Bulwark Takes - Bernie and AOC Meet Enormous Crowds While Barnstorming America

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein discuss Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders drawing massive crowds during their "Fighting Oligarchy Tour" in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. I hope you're ready for the most dippable chicken in McDonald's history. Dip it in all the sauces. Dip it in that hot sauce in your bag. Dip it in your McFlurry. Your dip is your business. McCrispy strips at McDonald's. Hey guys, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here with Managing Editor Sam Stein. Bernie and AOC have been on just a barnstorm tour all over the Mountain West here. I'm in Arizonarizona right now and they had an event in arizona uh that i want to talk about that also in my hometown denver massive event uh uh there in front of city uh in front of the capital uh i think 30 000 people

they said outside in downtown denver they'd also do an event up in gree It doesn't smell that great in Greeley. It's a red district, but it's kind of like a swingy red district. What does it smell like? Like cow manure. They do a lot of... There's a little too much industrial waste in farming

up there in Greeley. It's definitely the worst smelling city in Colorado. We love you, though, Greeley, if you're watching out there. No offense. It just is what it is. Sometimes you got to earn your weaknesses, you know? Yeah. So anyway, AOC and Bernie, I wanted to just kind of bat around with you,

you know, what you think this means that they're drawing such big crowds and then play a couple clips from the rallies. So what's your top line take? Well, I mean, I think my top line take is, objectively, they are tapping into something massive, right? Like 34,000 people in Denver is crazy. It's crazy. And that's bigger than any crowd Bernie's had on any of his presidential campaigns.

And I think I was talking to a Bernie person. And what's interesting is that it's not just Bernie people signing up. They are checking their email list and running that against the people who are signing up for these crowds. And it wasn't like a direct correlation. These are new people who are registering. So people are – there's a huge appetite for some sort of, any sort of resistance. Now, the other thing that I think is kind of interesting here is that as this is happening, we can get to this after the clips, there's sort of this simultaneous

weird coalition that's forming with AOC and a bunch of kind of like what you and I would affectionately call centrist white dudes. It's like Conor Lamb and Tim Ryan are like coming up and be like, we love AOC. And Bill Crystal. Yeah. And it's like something, and there's like this, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves because who knows where this ends up,

but there's like a weird coalition forming on the left that at its core is just sort of like, fuck this shit. just sort of like fuck this shit it's like the fuck this shit coalition like we just have to like yeah we've had enough and um and it's bringing together this cross ideological uh grouping now that could be powerful right like you need that in a in a resistance here because you can't have infighting. I don't know if it's sustainable because of what we saw with Schumer two weeks ago, but clearly the energy is there. It's now incumbent upon people like Bernie Yossi and people beyond that, frankly, to figure out ways to tap into it. So that's my take.

Yeah, let's actually do a hatchet now before we get to the clips because I think that's the interesting part of this. Dave Weigel over at Sem4 has been on the ground at a lot of these events. And one of the interesting things that he was reporting was just from kind of talking to people there, a lot of non-Bernie primary voters. Like the crowd was, you know, not, it wasn't just Bernie's not just bringing out people that were for him in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, right? Like there, there are some new people coming out that are also young and progressive, but there are also some people coming up that are just Democrats. Like, like that are not, that would have been for other people in those primaries, but better just for anybody. I bet there are a lot of apolitical people i mean i'm not i haven't been there but i'd be very curious how people just never were involved and just like i need to tap into something but go ahead sorry yeah so no so i think that that tells you to that speaks to your uh your point about this fuck this shit coalition like i do

think that there are people going out there that maybe are not fully on board with stealing the burn on every little element of his agenda. But they want somebody that is challenging this, that is speaking with passion, that is fighting. And I think that you add those people onto kind of the existing very real base of support that Bernie AOC have. And you start to get kind of these big crowds. So I think that that is pretty notable. And, like like on the internet a lot of times people want to like create like like this there's this tension that like we're like a lot of democrats especially people that were involved in 2016 like still can't get over

the bernie versus hillary fight and they're like power power users of cotton commentators you know want to be like oh like oh it has to be AOC or it has to be you know whatever and like a lot of regular people are just like I don't know like if AOC and Bernie are the ones that are going to come to my town and rally and and you know put up the fist then I'll go out for AOC and Bernie and that you know and so I think that they're channeling this sort of anti-regime kind of anger that that is out there and a lot of it a lot and i think other people could probably do it maybe not with the same level of success because of bernie's existing audience but i think that other people if they had that path the same passion these guys do

could also probably pull together big crowds right now well i think we need to remember that in 2017, the first thing that happened when Trump won was a massive rally, the pussy hats and all that stuff. And that just hasn't happened yet. But it doesn't mean that there isn't an appetite for people for that type of demonstration of disobedience. And I actually drove by this morning. I drove by my first tesla rally i just happened to drive by a tesla factory those domestic terrorists out there no molotov cocktails uh at this one but a bunch of people who parked you know hundreds of yards down the street and were walking with their signs and like had made it a point that

Saturday to show up because they needed an outlet to show how pissed off they were. Like, and that's it. Like there's, there are two outlets right now. There are Tesla protests and there's like the random Bernie AOC mega rally. And there's just not enough outlets for people to demonstrate how pissed off and afraid, frankly, they are. And so I think when you see 34,000 people showing up in Denver, part of that is because Bernie and AOC had this inherent appeal and they had these lists and they can make people out. But frankly, a lot of it is just sort of like pent up frustration that

people need to figure out a way to get out of their systems. And I think what an indictment of the Democrats to this point is they haven't been able to organize anything quite like that on an institution level. Maybe it will happen, but it just hasn't happened yet. You know, they're filling a big time point. OK, I want to play two clubs. One is kind of related to this failure of the Democratic establishment thus far. I mean, again, it feels like it's been forever, but it's been two months and two days since the inauguration somehow. But so, you know, I mean, Democrats have a little bit of time, but AOC spoke to this exact, you know, weakness.

Just to be clear, that means we're 124th in? Is that it? I can't do the math live. Yeah, then the lethargy of the Democrats, particularly Chuck Schumer. Here is ASC right here in Arizona about a day ago. This isn't just about Republicans either. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us too. But... But that means... Here's what that means.

That means our communities, each and every one of us, choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class. And Tempe, I want to give you your flowers for a second. Because you all have been working overtime to make that happen. In fact one thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have shown that if a US senator isn't fighting hard enough for you you're not afraid to replace her with one who will and win.

And that's how you got two fantastic senators in Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. So a cheeky point there, you know, where she's talking about Kyrsten Sinema, obviously, and how the Democrats got rid of her, replaced her with Ruben Gallego, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago, who's been a much spunk doing, the way they're going around the law, the way they're hurting people, the way they're trampling on free speech. But also it's like the Democrats got to step up to the plate here. And so there's a little bit of subtext about maybe how AOC might be challenging Chuck Schumer and making this kind of parallel to Arizona. But she knew what she was doing i guess is my point of course she did and then of course like she went after john fetterman online yeah like a little bit after that um fetterman or maybe fetterman had gone

after her sorry and then she responded to fetterman um and i you I mean, we've all gone through this. It's the Tea Party thing, and I don't know, whatever. But it is true that she knows, and it's very apparent that there's, like, real frustration among the base of Democratic voters over how Schumer and Fetterman have conducted themselves. And it's just, again, it comes back to this idea that like it's not really ideological right like i i don't actually think like there's that much of a gap between uh aoc and schumer there is obviously but there's i don't think i think it could be overstated it's it's more it's it's really comes down to attitudinal and they want to see uh at least some sort of fight and i know that's an an incredibly vague term, but I'm kind bend over and have you look and administer our Middle Eastern sliders programs because we don't want to lose money. They've seen Paul Weiss and other

big firms being like, no, we will do all these contortions to make sure that we're not extorted. And if every single institution, including the big ones that have power, are bending, at some point, people just are looking for someone to say no screw it like i don't care if i lose money or if i you know have to deal with the consequences i want i'm just going to stand up to this shit and that's what she's tapping into there i i agree with your point that this is mostly not ideological that there is this anger out there that somebody needs to channel. It's better suited to have somebody that's a little bit of an outsider like AFC and Bernie do it. With the caveat, there's a little bit of ideology here.

And there is some Overton window moving within the party, potentially. And so I do want to play one more clip. And this is kind of representative of her stump speech, which she's saying at a lot of these events and uh and just kind of take a listen to the crowd medicaid medicare and social security were promises that we as a people have made to each other about the kind of country we are and the kind of society we want to live in. And I don't know about you, Arizona, but I want to live in an America that guarantees health care to every person. I want to live in an America that has a living wage for every person. I want to live in America where you have free speech to express yourself

and not be afraid of getting put on a list or deported. But these promises that we've made, they are not promises from politicians to the people, or they're not charity from billionaires to everyday Americans. They are promises we have made to each other. Neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, teacher to student, family member to family member, that we want to live in a society that is not depraved, not every person for themselves, but all of us standing together. This is the promise that we make to each other as Americans. All right.

So look at that. Again, I mean, that's a very different type of speech than Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro would give probably, right? Just in like what her focus is. The crowd is responding to it. And I think that there is something here. Now, I'm not going to really be on board with all of the details of the living wage policy. As a political matter, the fact that they are, to use a lib term, you can tell I've gone lib now. I'm about to use centering. The fact that they are there to use a lib term, you can tell I've gone lib now about to use centering. The fact that they're centering, you know, these like economic justice issues and then pairing it with the free speech.

Again, I are hurt with her policies and commons have been that much different. Yeah. Yeah. They've been different, but on the margins. But the emphasis is very different. The emphasis is very different. And if the Democrats are struggling with working class people, I do think that it should not be ignored that there is that strain of this that is not just anti-Trump resistance. That ideological side, the economic justice side of this is very central to what they're doing. I see what you're saying. And I think, again, it's a point of emphasis more than ideology, to me at least, my analysis of it. And by that, I mean, like, if you think back three, four, five years ago, you know, there's these debates in the Democratic Party about, well, you know, do we do economic populism a la Bernie or do we emphasize, you know, social issues and women's issues predominantly, right? And, you know, they rolled into the midterms and then, frankly, to this election, less so, but still emphasizing abortion rights, emphasizing democracy, less so around the sort of planks that Bernie puts forward, which is, you know, raising the minimum wage, going after the billionaires and the trillionaires. And I think

because of Trump's victory and because of what he's done in terms of bringing in these rich oligarch tech billionaires and you have Howard Lutnick talking about, well, what's the problem with missing a week of Social Security? Because you've been presented with this hand, it makes a ton of sense to me that you would lean into these economic issues, right? Like this is the playing field. And to tease Lauren Egan's newsletter that's coming out tomorrow night, it's been interesting to me to watch how quickly gender, which was such a central point of the party's platform, has fallen off as an issue. Now, again, I will grant you, I think AOC is more liberal than Kamala Harris, for sure. Right. Kamala Harris wasn't talking about, you know, Medicare for all or if she was, it was in the abstract. But ultimately, I think it's sort of on emphasis.

It's like we need economic populism from a sort of liberal democratic perspective than from what Trump is vaguely offering through these podcasts and these policies. All right. Much more on that to come. Go to thebork.com and subscribe to all of our newsletters. Lauren Egan's newsletter on the Democratic Party we just launched is really good and insightful. So go check that out. Subscribe to this feed on YouTube.

Tell your friends. Sam Stein, thanks for popping on with me on a Saturday. We'll see you all soon.