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.
This is some actual leadership looks like. It’s not something that commes around every 4 years around election time trying to triangulate a voting block.
Save your praise until they actually win some victories. Marches and rallies are a good start, but they don’t necessarily translate into political action. Remember the women’s marches in 2017? The largest single day protest in American history and it did exactly two things: jack and shit. People went out, waved signs, went home, and Trump flipped three court seats and ended Roe.
Bernie in particular has always been great at turning out a crowd, but he’s never been able to turn that into political or legislative victories.
Here’s what I’d like someone to explain: suppose we have four (or even eight) years of president AOC.
Everything is going dandy. Palestine is recognized. Student loans are discharged. Maybe we’re even on track to get a public option. Etc. We get everything we want.
It seems like it only takes 1 (ONE) election cycle for Dems / Liberals / Progressives to stay home and be like “naaah, I just don’t feel it this year…Not gonna vote” to undo everything. Dems have had a slim majority in the house for the last 20 years. SC is one seat away from disaster.
We are only in moth #2 of Orange Fucks presidency and look at all the damage he’s done. We’re back to square one. Nothing changes. I’m starting to get blackpilled about the whole democratic experiment. Someone give me some perspective please… I just don’t trust the American voter any more. The only consistency is Maga will always show up to vote no matter what piece of shit is written on the ballot. Dems / Liberals / Progressives: we need to move mountains to get any political coalitions or clout to achieve anything.
You’re getting blackpilled because your scope of what liberal democracy is is incredibly limited and almost childish. Student loan forgiveness? Recognizing Palestine? Those are useless carrots dangled in front of you that do not materially change the country or even count as policies.
If you want to lock out authoritarians for another 100 years and have a real democracy you need to think bigger and grow up. Fundamental voting procedures need to be overhauled. The judiciary needs to be completely removed and then reinstated with additional safeguards against partisanship. Return to a gold standard and abolishment of stocks. Yes, the entire stock market. Quite frankly the entire constitution needs an overhaul to a degree where the old one should just be tossed into a fire and the flag changed afterwards to reflect all these changes to the country.
THAT is what is needed. To remove FUNDAMENTAL and ENDEMIC problems that have been plaguing this republic for 200 years now!
But instead of thinking about that, you just prefer some free money in the form of debt forgiveness. And that’s why Trump won and he and his successor will keep winning for the foreseeable future.
We must get rid of gerrymandering and the electoral college. Nothing will ever change until that shit is gone. Until then, rinse and repeat.
Getting rid of the electoral college would be a good first step. It would still be less than 1% of what needs to be done, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.
The boomers will die eventually, and with them, their antiquated ideas.
The world is now aware billionaires are a huge issue and countries around the world are taking more precautions to prevent what is happening to the USA from happening in their countries.
Religious fascists will always be an issue, but we can combat that with education, taxing churches, and persecuting people like Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk.
That’s why they all rallied behind Trump-- they know their days are numbered and the people want their fat heads in the guillotines.
The old boomer’s idea of conservatism has already died. Congratulations, you already got what you asked for. It was replaced by a technocracy. Or neo-fascism. Call it whatever you want, but that replacement is thoroughly supported by young people. Zoomers more than millenials.
Statements like yours incite me quite a bit, because I’ve used to say the same thing. “Boomers will die out soon and then we get to take over”. That was 30 years ago. It got worse, not better.
While you are right I do think that a good number are boomers, there are still young people grasping onto these ideas. I am a millennial and have worked with different people across many age ranges who are very conservative including my age or younger. Unfortunately this hyper conservative movement may not go away anytime soon in my opinion.
But I do hope that people in America and elsewhere like you said remain aware of the billionaire parasites that feed off the people. My hope is that some day the conservative ideals squeeze and overstep with their followers so much that they finally wake up and choose different ideals. I hope it happens soon and we can change the future of the world
Replacing the Citizen’s United court decision with actual law would go a really long way towards keeping corporate money out of politics.
Drop the quotation marks. They’re quite literally screwing us over.
Please flip the bird to the Democrats and run for president
ok that’s cool and all but what are they actually doing?
They’ve clearly demonstrated they have enough influence to draw a crowd. Plenty of activists dream of that kind of audience. Hopefully they did more than just state the obvious… mobilize them towards non-electoral action!
Rallying and engaging people in these states is absolutely crucial to any further strategy. There is nothing they can truly do to fight without tons of popular support. They are trying to reach some of the 90 million people who didn’t care enough to vote last year, to ask them to start caring.
It’s honestly the very best thing they can use their platform to do right now.
There is nothing they can truly do to fight without tons of popular support.
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.
From here the outside ot really feels that you need to start another party now. Like nice rally and all of that but the dnc has been screwing you over every fuckin time.
Edit: Or a representative parliament system? That winner takes all shit shouldn’t be…Buddy we don’t even have elections anymore. The voting system is no longer a relevant target.
The real solution is to change the party in the primaries.
As flawed as the DNC is, starting a new party will split the non-Republican vote and guarantee the GOP sweeps.
“Change the system!” Yeah - the last Constitutional ammendment that was ratified was in 1992 and had been introduced in the Washington administration.
I’ve heard this argument for 30+ years. How long do I wait for it to be true?
Can’t you change how the delegate election works at least at a state level?
Yes. The best thing we can actually hope for at thCompact. regarding national elections is the national popular vote Interstate compact.
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Or a representative parliament system?
Oh ok we’ll get right on that
Edit: it just doesn’t really help that these discussions always devolve into comments about “we have to get rid of FPTP” and all that. Yeah, no shit. There’s zero chance of that happening in this country at this time. Not without a complete breakdown of the country.
Not without a complete breakdown of the country.
Well… You are onto that it seems… So get the hopium?
Well, OK then.
Shit is going to absolutely fucking suck for everyone then. Not just here. But sure, let’s go.
That is because both GOP and DEM are corporatist parties. They will not cater to working class people because those people aren’t the ones throwing the most money at them. Left wing populism is nothing more than a tankie wet dream since citizens united.
First past the post ensures that any party that tries to splinter off dooms both themselves and the party from which they splintered.
What needs to happen is the democrats need to get tea partied.
Don’t splinter then. Amputate.
Different word, same effect
At this point there’s no risk since the Democrats can’t win anyway. Might as well deal with a couple split elections while the transition happens because Republicans win even if you don’t
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But how else will they keep sheepdogging everyone to vote for the billionaires?
I wish you Americans would deal with this crap before I end up getting drafted to defend my country from the orange porcine dementia patient.
What do you suggest Americans do? Say someone is a working class American who didn’t vote for Trump. They can barely make ends meet and have no power or political sway. What does that person do? I’m not trying to be funny, I’m simply interested in your take and perspective as a non-American.
I saw something recently that was talking about how individualism has led us to this situation. Everyone is thinking what they can do. We lost our collectivist spirit. We don’t think about what we can do.
An individual has essentially no power. A group does. We need to get better at organizing. This is made hard because we are so separated from each other, driving individually to work, then back home, largely to houses where you don’t interact with anyone else. We have basically no third places anymore where you’d typically organize. This situation was designed, and it’s going to be hard to get out of, but we need to get better at forming groups and organizing.
This situation was designed, and it’s going to be hard to get out of, but we need to get better at forming groups and organizing.
Nothing can be fixed until it’s understood to be a problem, and AOC from her stump speeches and emails seems to at least recognize the problem you’re pointing that American systems are essentially “massively scaled up isolation from others”.
Rugged individualism has failed us. It’s going to take a reclamation of collectivism to fix our problems.
They are powerless if everyone stops giving them power
The country is nothing without its workers
Of 10-20% of the population actively protested and actively tried to halt any functioning of society, you’d be surprised at how much you could get done. A that large mass of people is absolutely hell to control and subdue, and they certainly cannot arrest even a significant fraction of them. If the threat of protests of that scale were real every time they tried some fuckery, they would give in very quickly
The problem is that almost everyone thinks like you say, “what am I to do? I’m powerless”, and give up before even trying
I’d love leaderless movements to have a better track record than they do, but the reality is that I think they fail much more often than they succeed in this country.
People can’t just quit their jobs and occupy wall street forever.
I am aware it’s difficult, but my point was that you aren’t powerless
And while we’re at it, why don’t people in China have the freedom to speak out against their government and not have censorship? Maybe if they all just got together in a big public square and really protested, I bet that would end really well.
I mean, if they all did it, it absolutely would make shit happen
The whole issue stems from most people wanting to just keep their heads down
(The parent commenter was making a Tiananmen Square Massacre reference.)
I am aware
People in numbers have ALL the power. I know Americans have been trained for defeatism, but look at what protest, resistance, and strikes can do overseas.
If you have any spare time, even half an hour here or there, go to protests. Connect with like-minded folks.
If it comes down to that then I’m sure me and some of my fellow Americans will rebel and put the 2nd amendment to the test.
Face it. Your blaming dirt farming peasants that John the bastard is going to crusade your lands.
There’s literally nothing we can do about it besides die as well in most cases.
So instead of fighting now you’re just going to allow yourself to get drafted later? How is that in any way preferable
The British empire was brought to its knees by normal patriots to form the country you’re making excuses not to defend. Coward.
That is such a gross and fundamental misunderstanding of the Revolutionary War it’s almost comical. Probably most important to note is that the Revolution was bankrolled by U.S. oligarchs, and we received a lot of help.
That sounds like Russian propaganda.
While not that untrue, it’s a pretty bleak interpretation of history.
You could argue the founding fathers were oligarchs but remember… they toppled a monarchy. Doesn’t get more autocratic than that.
You could also imagine some “oligarchs” could see that they benefit from a more equal society.
At the end of the day, the founding fathers clearly support rebellion. Say what you will about them but they were not hypocrites. From the Declaration of Independence:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”
Rebellion is your duty.
Say what you will about them but they were not hypocrites
Sorry, you’re saying the people who were committed to making a Land of the Free that excluded blacks and women weren’t hypocrites? The Founding Fathers are some of the biggest fucking hypocrites of all time.
The only thing they hated is that they couldn’t be the British aristocracy. They absolutely were oligarchs and the vast, vast majority did not due it out of noble reasons. They did it because they wanted more profits.
Land of the Free that excluded blacks and women
As well as the indigenous and non-landowners.
U.S. oligarchs HATE competition. They conned the rubes of 1776 to fight the British monarchy so they could have a monopoly on graft in the colonies, the U.S. finally got pulled kicking and screaming into WW1 and WW2 because they hated the competition from Germany et al, and not out of any love for Europe. The support for Hitler among the U.S. ruling class was high and well documented, including Prescott Bush.
The Founding Fathers are some of the biggest fucking hypocrites of all time.
Slavery abolitionist and Founding Father Thomas Paine would agree with you. He literally called Washington a hypocrite (and incompetent) in an open letter.
One of the few “Founding Fathers” that I tend to like.
Okay sure. Just ignore the main point I was making. Sounds like a thing a coward would do. Have fun living under tyranny.
Your point is based on fundamentally flawed information. You can make the argument that Americans should engage in revolution! But I would point the example towards the great work of unions during the Industrial Revolution, rather than pointing to one of the many times the U.S. rose up to blindly support their oligarchs.
I’m not saying they didn’t have help. I’m saying you have to start it yourselves! No one is going to swoop in and save you. YOU have to do it! Only then will you start getting others to join.
If you tell yourself you’re powerless, then you are. You sit there doing nothing while making excuses for it.
YOU ARE NOT POWERLESS. Together you are strong. Get up and act like it.
I know it sounds fun to believe that friendship or togetherness can topple a nation that’s willing to drone strike its own citizens, but the truth is that the game is so heavily rigged in the U.S. that we have a lot of needs. We need guns, we need intelligence, and we need enough peer to peer outreach to actually organize. Without third-party assistance, it’s pretty hard to go beyond the local protesting we’ve already been doing.
Everyone likes to fantasize about Jan 6th without realizing there were big financial groups working on outreach, organization, and supporting travel to the capital to make that happen. There is no money for the left in the U.S. You really want to yell at us, at least donate to organizations like Indivisible first.
Hey man, whatever you need to tell yourself to feel good about doing nothing.
American here. Our boys are nearly draft age. This shit is terrifying.
AOC 2028
AOC 2025
Fr let’s go. We cant wait until 2028. AOC president and Bernie vice president (or something like that)? Would be a dream come true…
Ehh Bernie is getting too old. He needs to clone himself.
I agree. That’s why I was thinking vice, but 100% we need so many more people like him 😭
I wish there were more Bernies.
This is the duo we need
They really need to start their own party. The dems are dead.
We need more of this. Mad respect to ACO and Bernie for standing with us and telling truth about this administration.
Im tired of these rallies. What is the point? So poor Bernie can be ignored some more?
Have some balls and declare intent to secede. Civil War this bullshit. Only civil war can hurry up and get the clown out of the president seat.
Who are these two? Where were these people for the last 4 years?
Being muzzled by the DNC
Stumping for the second least likely person to best Trump in an election.
As if the screwing started 2 months ago and not 200 years ago
Yes, but you can see why it’s particularly relevant to bring up now. It has intensified significantly.
I gave him a ‘russian’ tag at some point so I doubt he cares.
Is everything that you disagree with Russian? You know you don’t have to answer that because That’s the typical response
I disagree with a lot in this world which isn’t Russian. I also don’t disagree with every Russian. Not pussy riot. Not Navalny, oh wait, he was murdered by putin…
Your username, I’m assuming, refers to the Russian empire in decay? Or are you a Putin supporter or apologist?
Why is this news to anyone? He has been screwing over working class people since his casino days. His great business plan was “don’t pay any contractors until they sue me in court”.
What a surprise he is doing the same now starting with government employees.
