At 83 years old, Sen. Bernie Sanders is not running for president again. But the stooped and silver-haired democratic socialist has emerged as a leader of the resistance to Donald Trump's second presidency.
Sanders and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will speak at Arizona State University's Mullett Arena at 6 p.m. Thursday in Tempe.
Sanders has been organizing what he calls “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies in swing states across the country designed to unite Democrats amid party turmoil and leadership concerns.Ocasio-Cortez, a longtime supporter of Sanders, is planning solo rallies in Republican-held congressional districts in Pennsylvania and New York.
In tearing into Trump's seizure of power and warning about the consequences of firing tens of thousands of government workers, Sanders is bucking the wishes of those who want Democrats to focus on the price of eggs or “roll over and play dead.”
For now, at least, Sanders stands alone as the only elected progressive willing to mount a national campaign to harness the fear and anger of the sprawling anti-Trump movement.
He drew a crowd of 4,000 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Friday night. He faced another 2,600 or so the next morning a few hours away in Altoona, Wisconsin, a town of less than 10,000 residents. And his crowd of 9,000 in suburban Detroit exceeded his own team's expectations. By design, each stop was in a swing U.S. House district represented by a Republican.
Sanders, who was just elected to his fourth Senate term from Vermont, conceded that this is not the role he expected to play at this stage of his career.
In fact, his team intentionally waited in the early weeks of the Trump presidency to launch what they are now calling his “stop oligarchy tour” to see if a high-profile Democrat would fill the leadership void. Instead, Sanders — who is not a Democrat himself despite allying with Senate Democrats and running twice for the party's presidential nomination — has people wondering if he's considering another White House bid.
“This is like presidential campaign rallies, isn’t it? But I’m not running for president, and this is not a campaign,” Sanders told The Associated Press. “You gotta do what you gotta do. The country’s in trouble and I want to play my role.”
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