Drawing huge crowds, Bernie Sanders steps into leadership of the
anti-Trump resistance
[March 10, 2025]
By STEVE PEOPLES
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — Bernie Sanders is standing alone on the back of a
pickup truck shouting into a bullhorn.
He's facing several hundred ecstatic voters huddled outside a suburban
Detroit high school — the group that did not fit inside the high
school's gym or two overflow rooms. The crowd screams in delight when he
tells them that a combined total of 9,000 people had shown up for the
rally.
“What all of this tells me, is not just in Michigan or in Vermont, the
people of this country will not allow us to move toward oligarchy. They
will not allow Trump to take us into authoritarianism,” Sanders yelled.
“We’re prepared to fight. And we’re going to win.”
At 83 years old, 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. 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.”
The divided Democratic resistance
Since losing the White House, Democrats across Washington have struggled
to coalesce behind a consistent message or messenger to stop Trump's
aggressive moves to slash the government workforce, weaken federal
oversight and empower tech titan Elon Musk to execute his vision.
There has been no centralized movement to organize the anti-Trump
resistance.
“You look around — who else is doing it? No one,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
D-N.Y., said of Sanders' efforts. “My hope is that the dam will break in
terms of Democrats going on the offense ... We need to take the argument
directly to the people.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a longtime Sanders ally, said she would join him on the
road in the coming weeks. She's also planning solo appearances in
Republican-held congressional districts in Pennsylvania and New York —
and perhaps others in places where Republicans have declined to hold
in-person town halls where they might face protests.
“It’s not about whether Bernie should or shouldn’t be doing this. It’s
about that we all should,” she said. “But he is unique in this country,
and so long as we are blessed to have that capacity on our side, I think
we should be thankful for it.”
Beyond Sanders' tour, angry voters have so far relied on grassroots
groups like Indivisible to organize a series of local protests. They
have been effective in pressuring Trump's allies in some cases. A number
of House Republicans facing angry questions have criticized Musk or
questioned the cuts being carried out at his allies' behest.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, who has been critical of many
Democratic leaders, praised Sanders for stepping up.
“I wish more Democrats were traveling the country, including to red
states, to rally the the majority against Musk and Project 2025,” Levin
said. “Sure as hell beats (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries
traveling the country for his children’s book tour during a
constitutional crisis.”
During last month's congressional recess, Jeffries made two appearances
to promote a children's book about democracy. He has also traveled to
support House Democrats. This past weekend, he was in Selma, Alabama, to
mark the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
The truth is that few, if any, Democratic leaders have the capacity to
draw such crowds on short notice or organize the related logistics on a
national scale. The party’s nascent class of 2028 presidential
prospects, a group that includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, have limited
national profiles and they have been reluctant to step too far into the
national spotlight so far.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, among the more outspoken Trump critics in
Congress, said that Democrats must be better organized.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a "Fighting Oligarchy:
Where We Go From Here" event Saturday, March 8, 2025, at Lincoln
High School in Warren, Mich. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)
“People are desperate to be plugged into action right now. People
see the threat. They are anxious and angry and motivated and they
want to be sent in a direction to help,” he said.
Murphy acknowledged that Sanders still has plenty of detractors
within the Democratic Party who view him and his progressive policy
ideas — replacing private and job-based health insurance with a
government-funded “Medicare for All” plan, free public college, and
the “Green New Deal” on climate policy — as too radical.
Indeed, it was just five years ago when Democrats coalesced around
Joe Biden to effectively block Sanders from winning the party's 2020
presidential nomination.
“There still are a lot of folks who view Bernie as a danger to the
party," Murphy said, "whereas I see his message as the core of what
we need to build on.”
Sanders was a staunch supporter of Biden over the last four years
but criticized the Democratic Party in the aftermath of Kamala
Harris' loss last fall, declaring that Trump's victory was possible
only because Democrats had “abandoned” the working class.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who introduced Sanders in
Michigan, said more Democrats need to "follow his lead to focus on
working-class people and working-class issues."
“They’ve got to take a hard look in the mirror, in my opinion, and
decide who the hell they want to represent," Fain said of Democrats.
“We’ve been clear as a union, if they aren’t looking out for
working-class people, we’re not going to be there for them.”
The voters speak
The voters who packed venues across Wisconsin and Michigan over the
weekend composed a diverse group, including some who did not support
Sanders’ past presidential campaigns. Most said that Democratic
leaders have not done enough to stop Trump.
“I’m here because I’m afraid for our country. The last six weeks
have been horrible,” said Diana Schack, a 72-year-old retired lawyer
who attended her first Sanders rally on Saturday. “I am becoming a
more avid Bernie fan, especially in light of the work he’s doing
traveling around the country. These are not normal times.”
In Kenosha the night before, Amber Schulz, a 50-year-old medical
worker, demanded that her party “step up and do something.”
“Bernie is the only politician I trust,” she said.
Tony Gonzales, 56, an independent from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin,
said he's worried that Trump will “dismantle historic American
standards” and try to stay in office beyond this term. The
Constitution bars presidents from serving more than two terms, even
as Trump has suggested he deserves a third.
“It's a dangerous time right now,” Gonzales said. “What Bernie has
to say — and the turnout — is important. His voice is still being
heard.”
Sanders delivered the same fiery populist message over the weekend
that he has for decades, seizing on the nation's economic inequality
to call for free health care, free public higher education and
stronger social safety net programs. Sanders was especially focused
on the team of billionaires Trump has appointed to serve as leaders
in his administration, including Musk and a half dozen others.
“They want to dismantle the federal government and cut programs that
working people desperately need," Sanders warned.
“Yes, the oligarchs are enormously powerful. They have endless
amounts of money. They control our economy. They own much of the
media, and they have enormous influence over our political system,”
he continued. “But from the bottom of my heart, I believe that if we
stand together, we can beat them.”
It’s unclear how long that Sanders, an octogenarian who was
hospitalized for a heart condition during his 2020 campaign, will
continue in this role. A spokesperson said Sanders hasn't had any
health issues since the 2019 episode.
He is not expected to slow down anytime soon. Sanders is leaning on
his 2020 presidential campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, to organize his
stops, backed by a handful of former presidential campaign staffers
working on a contract basis.
Shakir, who lost his bid to become the new chair of the Democratic
National Committee, acknowledged strategic differences within the
party about how best to combat Trump.
Last month, veteran political strategist James Carville penned an
opinion piece calling for Democrats to “roll over and play dead,”
betting that Trump and his party would ultimately suffer a political
backlash from voters for going too far.
“One theory is you can play dead; you can strategically retreat,”
Shakir said. “Or, you play alive, and you go out to people and you
talk to them with conviction and integrity.”
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