AOC and Bernie Have More Power Than They Think. They Should Flex It
The pair's 'Fight Oligarchy' tour is drawing huge crowds. Will they channel the momentum into a party unwilling to change, or will they use it to build something new?
Wherever Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez go from here will be seen as a long-awaited inflection point in American democracy. Or a foreseeable retraction back to what got us here in the first place.
Because the duo – long-disrespected and now begrudgingly acknowledged by the establishment – is electrifying historic crowds left dispirited and de-energized by that same dismissive status quo.
Over the course of just three days, more than 86,000 people in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada came to rally with the “radical” pair. In Denver, Colorado, Sanders boasted that 34,000 people attended – the largest rally he has ever had.
All in a non-presidential election year.
While the energy is now being celebrated by people of varied ideologies, it’s worth emphasizing that this exact mobilization was the premise of Sanders’ 2016 campaign. And his 2020 campaign. This level of mass mobilization could’ve happened before. One can imagine how different reality – for millions in the US and billions across the world – may have been.
But that was then; this is today, when the question now is: where will Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez channel all this voltage towards?
Independence
“One of the aspects of this tour is to try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party,” Sanders told the New York Times earlier this week. “There’s a lot of great leadership all over this country at the grass-roots level. We’ve got to bring that forward. And if we do that, we can defeat Trumpism and we can transform the political situation in America.”
The sentiment harkens back to what Sanders had said on Nov. 6, after the Democrats’ nightmare loss to Trump, again.
In an attention-grabbing statement, Sanders castigated the party for failing to meet the moment, and its heightened contradictions: disastrous wealth inequality; an explosion of artificial intelligence and productivity and innovation, yet no corresponding increase in quality of life; the wealthiest nation having no guaranteed healthcare; billions to Israel’s violence, despite mass opposition.
“Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?” Sanders posed.
“In the coming weeks and months, those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions,” Sanders concluded. “Stay tuned.”
And now here we are.