Bernie is Naming and Shaming the System that Oppresses Us

On Saturday April 12, over 36,000 people braved the heat to Feel the Bern at the Los Angeles leg of Bernie Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy tour. DSA-LA members showed up in full force to table, canvass the crowd, and build our movement. The total attendance for these nationwide rallies is now over 200,000, indicating a major political moment like the one that built the modern iteration of DSA in 2016—one that DSA needs to support and build upon.

Lines at the entrances formed before 8 am. The crowd sprawled out in front of LA City Hall, ranging from elderly folks with dogs to teens filming TikToks. There was even a group of middle-aged goths sporting their black parasols. One family from Fontana left their house at 4 am to make sure they were able to make it inside the event. The dust kicked up in the overflow area while Joan Baez and Neil Young chanted “power to the people.” It all felt fitting for “Berniechella.”

At the DSA-LA table, we sold Dodger-blue t-shirts with our own custom Bernie logo as we introduced our vision to curious folks and asked them to become members. We sold over 100 shirts in the first few hours. Throughout the park, DSA canvassers had hundreds of conversations with potential members as we invited them to upcoming DSA 101s and socials.

Making “Oligarchy” a household term

What was Bernie Sanders doing in Los Angeles? It’s not an election year, almost the entirety of our city council are nominally Democrats, we’re already a sanctuary city, and the county went for Kamala Harris by 1.3 million votes. Why would Bernie spend time seemingly preaching to the choir?

The goal of the tour seems to be to make “oligarchy” a household term. By deliberately calling out the capitalists as the source of our systemic problems, Sanders and AOC are raising class consciousness without anyone ever having to crack open Marx. By leading with the issues that resonate with working people—the rent being too damn high, getting money out of politics—Sanders is able to draw massive crowds from both liberal strongholds like LA to deep red regions like Bakersfield. This project of uniting workers of all backgrounds is critical for DSA to build upon.

“People in all different geographic areas are dealing with increasingly similar conditions, just being ground down by the cost of living, it’s harder and harder to make ends meet,” says Ashik Siddique, DSA National co-chair who canvassed at the LA and Bakersfield rallies. “To fight right-wing authoritarianism, we need mass politics and organizing at a scale to match. We should lean into this political moment by supporting it every place we can.”

The labor unions that attended the rally represented a wide range of workers, from longshoremen, to nurses, to graduate students, to teachers, and more. It was an example of the diversity of workers necessary in order for our movement to be successful.

What’s next?

But what’s next, after a rally? Where does the energy and anger go? Our answer, of course, is DSA.

“The political imagination of the liberal status quo coalition in our city has plateaued,” says DSA LA co-chair Marc K. “Liberals in our city don’t have the political courage to pass more robust renter protection, for example. But the labor movement is willing to go past what the liberals are able to do. DSA has shown that we’re willing to lead the way and labor is coming along with us in that fight. That’s how we got four people on city council and two people on the school board for the nation’s second-largest school district.”

The LA rally was announced with less than two weeks’ lead time; DSA LA’s local convention was scheduled for the same day. Chapter leadership discussed and voted to move convention by a day, a massive logistical lift that nevertheless paid off with the chapter’s growth. At least eighty DSA volunteers canvassed the rally crowd, collecting 235 commitment cards and signing up 53 new members.

One person named Drew had identified as a democratic socialist for years and became a member at our table on Saturday. I asked him what convinced him to finally join. “I believe in universal healthcare, universal childcare, basic human rights. When I lived in Texas, I saw leftists get a lot of harassment from right-wingers with assault rifles, and it is really important for the movement that we stick together.”

Over and over, I heard that what resonated with people was conversations about the issues that affect them: the rent is too high, healthcare is too expensive, schools are being defunded, and so on. And I also saw what didn’t work: one canvasser opened a conversation by explaining that DSA is “building a mass working class political organization.” These sorts of terms may seem totally normal for active DSA members, but in this case, the canvasser was met with a blank stare and an “um, okay.”

It was a great reminder that leading with the issues and their socialist solutions is the most effective way to grow our organization, not fighting about the nuances of caucus discourse on Twitter or explaining our internal committee structures. AOC would seem to agree—in her speech, she emphasized, “This movement is not about purity tests, it’s about class solidarity.”

Fired up

After Bernie was finished speaking, I expected we would break down our table and start packing up. But the table was busier than ever with people fired up and wanting to become members. One person walked up to me and said, “I want to join DSA. How do I get involved?” A canvasser’s dream!

I asked another new member, Jaiden, why they had decided to join DSA today. “Actions speak louder than words,” they said. “I can preach about it all day, but I need to get my feet on the ground and make it happen.”

These rallies are a critical recruitment opportunity for chapters nationwide, whether they’re in liberal cities like LA or deep red towns in the Midwest. The overwhelming enthusiasm for two democratic socialist politicians demonstrates that there is energy for our movement, and we just need to harness it.

Benina S, DSA LA’s co-chair along with Marc K, says, “We’ve been a Democratic supermajority state for a long time, but there’s no political will to undo things like Prop 13 [a limit on property taxes] or the statewide ban on rent control and actually help working class people. Socialism provides an imagination for the future, and 36,000 people are here because they were moved by class struggle messaging.”