WARREN, Mich. (news agencies) — 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 media. “You gotta do what you gotta do. The country’s in trouble and I want to play my role.”
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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