Sanders, AOC bring hope to anti-Trump voters with their 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour

FOLSOM, Calif. — The line to get into Sen. Bernard Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Fighting Oligarchy” tour stretched for nearly a mile before the gates opened.

An estimated 30,000 people flooded the streets, trekking to the back of the long line with lawn chairs slung over their shoulders, baseball caps that read “Gulf of Mexico” and “Resist” and T-shirts that said “Talk Bernie to Me,” “Democracy Has No Kings” and “When Injustice Becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty.”

Similar scenes have been playing out across the country, underscoring how Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez — the grizzled 83-year-old avowed socialist from Vermont and the fresh-faced 35-year-old liberal firebrand from New York City — are stepping into the void in the Democratic Party leadership.

As seen here in the Sacramento suburbs and at other stops of the tour, they are giving voters reeling from Mr. Trump’s return to the White House a much-desired dose of hope that things can change if the “working class” joins together and fights back against Mr. Trump, Elon Musk, and the “ruling” billionaire class.

“We are here this evening to say very loudly and clearly to Mr. Trump and people all over this country: We as Americans will not accept oligarchy,” Mr. Sanders said. “We will not accept authoritarianism, and we will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer.”

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said her vision for a “new world” includes higher wages, stable housing, guaranteed health care, and a renewable energy economy. She framed the current national debate as a choice: “oligarchy or democracy?”

“We are here today because we chose democracy, we chose freedom, and that means we must choose to organize the oligarchy,” she said. “We must do away with the power of big money.”

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez also has been urging voters to recognize that Mr. Trump “stokes deep divisions along race, identity and culture to keep all of us fighting and distracted” from growing economic inequity and the shady moves he is making — including manipulating the stock market through his stop-and-go tariff agenda — to enrich his wealthy friends at the “expense of all of us.”

“What I am about to say is a matter of fact: Donald Trump is a criminal. He was found guilty of 34 counts of fraud, liable for sexual abuse — of course, he is lying and manipulating the stock market, too,” she said. “And if Donald Trump wants to find the rapists and criminals in this country, he needs to look in a mirror today.”

The energy around the Fighting Oligarchy tour harkens back to Mr. Sanders’ back-to-back bids for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Still, given how angry and scared these voters are about Mr. Trump, the events have had a greater sense of urgency.

Plus, they serve as a significant showcase for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who some have urged to launch a primary challenge against Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, and a test drive for a populist economic message that targets the MAGA movement, including the Musk-led DOGE’s mass firing of federal workers.

This week, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez reported raising $9.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, the most she has ever raised in a single quarter.

The crowd of roughly 30,000 people who showed up in Folsom, a city with a population of 85,000, was similar to the turnout at other stops of the tour. It’s also reminiscent of the massive crowds that Mr. Trump attracts for his rallies.

More than 30,000 people attended a recent Fighting Oligarchy event in Los Angeles, and 12,000 attended the tour’s stop in the suburbs of Boise, Idaho.

There were some counter-protesters in Folsom.

Trucks and cars rolled around outside the event, flying pro-Trump, pro-Musk, and pro-MAGA flags. And a small plane towing a “Folsom is Trump country” banner flew above the Folsom Lake College’s athletic track, eliciting boos and some middle fingers from the crowd.

Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez are telling voters the time to act is now, urging them to pressure lawmakers to vote against a budget reconciliation package that will ram Mr. Trump’s tax and spending cuts agenda through Congress without Democratic votes.

They accuse Republicans of planning to offset a $1.1 trillion tax break with $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and the rest from nutrition programs for hungry kids and affordable housing. However, Mr. Trump has vowed not to cut benefits but to eliminate waste and fraud from entitlement programs.

“I think some of your constituents have a message for you: Don’t vote to give take breaks to billionaires and cut programs that the working class of this country desperately needs,” Mr. Sanders said, directing his message to Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, who has represented Folsom County since 2023.

They are also demanding the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who was detained after leading protests at Columbia University against the war in Gaza, and Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University student who was rounded up by Immigration and Custom Enforcemnt and accused of engaging in activities supporting Hamas, which the government has deemed a terrorist group. They are also calling for the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, the MS-13 gang suspect wrongly deported to El Salvador.

“We are fighting a president whose agents are rounding up innocent people off the streets, throwing them into unmarked vans and sending them to detention centers here in the United States, El Salvador, and elsewhere,” Mr. Sanders said. “That is not what happens in a Democracy; that is what happens in a dictatorship.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Musk sits atop their oligarchy totem pole.

Mr. Sanders said it is “insane” that Mr. Musk has “more wealth than the bottom 50% of households in America.” He said Mr. Musk’s “reward” for giving $270 billion to the Trump campaign was “to become the most powerful person in government.”

At the same time, both Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez are targeting Democrats for not doing more to crack down on insider trading in Congress and for getting too cozy with corporations and Wall Street.

“The Democrats have their billionaires as well, and if you want to know why democrats over the years have not been as strong as they should be in standing up for working-class people, it has a lot to do with the power of those billionaires,” said Mr. Sanders, who has an estimated net worth of $3 million.

There is a sense that the time is ripe for Mr. Sanders’ message, even among Democrats who previously considered him too far left for most Americans.

Real estate developer Brian Cox, a gay married father of a son in high school, said the second Trump administration has made him realize that Mr. Sanders had been diagnosing the problem for years. Namely, billionaires have been taking advantage of working — and middle-class Americans across the country, including voters who supported Mr. Trump in the 2024 election and are now questioning their decision.

“I didn’t think that we needed to go to that to Bernie’s extreme, and I was wrong,” Mr. Cox said. “I’m disgusted with what’s happened with the billionaires controlling our democracy and anointing this, you know, this imbecile, to be our president.”

Lindsay Stephens of Santa Rosa said she was angry with how the Trump administration has ignored the rule of law and torn apart institutions. She also said she was feeling a bit politically lost because of the seeming unwillingness of national Democrats to take a firmer stand against Mr. Trump.

“If there’s anything I’m looking for is a shred of hope,” she said, before pointing toward the sprawling crowd. “And look at this. Look at the people. This, to me, this is hope, right here.”