I have a confession to make—Bernie Sanders is my favorite politician. He is radical. More radical than I am. But he makes a lot of sense and has the courage to speak his mind no matter the audience. He is not feeding them pablum. And even though I don’t agree with everything he says, I agree with a lot of what he says.

I really wonder what would have happened had he secured the nomination for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Most assume America was not ready for such a radical political voice.  But most assumed that America was not ready for the granted radical voice of Donald Trump, yet they elected him twice. I think they did that because Trump seemed authentic. Crazy perhaps, but authentic.  Would Bernie not have been seen the same way on the left? I don’t know, but I sure wish I could have seen it.

In 2025 Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (‘AOC’) (went on a stunning American tour that included conservative hots spots such as Arizona and met with astounding success.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC )have recently completed a tour of much of the United States concentrating on the red states like Arizona.  Many people think Bernie Sanders and AOC are too radical to be popular. So instead, the Democratic Party turned to bland—Joe Biden. I actually think he did a lot as a one term president but now all people remember is his collapse in the debates.

There are some surprising things about this tour. First, at a rally in Denver, Sanders and the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had reportedly drawn thirty-four thousand people.  In an article in The New Yorker, Staff writer Emily Witt, compared this to former Vice-President Kamala Harris’s appearance in Houston, with Beyoncé, late in her 2024 presidential campaign where she drew about 30,000 but she was dragging Beyoncé with her. President Trump in his famous rally in Madison Square Garden drew nearly 20,000. What are these two lefties—one of them a very old leftie—doing attracting such huge crowds?

In Tucson Arizona, 3 out-of-state politicians—Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Greg Casar, a young congressman from Austin—none of whom were actually campaigning for any national office attracted 20,000 people. Something very strange is going on. What is it?

I have a theory.

As Emily Witt said,

“Standing at a lectern affixed with a “FIGHT OLIGARCHY” sign, they hammered home a single message: the government has been taken hostage by a cabal of billionaires, and the only way to wrest it back is by unifying the working class.”

According to Sanders, who is a bit biased they are “scaring the hell out of them” (Musk and Trump).  They might not be scaring them, but they are taking notice.

That is actually an important message. I think it has legs. I want to show you what Sanders said. That is why they called their tour, The Fighting Oligarchy Tour.

More next time.