Huge Crowds of All Political Types Are Turning Out for Bernie and AOC

And Maine Governor Janet Mills is a straight-up hero

Poster from berniesanders.com

Bernie Sanders announced in February that he’d be going on a Fighting Oligarchy Tour and he and AOC and other guest speakers have been drawing huge crowds in Republican districts since then.

• 9,000–23,000 in Tucson, Arizona (depending on who’s reporting) on March 22
• 34,000 in Denver, Colorado on March 21
• 11,000 in Greeley, Colorado on March 21
• 15,000 in Tempe, Arizona on March 20
• 1,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 20
• 9,000 in Detroit, Michigan on March 8
• 10,000 in Warren, Michigan on March 8
• 4,000 in Kenosha, Wisconsin on March 7
• 2,600 in Altoona, Wisconsin (population 9,287) on March 7
• 800 in Iowa City, Iowa (inside a 700-seat theater) on February 22
• 2,500 in Omaha, Nebraska on February 21

The Denver crowd was the biggest Bernie Sanders has ever drawn, including when he was running for president.

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Turns out that a lot of Americans don’t like it when you fire them en masse (and celebrate it by waving around a chainsaw) and then cut the services they depend on and rightfully expect in return for dutifully paying their taxes — even when rich people aren’t paying theirs.

I copied this meme from a LGBTQ+ Pride Stories🏳️‍🌈 story — thanks, Pride!

“The American people are saying loud and clear, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society,” Sanders said, according to Colorado Public Radio. “We will not accept the richest guy in the world running all over Washington, making cuts to the Social Security Administration, cuts to the Veterans Administration, almost destroying the Department of Education — all so that they could give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%.” — *Common Dreams*

All kinds of people are showing up to the rallies, including registered Democrats, registered Republicans, and people so disillusioned with the system that usually they don’t bother to vote — which was the largest demographic in the 2024 presidential election.

Meanwhile Republican voters are complaining so loudly and raucously at their town halls that the GOP leadership has told their politicians not to hold them anymore.

[embed]Republican lawmaker booed during rowdy town hall after complaining crowd is 'obsessed' with the… LARAMIE, Wyo. - Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman faced a torrent of heckles and boos during a town hall in deep red…www.nbcnews.com

And Democrats aren’t happy either — complaining that their party isn’t doing enough to prevent the Constitutional crisis being provoked by the Trump administration’s illegal edicts and power grabs from the judiciary and legislative branches of government.

[embed]'Try actually fighting': Democrats face voters' fury at town halls | CNN Politics Democratic lawmakers have faced eruptions of anger at town hall meetings across the country this week, as constituents…www.cnn.com

Also meanwhile, President Trump is still angrily ruminating over Maine Governor Janet Mills standing up to him (a rare and beautiful sight) at a governor’s meeting at the White House on February 21, more than a month ago.

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Here’s how Heather Cox Richardson describes what happened in her newsletter Letters from An American which you can find on Substack and Facebook:

The body that governs sports in Maine, the Maine Principals’ Association, ruled that it would continue to allow transgender students to compete despite Trump’s executive order because the Maine state Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Trump asked if the governor of Maine was in the room.

“Yeah, I’m here,” replied Governor Mills.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked.

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” she said.

“We are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t….”

“We’re going to follow the law,” she said.

“You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding,” he said.

Mills answered: “See you in court.”

So Trump found a way to withhold funds from Maine and this morning demanded on social media that Mills give him a “full-throated apology” or he won’t restore the funds. (Do you also find this gruesome old rapist’s weird use of the word “throat” creepy?)

Here’s part of his sleazy, greasy post: “Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled.”

Sorry, Mr. President. But I doubt that will be forthcoming. Because unlike you, Mills has integrity. While you were obscenely using your power to hurt others — walking into the dressing room of young girls at the Miss Teen USA pageant (and bragging about it later to Howard Stern), for example— she was using hers to protect people, co-founding the Maine Women’s Lobby to advocate for battered and abused women, for starters.

So my guess is she doesn’t cater to bullies.

I can’t deny that some Americans agree with President Trump’s bigoted and brutish ways — but a lot of us do not. And we’re casting about desperately for a leader to line up behind. I sure wish Bernie was younger. He’s one of the few on the Left who is showing the kind of backbone we need in this precarious time — the kind of time we’ve seen played out before.

“In my opinion, what Musk and those around him are aggressively striving for is not novel. It is not complicated, and it is not new. It is what ruling classes throughout history have always wanted and have always believed is theirs by right: more power, more control and more wealth,” Sanders said in a video announcing the tour. “They don’t want ordinary people — that’s you — and democracy getting in their way.” — *Newsweek*

But that’s exactly what we need to do.

Get in their way. Stat.

Update: Yup — Mills has what it takes

[embed]Maine Guv Claps Back at Trump in Defiant Speech Gov. Janet Mills dismissed the idea Trump cares about protecting women, suggesting he should focus on the economy…www.thedailybeast.com

Besides writing stories about movies, books, mental illness, and politics on Medium, I edit the feminist publication Fourth Wave and I’ve published two novels here: Thirsty Work and Count All This**. *Get *an email whenever I publish. And if you’re a writer with a story about social justice, submit to Fourth Wave.