Party’s weak response to Trump’s agenda and features further events in Colorado and Arizona.
That’s true, absolutely, but also there’s only so much hype can do without actions alongside to make people feel empowered. Plenty of people go to protests, then realize they’ve just stood around chanting and feel like nothing was accomplished, especially after a few times in a row. So while rallying and gaining popularity is necessary, it’s not sufficient.
On the other hand, using those crowds to accomplish actions, even minor and safe, shows to participants that this is a group and a strategy that can accomplish things.
What would you suggest they do?
I would suggest they survey their target audience (when they’re in Arizona, ask Arizonans), see what they need the Dems to help with, and then see if they can use their power to help with it.
I know that’s vague, but one of the worst things I could do is arrogantly pretend I know the most important struggles of local working people. Sure, I could just guess, and some of those guesses may be right - perhaps establishing community aid organizations to reduce the impact of financial strain, creating or supporting rent/tenancy unions to help address housing crises, and labor struggles like union industrial action efforts to create better working conditions and reduce injury and death in the workplace, throwing their weight behind existing protests. But if something else is more important to a region (perhaps a local group able to solve a local problem is underfunded or needs an expert to assist), and a political party recognizes and addresses it, that is empowering to the citizens and helps build enthusiastic support for the party, rather than just seeing them as ineffective distant rich people.
The thing is, they DO already know the struggles of the working people. Of course they do surveys, data analysis.
The problem is that people don’t believe them. Their brainwashing forces them to automatically reject our message, even though our policies poll well across the board – when they are divorced from the messenger. Attach the name AOC to the idea universal basic income, suddenly it’s communism.
The outreach they are doing is some of the most important work we can do right now. The middle class must become convinced that these people are in fact committed to their well-being before they can be mobilized by them.
When AOC/Bernie have an “army”, like Trump does – people who will trust and believe them enough to show up when and where they ask them to, to fight for what we all believe in – THEN they can start taking very direct and meaningful action.
Think about what we are up against – money, law, and military. The only way we push through all that is with huge populist support.