Reportage
Bernie and AOC in Pennsylvania rally the left against Trumpism
The “Fighting Oligarchy” tour turns to the east coast. The longest round of applause comes when he turns to Gaza: he opposed Joe Biden’s decision to send more arms to Israel, he says, and Trump’s plans horrify him even more.
After three months on the road, Bernie Sanders has brought his “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” tour to the East Coast, and the first stop could only be Pennsylvania, the swing state par excellence in November, which ended up tipping to Donald Trump.
He held three rallies in three days, in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Bethlehem: quite close to each other, but each of them full to capacity. Bethlehem, where the final event was held, once housed Bethlehem Steel, the plant that closed for good in 2003. The town’s story is closely entwined with the American steel industry and the downfall of its golden age, but its two colleges, Lehigh University and Moravian College, have kept it afloat, nurturing a local arts and cultural scene and a few clubs, although all rather pocket-sized. There is one main street, a small downtown, and people live in the modest houses typical of the American hinterlands.
Back in November, residents we interviewed told us they had stopped talking politics because the climate was so polarized. “For the first time, I didn’t put up a pro-Dem sign in this election,” says English teacher Taylor Snyder. “I don’t talk with people I know who voted for Trump. We’d just end up fighting. I’m carrying too much anger.”
As she speaks, a colleague named Amy joins us, smiling despite her fears. “I’m not a citizen,” she explains. “I have a green card. So I switched off my phone and disabled all geolocation: I don’t want to risk being put on some blacklist for coming here today. But I couldn’t miss this experience, and I wanted to be surrounded by people I know didn’t vote for Trump.”
Many say this is their first “Bernie” rally, as everyone calls him. One woman voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary; another backed Pete Buttigieg in 2020. “Trump is radicalizing me,” quips physical therapist Noah Fisher. “The fact is that Bernie is the only opposing voice left: him and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Look how many people turned up on a Saturday morning in a non-campaign year.” The sports arena is packed, and Sanders does not disappoint those who queued up in the season’s first 30 degrees celsius day.
Opening for him, as per the tour’s well-oiled script, there is a rock band – this time it’s the area locals The Mazinger, playing their song “America, you freak me out” – plus activists and hometown politicians, among them 40-year-old Chris Deluzio, a rising Democratic star. “My opponents used to call me a left-wing agitator,” he says. “Now they have to call me ‘Mr. Congressman’.” This is one of the explicit aims of Sanders’s tour: promoting a renewal among the Democratic political class and firing up the base.
Maybe it was thanks to the company of AOC, with whom he co-headlined other stops on the tour, but the 83-year-old senator looks full of youthful energy. He has certainly changed the register and overall approach of his speeches. The substance has not shifted an inch, but Sanders now strides on stage without a jacket, sleeves rolled, and even indulges in banter: “You’re not only a great crowd, but you are loud! I think Trump can hear you all the way down in Mar-a-Lago,” is his opening line, delivered with a grin as he is welcomed by a roar of applause.
Sanders reminds the crowd that Bethlehem lies only a short drive from Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln spoke of “a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” whereas, he warns, “right now we have a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class, and we are not going to accept that.”
He ticks off every issue: Trump’s proposals to slash Medicaid, hollow out Veterans Affairs and weaken Social Security; the soaring cost of housing and university tuition; the corporate profiteering that keeps wages flat. He doesn’t hold his punches against the Democratic leaders either, who, he argues, spent the past 50 years abandoning the working class and clearing the way for Trump.
“The Democratic Party is going to finally have to say, ‘We’re going to stand with those people. We are prepared to take on the greed of corporate America,’” Sanders says to thunderous applause. He urges his audience to corner their elected officials with direct questions and demand straight answers or they’ll be voted out.
The longest round of applause comes when he turns to Gaza: he opposed Joe Biden’s decision to send more arms to Israel, he says, and Trump’s plans horrify him even more.
While the broad themes stay the same from city to city, each rally digs into local issues. In Bethlehem, both Sanders and Deluzio turned their fire against Ryan Mackenzie, the Republican who unseated Democrat Susan Wild in November for Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. According to OpenSecrets.org, tens of millions of dollars poured into Mackenzie’s campaign from outside the district. Sanders blasted the Citizens United ruling that cleared the path for using enormous sums of cash to sway local elections.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/governo-degli-oligarchi-la-ribellione-di-sanders on 2025-05-06