What The Hell America!

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to join five stops of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour this week.

Sanders (I-Vt.), who mobilized working-class voters nationwide during his 2016 and 2020 runs for the Democratic presidential nomination,
launched the tour in the Midwest last month. Thousands of people have attended his events in cities across Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

“Today, the oligarchs and the billionaire class are getting richer and richer and have more and more power,” Sanders said in a Friday statement. “Meanwhile, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and most of our people are struggling to pay for healthcare, childcare, and housing. This country belongs to all of us, not just the few. We must fight back.”

Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) are set to join the senator on Thursday, March 20 at the East Las Vegas Community Center, for an event scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm local time. From there, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders plan to head to Arizona State University in Tempe for a 6:00 pm stop.

The pair has two more events on Friday: A 1:00 stop at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and a 5:00 pm stop at Civic Center Park in Denver. They are slated to wrap up the trip on Saturday with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) at an 11:30 am event at Catalina High School in Tucson, Arizona.

“While Republicans try to gut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, people across the country are standing up against these attacks on the working class,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “They deserve representation that is willing to stand with them. I look forward to hitting the road with Sen. Sanders.”

Since Sanders announced the new tour stops and guests on Friday, Republicans and a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill have given them some new developments to discuss on the road. Ahead of a potential government shutdown on Friday, 10 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus—including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—helped GOP senators advance a stopgap measure that critics warn will further empower President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s attacks.

Schumer’s “gutless” handling of the situation sparked calls for him to
step down as Senate minority leader and for Ocasio-Cortez to launch a primary challenge against him in the 2028 cycle—something the congresswoman has not ruled out.

As the Senate was sending the stopgap bill to the president’s desk, Trump was at the U.S. Department of Justice, delivering a speech that sparked widespread alarm. As Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program and an adviser at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, summarized, he “sought to undermine faith in our judicial system, attacked lawyers who support due process and the rule of law, and made it clear that he expects the attorney general and other leaders to use the full force and resources of the Justice Department to roll back our civil and human rights, target his enemies, and operationalize a worldview that perpetuates white supremacy.”

On Saturday, Trump bombed Yemen and revealed that he was invoking the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. The 1798 law was used during World War II to force thousands of people of mostly German, Italian, and Japanese descent into internment camps.

Meanwhile, Sanders wrote in a Saturday email to supporters that from the tour stops so far, “what I have found is that in these districts, and all across the country, Americans are saying loudly and clearly: NO to oligarchy, NO to authoritarianism, NO to kleptocracy, NO to massive cuts in programs that working people desperately need, NO to huge tax breaks for the richest people in our country.”

“There must be meetings and rallies in all 50 states, and they should take place over and over again. And when those rallies are over, we need to organize the people who attend to mobilize in their communities and be in touch with their members of Congress. But that is not all,” he wrote. “We need progressives to run for office at all levels. I am talking about school boards, city councils, state legislature, and the races that are not in the news but make a tremendous difference in local communities.”

“We need to build community and bring people together even when it isn’t about politics first. The Republican Party is always trying to divide us up based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and more… we need to come together as one,” he continued. “We need to elect a U.S. House and a U.S. Senate that will prioritize the needs of the working people in this country.”

Sanders concluded that “we need to be looking for new and creative ways to educate each other in a world where nearly the entire media and communications infrastructure is owned and controlled by the wealthiest people in this country. If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, this is that time.”