Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” came to Salt Lake City Sunday night. He and his special guest, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are traveling across the country speaking to those who are unhappy with the status quo, as they claim U.S. democracy has been corrupted by billionaire elites and President Donald Trump.
When it comes to changing the world and country, Ocasio-Cortez said it starts in places like Salt Lake City. Sanders added in his opening remarks that the estimated 20,000 people who showed up at the University of Utah’s Jon M. Huntsman Center on Sunday in “conservative Utah” is more impressive than the record-breaking rally they had Saturday in Los Angeles, where at least 36,000 attended.
The Huntsman Center, which was filled, lists its seating capacity at about 15,000. A large crowd gathered outside the arena as well.
The rallies across the West have been a call to the working and middle classes that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are trying to win back after they migrated in large part to the Republican Party. Meanwhile, wealthy Americans are much more likely to vote for Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris outraised Trump almost 2 to 1, as Democrats raised about $2.9 billion compared to $1.8 billion for Republicans, but that includes money spent during a competitive Republican primary, according to calculations by The New York Times.
The tour focuses less on policy change and more on establishing what Ocasio-Cortez calls “class solidarity.” Both she and Sanders spent most of their remarks criticizing the Trump administration and the politicians who support his agenda, and less time addressing what they would do instead. They also had heavy criticism for the Department of Government Efficiency headed by tech-billionaire and close Trump adviser Elon Musk.
Preaching against wealth, funded by it?
During his speech, Sanders discussed the progress America has made in addressing racism, sexism and homophobic behavior, but claimed that no progress has been made in the economic struggles facing millions of Americans.
“Economic rights are human rights,” he said, noting that expensive health care, child hunger and homelessness should not be issues for people living in the wealthiest country in the world. He said the U.S. should extend publicly-funded education to college and university and said there should be publicly funded healthcare as well, ideas he defended as not being radical.
The U.S. is in legitimate danger, Sanders said, because “we are living in a moment where a handful of billionaires control our government,” arguing that Trump is “undermining the Constitution” by using his presidential power to control Congress and the federal courts. Recent polling indicates that Trump’s approval rating surpasses that of those who oppose his actions by one percentage point; however, 28% strongly approve of his actions in office, while 38% strongly disapprove.
Stephanie Stone drove from New Mexico to sell political signs, buttons and posters outside of the rally in solidarity with the progressive politicians and resistance to Trump.
“We need to listen to those that are here inspiring us right now. We need to bend together. We need to create community. We need to be kind, we need to spread joy, and we need to do whatever we can to get rid of this administration. It’s deadly,” she said.
Another supporter, Jared Harmer, said he was a “big fan of socialism” and that Sanders was his favorite leader in the American political system.
He also told the Deseret News that one issue needing to be remedied in the current political landscape “is taking money out of politics.”
Sanders described it as a crisis in which the wealthiest individuals globally can control the “campaign finance system,” and said that corruption is present in both political parties. Ocasio-Cortez said she would never take a dollar from corporate money because “big money is how we got Donald Trump” as president, and the tour website says the funding for these massive rallies comes from friends of Bernie, “Not the billionaires.” But, Ocasio-Cortez has been funded by at least one billionaire during her political career: longtime Democratic donor Tom Steyer.
In 2019, Steyer’s family office, Fahr LLC, confirmed that they had donated to AOC’s campaign on Aug. 29, 2018, per the New York Post. Both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have Google Inc. as the top campaign committee fundraising contributor on Open Secrets.
Sanders’ motives behind the tour include meeting with potential candidates for the Democratic Party to place on the 2026 ballot and voicing opposition to heavily funded super PACs run by wealthy lobbyists and corporations that may influence the outcome of political elections, according to The Washington Post.
The first speaker on Sunday, state Rep. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, criticized Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and said, “Utah pioneered the Trump/Musk agenda.” Caroline Gleich, who ran and lost against Republican Sen. John Curtis for Mitt Romney’s seat in the Senate last year, said the rally was to show that the nation is changing into “people-powered politics” to prove that “democracy is not for sale.”
Sanders often favors Democratic Party policy, though he is the longest-serving independent member of Congress. In a recent interview, he called upon his progressive comrades to eliminate the left label and run for office as independents.
Sanders and AOC called out for ‘political hypocrisy’
Following the tour’s stop in Denver, Colorado, Musk accused the progressive politicians of paying protesters to increase the rally’s size. “The Dems just move around the same group of paid ‘protesters,‘” Musk wrote on social media.
Sanders mentioned the attention he received from Musk online and asked rally-goers in Los Angeles if anyone was being paid to participate, to which the crowd yelled “No.”
“Your presence here today is making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous,” Sanders said. “We’re living at a moment where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of our country. We are living in a moment with a president who has no understanding or respect for the Constitution of the United States, and let us make no doubt about it, moving us rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society.”
Sanders posted a video online Saturday saying he and his team are specifically targeting conservative districts represented by Republicans in Congress so that people in those communities who feel “alone” in their animosity against the Trump administration know they are not alone.
“When they stand there amidst thousands and thousands of their neighbors in opposition to oligarchy, opposition to authoritarianism and xenophobia and attacks on the working class,” he said. “They very quickly understand that they are not part of some fringe minority who are opposing Trump, but that they belong to a strong majority of Americans who want this country to move in a very different direction than where Trump is taking us.”
However, both Sanders and AOC have been called out for political hypocrisy, specifically on their attacks against the wealthy.
Conservative political commentator, Dave Rubin criticized politicians for chastising the upper class while enjoying the same luxuries.
“Bernie used to rail against millionaires. Then he became a millionaire and now he rails against billionaires,” Rubin said, also pointing out the New York Post story last week, which showed AOC flying first class to Sanders’ rally. “Nothing says, ‘Power to the people’ like ignoring voters looking to say hello and reclining in first class while tweeting about income inequality,” the flier who took the photo told the Post, which also reported that her first-class JetBlue seat likely cost upwards of $1,100.
“She is a larping socialist who has an awful lot of money, and she goes to rallies while flying in first class saying that she’s one of the people,” Rubin said. “And thankfully, the people are not buying it.”
Stephen A. Smith, political commentator and host of “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” has recently said he has no choice but to consider running for presidential office, criticizing Democratic Party leadership and taking a direct shot at Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive ideals.
“We supposed to leave it to Bernie Sanders and AOC,” he asked his viewers, given “how socialistic they are in their thinking.”
