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Bernie Sanders rally in LA draws thousands to protest Trump: ‘We can’t just let this happen’
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here tour has been drawing massive crowds. Aided by the progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the team set the record in Tempe, Arizona, for biggest-ever political rally in that state three weeks ago. In Denver, Colorado, more than 34,000 people showed up – a career-high crowd for the 83-year-old Sanders. Saturday in Los Angeles saw another record: at least 36,000 people packed a downtown park.A host of musical acts kicked off the high-energy event, including the indie rock band The Red Pears, Maggie Rogers, Indigo de Souza, and legends Baez and Young.View image in fullscreenOn a perfect LA day with a gentle breeze and blue sky, Young, wearing all black, performed for the crowd before introducing Ocasio-Cortez, who was met with the wild applause usually reserved for a rock star.Ocasio-Cortez, 35, told the crowd at Gloria Molina Grand Park – a space named after the trailblazing Angeleno often credited for paving the way for women and Latinos in LA politics – that “power, greed and corruption are taking over our country like never before”. She named some California lawmakers who have supported recent Trump policies, including Bakersfield representative David Valadao and representative Young Kim of Orange county.The Raise gospel choir sang out “power to the people”, and Sanders took the stage. “We are living in a moment where the Republican party to a large degree has become a cult of the individual, obeying Trump’s every wish,” Sanders told the crowd, adding that the Trump administration is now “plotting how they can give $1.1tn in tax breaks to the rich”.The politician’s critique of the administration – and the corrupting influence of big money and billionaires in US politics – lasted more than 40 minutes. The message has taken on a new resonance in the second Trump administration, as Americans have watched Elon Musk take a chainsaw to the federal government and threatening popular safety-net programs like social security and Medicare.View image in fullscreenThese are the issues that brought out Cindy and Victor Villanuevo. Cindy has battled multiple sclerosis for the past decade. “I’m here because I’m disgusted about what Trump is doing to science. It’s a disgrace. When you cut funding, there’s no hope for any of us,” said the Buena Park mother.Her sister, Rose Matthews, a retired teacher, is concerned about social security, for people who work at veterans’ affairs and for veterans’ benefits. “I know the folks at the Long Beach VA very well because my husband battled ALS for four years,” she said. “The work they do with the vets is incredible and much needed. Now I’m worried that’s going away. We can’t just let this happen.”Ali Wolff and Myylo Lewis took the 94 bus from Silver Lake to attend. They said the bus had been packed with Bernie supporters – and it felt good.“It’s terrifying what’s been happening,” said Wolff. “It’s a relief just being here with so many like-minded people.”Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie are the “closest thing to a version of America you actually want to live in”, said Lewis.View image in fullscreenSanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, launched the tour in late February, offering Democratic voters an outlet for their fury and grief at a moment when most of their leaders in Washington appeared disoriented by the speed of Trump’s second-term power grabs. The Vermont senator has held events in big cities like Denver and Phoenix, while also targeting Republican-held districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, as Democrats contemplate a path back to power in 2026.Ocasio-Cortez joined Sanders for part of his tour last month, raising questions about her political aspirations and the future of the progressive movement he has been building since before she was born. On the stage in Los Angeles, progressive congressmembers Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Ro Khanna of California, as well as many union leaders representing teachers, nurses, longshoremen and healthcare workers all addressed the crowd. Eunissess Hernandez, who represents LA’s first city council district, gave a particularly powerful address, saying the Trump administration was trying to divide people and get them to blame each other for their problems instead of blaming the people who are “actually profiting from our pain”.Sanders’s western tour will continue with stops in Utah, Idaho and Montana. The tour will return to California on Tuesday for events in Folsom and Bakersfield, a Republican stronghold, which has one of the highest levels of Medi-Cal enrollments in the state. The agricultural community, which is in Kern county, was also the locale of a January immigration raid that resulted in 78 arrests many contend were a result of shocking and unlawful racial profiling. Sanders railed against the raid, describing it as the US government “disappearing people”. More
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‘They chose the billionaire’: Tim Walz returns to Minnesota as part of redemption tour
Tim Walz is trying to regroup to help Democrats fight the Trump administration, but he’s still trying to figure out why he and his party lost in November.“I knew it was my job to try and pick off those other swing states, and we didn’t,” he said about the 2024 election. “I come back home to lick my wounds and say, goddamn, at least we won here.”Walz was speaking on Saturday in Rochester, Minnesota – in the district he once represented in Congress, as part of his soul-searching tour around the country after the Democrats’ bruising 2024 defeat.Walz’s tour is part brand redemption, part Democratic catharsis, part rally. He hasn’t ruled out a 2028 run for president, though neither have most 2028 hopefuls.“I thought it was a flex that I was the poorest person and the only public school teacher to ever run for vice-president of the United States,” Walz told a crowd of roughly 1,500 people that filled an auditorium and spilled into an overflow room on a Saturday morning. “They chose the billionaire. We gotta do better.”Many in the crowd remembered when Walz represented them in Congress, and asked him how he would fight against the dismantling of the Department of Education, defend the rights of trans people and build a bigger tent for Democrats.Walz’s town hall was one of many large Democratic events in recent days, proving there’s growing energy for a forceful resistance to the US president. Much bigger crowds have turned up to see Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a “stop oligarchy” tour. People have also filled town halls around the country to tell their elected officials how they’re affected by government cuts and policy changes. But where the energy goes remains to be seen.It’s clear Walz still captures the attention of a rightwing outrage machine. He chided Fox News and other pundits during an appearance on Gavin Newsom’s podcast, saying they made fun of him for drinking from a straw and don’t think he’s masculine enough, but he could “kick their ass”. Fox host Jesse Watters then railed against the clip and detailed things men shouldn’t do, like eat soup in public.Trump called Walz a “loser” on Friday. “He lost an election. He played a part. You know, usually a vice-president doesn’t play a part … I think he was so bad that he hurt her.”At a prior rally in Wisconsin, Walz mocked Tesla, saying he watches the falling stock to get a “little boost” each day, leading to condemnation on the right. “Sometimes when I need a little boost, I look at the @JDVance portrait in the White House and thank the Lord,” Musk wrote on Twitter/X.At the Saturday town hall, Walz took aim at Musk. “This guy bugs me in a way that’s probably unhealthy,” he said.“They’re all butthurt about the Tesla thing, but they don’t care about the disrespect they have shown to employees at the Minneapolis VA who care for our veterans, and they fire them. They don’t care,” Walz said.Walz held the rally in a region of Minnesota where the congressman, Brad Finstad, is one of many Republicans who haven’t held in-person town halls. Republicans who have hosted events in recent weeks have experienced heated pushback. Signs outside the venue, John Marshall high school, showed Finstad’s face in black and white and said “Missing Congressman”. Finstad told the Rochester Post-Bulletin he wouldn’t commit to hosting an in-person event, but had held tele-town halls.“I find it funny because Governor Walz, in the seven years of being governor, has not held one town hall, and now he’s claiming to be the king of town hall,” Finstad said. “This is a Democrat-hosted political comeback for Governor Walz. Well, let him scream at the bully pulpit.”During the rally, Walz said Finstad should take notice. “If you’re a sitting member of Congress in the biggest city in your district, and you see 1,300 people on a nice Saturday coming out here, it catches your attention, trust me,” he said.Thinking about the path forward for Democrats, Walz acknowledges he doesn’t have a solid answer, but said Democrats need to do better at articulating their values and the ways their policies would improve people’s lives. He likes the idea of a “shadow cabinet”, borrowing a UK tradition where opposition parties have their own versions of cabinet members to speak out against the ones in power.He also said Democrats shouldn’t let Republicans capture the narrative on issues like trans rights.“To be honest with you, there’s a lot of people who are squishy about this and are willing to say, look, it’s a pretty small number of people,” Walz said. “That’s a dangerous road to go down, because pretty soon you’re part of the group that’s a pretty small number of people.”He sees the Trump administration as an “existential threat” that will chip away at programs such as social security, but wonders how Democrats aren’t able to message these popular, middle-class issues against oligarchs. “How did this happen?” he pondered.Once Democrats get back in office, it’s time to shore up the programs they want to protect, he said.“Donald Trump is on his revenge and retribution tour,” he said. “Well, I said I’ll be on one, too. I’m going to bring revenge just raining down on their heads with their neighbors getting healthcare. They’re gonna rue the day when we got re-elected because our kids with special needs are going to get the care that they need.” More
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Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the courage to brawl for the working class
Bernie Sanders is not running for president. But he is drawing larger crowds now than he did when he was campaigning for the White House.The message has hardly changed. Nor has the messenger, with his shock of white hair and booming delivery. What’s different now, the senator says, is that his fears – a government captured by billionaires who exploit working people – have become an undeniable reality and people are angry.“For years, I’ve talked about the concept of oligarchy as an abstraction,” Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats and twice sought the party’s presidential nomination, said in an interview after a joint rally in Tempe, Arizona, with the New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Vermont senator recalled Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the three wealthiest people on the planet – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg – were seated in front of his cabinet nominees in what many viewed as a shocking display of power and influence.“You gotta be kind of blind not to understand that you have a government of the billionaire class, for the billionaire class, by the billionaire class,” he said. “And then, on top of all that, you’ve got Trump moving very rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society.”Two months after Trump was sworn in for a second term, Democratic activists and an increasingly vocal chorus of voters say they are terrified, angry and desperate for leadership. In something of a third act, the 83-year-old democratic socialist is stepping in to fill the void.But his aim is not only to revive the anti-Trump resistance movement – he wants a bottom-up overhaul of the American political system.“It’s not just oligarchy that we are going to fight. It’s not just authoritarianism that we’re going to fight,” Sanders told an arena full of supporters at Arizona State University on Thursday night. “We will not accept a society today in which we have massive income and wealth inequality, where the very rich have never done better while working families are struggling to put food on the table.”For weeks, voters have been showing up at town halls to vent their alarm and rage over the president’s aggressive power grabs and the Musk-led mass firings of federal workers. But they are also furious at the Democratic leadership, charging that their party spent an entire election season warning of the threat Trump posed to US democracy, and yet now appeared either unable or unwilling to stand up to him.At the rally in Tempe, several attendees demanded more defiance.“Them just holding paddle boards up and staying quiet or wearing pink blazers is not enough,” said Alexandra Rodriguez, 20, of Mesa, referring to the Democrats’ acts of protest during Trump’s address to Congress earlier this month. “I think they do need to be willing to go to extremes.”They also expressed outrage at the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, who, faced with what he called a “Hobson’s choice” between supporting a Republican-authored funding bill or inciting a government shutdown, wrangled a coalition of Democrats to pass the spending measure. The decision has unleashed a torrent of anger from his party’s base, forcing him to postpone a book tour as he defends himself against calls to step down as leader. On Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s western tour, the New York representative was interrupted by intermittent calls to “Primary Chuck!”“This isn’t just about Republicans, either. We need a Democratic party that fights harder for us, too,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Arizona, drawing some of the loudest, most sustained applause of the evening. She urged the crowd to help elect candidates “with the courage to brawl for the working class”.Democrats “absolutely need to get stronger”, Audree Castro, 52, said as she waited with her mother and aunt to enter the venue on Thursday night. “I want my democracy back.”In recent weeks, Democrats have sought to capitalize on the bubbling backlash to the disorienting opening months of Trump’s second term. Following Sanders’ lead, many Democrats are hosting town halls in Republican-held districts to draw attention to Musk’s slash-and-burn cost-cutting project and Republican proposals that would almost certainly result in cuts to social safety net programs.Robbie Lambert, 70, a retired special education teacher, said keeping up with the turmoil in Washington was beginning to feel like a full-time job. Just that afternoon, Trump had signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education.“You feel helpless. It’s like, what can we do?” said Lambert, who was on vacation in Arizona and decided she had to attend the Tempe rally. “Coming together, talking with people here, makes you feel like you’re doing something.”The Arizona representative Yassamin Ansari, who attended Thursday’s rally, said she had been hearing similar calls for action from constituents across her district this week, including at an event with LGBTQ+ business leaders and an at-capacity town hall, where several people shared that it was the first political event they had ever attended.“People are really fed up,” Ansari said in an interview.For now, at least, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are the most prominent Democrats offering both a strategy to confront Trump and an alternative vision for the party.In 2024, Democrats lost support among young people and Latino voters – core constituencies – and recent polling found that the party’s popularity is at an all-time low. Few Democrats disagree that their party needs to course-correct, but how and to what degree remains a topic of intense debate.Supporters say the success of Sanders’ tour, which began last month in Omaha, Nebraska, is a clear sign that Democrats want the party to aggressivelyfight what they view as Trump’s encroaching authoritarianism – not “roll over and play dead”, as veteran strategist James Carville suggested in an op-ed. They also view it as an endorsement of Sanders’ policy agenda, arguing that his brand of economic populism is the right match for this turbulent political moment.According to a memo by Sanders’ longtime adviser, Faiz Shakir, the senator has raised more than $7m from more than 200,000 donors since February, and is drawing crowds 25% to 100% larger than at the height of his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. On Friday, more than 30,000 people attended a rally in Denver – the largest audience Sanders has ever drawn, his team said.“We’re living in an intensely populist moment right now,” Shakir wrote. “It’s not ‘left versus right’. It’s ‘very top versus everyone else’.” The title of his memo: “It’s a populist revolt, stupid.”The joint appearance by the 35-year-old New York representative and the Vermont senator who she has said inspired her to run for office naturally raised the question: is Ocasio-Cortez the heir to the progressive movement Sanders has been building since before she was born? Several rally-goers in Tempe believed she had the potential to lead the party – and perhaps even the country.“When AOC has something to say, I listen,” said Jonas Prado, 32, a first responder.“I hope she’s the first woman president,” said Norman Ellison, 60, a mechanical engineer.There was also a tinge of wistfulness in the arena. Supporters dressed in old campaign t-shirts and hats and one person sported a pin that said, “Bernie was right.”Sanders, who has all but ruled out a third run for president, was in vintage form, delivering a blistering, 50-minute critique of the “top 1%” with the moral ferocity that has long endeared him to legions of politically disaffected supporters.The senator named names, accusing executives from the fossil fuel, insurance and pharmaceutical industries of being “major criminals”, while sharing stark statistics on wealth inequality in the US that elicited boos and gasps from the audience. At one point, Sanders cited an analysis released by his Senate committee that found the wealthiest Americans live an average of seven years longer than poorer Americans.“In other words, being working class in America is a death sentence,” he bellowed.Ocasio-Cortez’s opening remarks were no less visceral. She charged that Trump and Musk, his billionaire lieutenant, were “taking a wrecking ball to our country” and “screwing over” working people. “We’re gonna throw these bums out,” she declared.While both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez share a political vision, their double act showcased the distinct styles of two progressive leaders at opposite ends of their career arcs.Ocasio-Cortez offered a more personal touch, weaving elements of her biography into her speech – something Sanders is typically loath to do. She spoke of her mother, who cleaned homes, and her father, whose death from a rare form of cancer plunged the family into economic uncertainty.“I don’t believe in healthcare, labor and human dignity because I’m an extremist,” she said, pushing back on the rightwing caricature of her. “I believe in these things because I was a waitress.”She said she empathized with Americans who felt overwhelmed and demoralized, and encouraged them not to give in to despair. “We won’t do that,” someone in the crowd yelled.When the event concluded, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez left the arena to address an overflow crowd that hadn’t been able to get in.“This is where the future is,” said Sebastian Santamaria, 25, gesturing toward the empty podium adorned with a “Fight Oligarchy” placard. “As a person who has supported Democrats in the past, I don’t want to keep supporting you if it doesn’t look more like this.” More
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Democrats help advance Republican funding bill to avoid US shutdown
A handful of Senate Democrats on Friday helped pave the way to approve a Republican-drafted bill that would fund the government and avert a shutdown ahead of the midnight deadline.In a 62-38 vote, 10 Senate Democrats joined nearly all Republicans to break the filibuster and move the seven-month funding bill to a final vote. As part of a deal to secure the Democratic votes, the parties agreed to allow a series of amendments on the measure.The result will deeply disappoint Democratic activists and House Democrats who had urged their Senate counterparts to block the bill that they fear would embolden Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s overhaul of the US government.The California Democratic representative and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi came out against the continuing resolution (CR) on Friday after the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced on Thursday he would urge Senate Democrats to advance the bill. Schumer argued that allowing a government shutdown would be “a far worse option” than passing the “deeply partisan” Republican legislation, but Pelosi called the bill a “devastating assault on the wellbeing of working-class families”.“Democratic senators should listen to the women,” she said in a statement. “Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice: a four-week funding extension to keep government open and negotiate a bipartisan agreement. America has experienced a Trump shutdown before – but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse.”Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also condemned Schumer for caving to Republican demands on a government funding bill, saying the move had created a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” among Democrats.Speaking to reporters in Leesburg, Virginia, where House Democrats were gathered for their annual policy retreat, Ocasio-Cortez said she was mobilizing Democratic supporters to push Schumer to oppose what she characterized as an “acquiesce” to the GOP bill.“We have time to correct course on this decision. Senate Democrats can vote no,” the New York Democrat said.The rift has reportedly sparked such anger among House Democrats that some are encouraging Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Schumer in a primary election, according to CNN. When asked about these suggestions, she declined to comment.On Thursday, Schumer said on the Senate floor: “The Republican bill is a terrible option. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”Trump praised Schumer on Truth Social, writing: “Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing – Took ‘guts’ and courage!”Schumer reiterated his support for the spending bill on the Senate floor on Friday, warning that a government shutdown would mean that Trump, Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) would be free to make even more disruptive cuts to federal agencies.“If government were to shut down, Doge has a plan in place to exploit the crisis for maximum destruction,” Schumer said. “A shutdown will allow Doge to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and Doge the keys to the city, state and country. Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate than they can right now and over a much broader field of destruction that they would render.”But the Federal Unionists Network, a group of federal employees that opposes the administration’s campaign to dramatically downsize government, disagreed, saying the funding bill under consideration would make the situation worse.“Once again, Congress is failing in its responsibility to the American people,” spokesperson Chris Dols said in a statement. “If passed, this CR will give Trump and Musk the power to complete their assault on federal workers.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Senate majority leader, John Thune, a Republican, told reporters on Friday that he may allow some amendment votes on the spending bill, which could potentially offer a way to assuage Democrats’ concerns.The funding bill represents the first major leverage point in Trump’s second term, with House Democrats urging the Senate to instead consider a 30-day funding stopgap to allow more time for negotiations.Unlike the House vote, where all but one Democrat voted against the government funding bill, the response in the Senate is fractured. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority, and the Kentucky senator Rand Paul is expected to vote against the bill. If that is the case, eight Democratic votes will be needed to send the bill to Trump’s desk.While facing intense pressure from within their party to resist Trump and his billionaire ally Musk, the Senate Democrats who are leaning yes are worried about the impacts of a government shutdown, and what bill they could get passed from their minority position anyway.The yes crowd includes the Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, who told MSNBC on Tuesday: “We don’t agree with what’s been sent to us but, you know, if we withhold our votes, that is going to shut the government down.”Still, Ocasio-Cortez particularly criticized Senate Democrats for even considering withdrawing support from a vote that nearly all battleground House Democrats were willing to take.“There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people,” she said. “Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think, is a huge slap in the face.” More
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‘A particularly heinous villain’: a disdain for Musk has sparked protests across US
When protesters showed up at state capitols around the country and at a host of federal agencies this month, they carried signs with messages about the unelected billionaire running a slash-and-burn government-cutting campaign that moved them to action.As liberal protesters find their footing in the second Donald Trump era, Elon Musk is proving a potent target.“He’s a particularly heinous villain,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the activist organization Indivisible. “He is less popular even than Trump, and it makes sense, because he’s an unelected billionaire, in fact, the richest man in the world, who’s trying to end cancer research and nutrition assistance for the poorest children in the country.”Trump’s inauguration wasn’t met with protests like in 2017. In the 2024 election, Trump won the popular vote for the first time and Republicans took hold of both chambers of Congress, dampening the movement against him. But the ascendancy of Musk in Washington has given the leftwing protest movement somebody to mobilize against, and people across the country appear to be taking their poster boards out of storage.In Washington, Indivisible and other groups on the left have organized protests, moving from agency to agency and following Musk’s team at the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) as it tries to gut programs and services.The protests are meant to voice anger against Musk and Trump, but also to pressure Democrats into working in tandem with groups such as Indivisible as an opposition party, Levin said. Democratic elected officials have not led the resistance, he argued, so the resistance is pushing them to action.Even without Musk, though, Levin thinks people would have been moved to opposition by the actions taken by the Trump administration, which is “not starved for possible villains”.“Musk is particularly bad, and he makes for an easy opponent to rally against,” he said. “ We thought there was going to be a backlash at some point. We didn’t think that we were going to have the richest man in the world tweet out that the Department of Education no longer exists. I mean, that is bonkers.”Beyond DC, a nascent protest movement – organized on social media by people who were tired of waiting for direction on how to voice their discontent with Trump – began in late January with a Reddit post that set a date chosen at random, 5 February, for a 50-state protest. Now called 50501 (for 50 states, 50 protests, one day), the group claims people turned out in 80 cities that day. Established left-leaning groups first viewed the protest plans with wariness, given the organizers’ inexperience.The movement is planning a president’s day protest on 17 February, dubbing it the “not my president’s day of action”. On social media, the group talks about standing up to dictators and “tech bros” and against the abuse of power they see in the second Trump administration.View image in fullscreenThe 50501 group is working to build relationships with activists around the country and plan further protests, said Sydney, an organizer with 50501, who asked that her last name not be used. She had never organized before, but didn’t see anyone on social media channels planning for the 5 February protest in Pennsylvania.“I decided to pick the ball up and do it myself. And I learned a lot extremely quickly. It’s probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done,” she said.Levin, of Indivisible, said he hoped those who attend protests then find further ways to get involved – many local chapters of Indivisible formed on the buses on the way home from the Women’s March in 2017, he said.Those Indivisible chapters around the country have grown steadily, and Levin is seeing more groups registering now than the same period in 2017. Chapters in all 50 states organized 300 events at local Senate offices to call on senators to oppose Russ Vought’s nomination to lead the office of management and budget.Levin said his organization was initially “really frustrated” that Democratic leadership was not responding strongly to the funding freeze that caused confusion and chaos. The group held a “Nobody Elected Elon” protest at the treasury department, and elected Democratic members of Congress made an appearance.At a protest at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on 10 February, Levin introduced 17 members of Congress. During each introduction, he asked them if they would withhold their vote on any funding bill, the next big battle for Democrats to show they are standing against the Trump agenda. Sixteen of the 17 said they would – some answering before he could even finish the question. The one who didn’t, the California representative Brad Sherman, faced a crowd chanting “withhold your vote,” Levin said.While the long-term efficacy of such efforts is unclear, Quinta Jurecic, a a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, suggested in an interview with the New York Times that protests outside the labor department prompted in an-person “Doge” meeting to move online.Some Democrats have privately complained that Indivisible and MoveOn, another liberal advocacy group, were pressuring them too much, considering Republicans hold the levers of government power, Axios reported. Faced with a barrage of phone calls, Democratic representative Don Beyer said: “It’s been a constant theme of us saying, ‘Please call the Republicans.’”Republicans have also been getting calls – Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, told the Washington Post on 7 February that the Senate was receiving 1,600 calls per minute, and that calls to her office were mostly from people concerned about Musk and his agency.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic representative from New York, said in an Instagram story that the volume of calls to her Republican colleagues is sending the message that people are mobilized and angry. “But the pressure needs to stay on,” she said.Send us a tip
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Ocasio-Cortez bids to become top Democrat on key House committee
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez formally launched her bid to become the lead Democrat on the House oversight committee, setting up a race against the veteran representative Gerry Connolly for a crucial minority leadership position.The 35-year-old New York congresswoman’s announcement comes as Democrats are reshaping their committee leadership, with the oversight committee set to play a critical role in challenging potential actions during the next second Trump administration.In an official appeal to her colleagues, Ocasio-Cortez wrote that the role carries “a profound and consequential” responsibility. She argues that her generation of lawmakers is ready to take on leadership responsibilities, positioning herself as a fresh alternative to more established party members.Connolly, a 74-year-old longtime representative from Virginia, is Ocasio-Cortez’s primary challenger and represents the experienced counterpoint. With 16 years in Congress and touting a track record of protecting federal employees, he offers a more traditional approach to the committee leadership.The competition reflects broader dynamics within the Democratic party – a tension between political veterans and energetic progressive voices seeking to take the reins on political strategy.The contest will be decided by the Democratic caucus’s steering and policy committee through a secret ballot, followed by a full caucus vote. Outgoing oversight committee ranking member Jamie Raskin is staying neutral in the race.The oversight committee remains a powerful platform, even from the minority position. It is meant to examine government operations, and its jurisdiction spans a wide range of issues including potential government waste and corruption and investigating federal agencies and presidential administrations.While Democrats cannot control subpoenas or hearing agendas during the next session, the ranking member can still influence public discourse and push back against the Republican legislative agenda. The final decision is expected in the coming weeks. More
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‘A change from the status quo’: the voters who backed Trump and AOC
Politics makes for strange bedfellows. US political minds will be reminding themselves of this fact as the dust settles on America’s election, with some results showing that a few voters were able to simultaneously support Donald Trump and progressive-leaning Democratic candidates.In the Bronx in New York, a strongly Black, Asian and Latino community, Trump’s support jumped 11 points to 33% over 2020, one of the largest margins citywide. At the same time, the leftwing firebrand Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secured 68.9% of the vote, returning her to Congress for a fourth consecutive term.Welcome to the vote-splitting phenomenon of 2024, another sign of a restive American electorate committed to rejecting business as usual in Washington and voting to shake up a self-serving two-party system they often believe pays only lip service to their concerns.Trump and Ocasio-Cortez, whose politics are poles apart on almost every issue, were seen by at least some voters as sharing one very important thing: an anti-establishment authenticity.“They’re a good counter-balance for each other,” said Mamé, 66, a West African man on his way to a doctor’s appointment in the Bronx. “He’s a bully she doesn’t accept. She’s a fighter, progressive, and she loves democracy.”A Dominican Uber driver called Robin said Trump was better on the economy and security, but Ocasio-Cortez was better on democracy. “The last three years were no good economically: half a million migrants coming to New York, being given a hotel and money, and me working 60 hours a week with three kids.”Last week, Ocasio-Cortez herself prodded her own followers on X – the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – about vote-splitting between her and Trump. “I actually want to learn from you, I want to hear what you were thinking,” she said.Many in response to her appeal said there was no contradiction between supporting Trump and the avowed Democratic socialist.“I feel you are both outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less ‘establishment’,” said one. Another, “both of you push boundaries and force growth”. And: “It’s real simple … Trump and you care for the working class.”“You are focused on the real issues people care about. Similar to Trump populism in some ways,” said a fourth. Lastly, a respondent said: “You signaled change. Trump signified change. I’ve said lately, Trump sounds more like you.”Ocasio-Cortez told The View on Thursday: “One, there is universal frustration in this country, much of it I actually think justified, that is raging at a political establishment that centers corporate interests [and] billionaires. and puts their needs ahead of the needs of working Americans.”The exchanges on X prompted whoops of joy from Salon, a liberal-leaning outlet, which said there might now be an openness among bruised Democrats to “someone who simply has the sauce … And Ocasio-Cortez has the sauce.”View image in fullscreenTo some extent, the Bronx split-ticket vote phenomenon was repeated across the US. Republicans won the White House and Senate convincingly. But in the House of Representatives, Democrats more or less held their own. (Split-ticket voting had an impact but it still left the House narrowly under Republican control.)“People are looking for people to shake up the system and fight for a bold agenda so they’re voting for candidates who are different and have a clear agenda outside the norms of our political system,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York Working Families party.“Trump is not a career politician and challenges the system, and AOC is doing that in a different way. Their approaches and philosophies and values are deeply different, but they both represent a change from the status quo that voters are rejecting.”In 2018, Trump was one of the first to recognize AOC’s rise, warning Joe Crowley, the 10-term Democrat she defeated for the nomination, of her natural political abilities. Crowley later reflected that Trump’s win two years earlier had helped to get Ocasio-Cortez elected.“It lit the fire on to the base of our party, and I think that’s a good thing in many respects,” he said.Trump and Ocasio-Cortez, native New Yorkers and Democrats in their origin stories, have often appeared to be perfect sparring partners, with an innate understanding of how to get under the other’s skin, and clapping back at each other on social media (AOC has 8.1 million Instagram followers).She has called Trump a “racist visionary” and said he is “afraid” of strong Latino women. He has insulted her right back, though mixed with compliments. “Look, she’s a fake, and in all fairness to her, she knows it. But she’s got a good thing going – a good thing for her,” Trump said in August. “She’s got a spark – I will say that. A good spark that’s pretty amazing, actually.”Both know the value of a political stunt. AOC wore a white gown with the message “tax the rich” emblazoned in red to the Met Gala, where tables cost $450,000. “The medium is the message,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram, quoting the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan.But the Democrat’s ultra-progressive group in Congress, known as “the Squad”, did not fare so well under the softer liberalism of the Biden-Harris administration. Two of the group no longer sit in the House. Despite that, Ocasio-Cortez was a good soldier for Harris and before her, Joe Biden, supporting and enthusiastically campaigning for both.But its too soon to say how much progressives are encouraged by the phenomenon of split-ticket voting and whether it will presage a tack away from traditional party elites, as the Democrats try to regroup in the political wilderness of the next four years. Certainly there are those who think the party needs a dose of economic populism and charismatic outsiders to lead it.“What’s clear is we have to compete in a new information environment that Trump understands, the Democrats struggle with, and AOC is a genius at,” said Billy Wimsatt of the Movement Voter Project. “We need candidates and leaders that people believe in and see as authentic and not as a manufactured politicians.”But what might be more worrying for Democrats are people like 30-year-old Bronx resident Carlos Thomas. “I was rooting for Donald because he’s for business, but I liked the girl he was running against [also],” he said.But he – like tens of millions of other Americans in an election that saw turnout drop – simply failed to vote. More
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The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party | Robert Reich
A political disaster such as what occurred last Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.This is known as the Lesson of the election.The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.And therein lies its power. When the Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom – when most of the politicians, pundits and journalists come to believe it – it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives and journalists approach coming elections.What’s the Lesson of the 2024 election?According to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy – and their votes reflected their class and level of education.While the US economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees – that’s the majority – have not felt it.In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure.The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large now as it was then.Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger, but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.The basic bargain in America used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better, and your children would do even better than you.But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.Democrats embraced Nafta and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.They welcomed big money into their campaigns, and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.Joe Biden redirected the Democratic party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed – more vigorous actions against monopolies, stronger enforcement of labor laws and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors and non-fossil fuels – wouldn’t be evident for years. In any event, he could not communicate effectively about them.The Republican party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous anti-monopoly enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts.As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – their objective for decades.Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since the second world war.They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982) and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to companies and industries unrelated to the common good).Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state”, or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.In doing this, Democrats should not retreat from their concerns about democracy. Democracy goes together with a fair economy.Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America.Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.The Democratic party should use this inflection point to shift ground – from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney and vacuous “centrism” – to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.This is and should be the Lesson of the 2024 election.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More
