Published 3/31/2025 16:52 | Edited 31/03/2025 17:28
Donald Trump’s second government is not just the repetition of his first management. This is a new phase-more authoritarian, more aligned with financial capital and big techs, more committed to the dismantling of the state. The presence of Elon Musk as a central figure of the new American power architecture is symptomatic.
In this scenario, it surprises (or perhaps not) the fact that the institutional opposition – led by the Democratic Party – follows paralyzed, conciliatory, unable to face the reactionary offensive. With approval in historic low and without a clear project, the party made room for figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to reocculate the field of antisystem criticism.
With the tour Fighting Oligarchy (“Fighting against the oligarchy”), the two parliamentarians attracted tens of thousands of people in key states such as Colorado, Arizona, Iowa and Wisconsin-just where the far right has consolidated tight victories.
The central guidelines of the tour are not new. Medicare for all, free higher education, popular housing and fiscal justice are among the proposals presented by Sanders since their 2016 and 2020 campaigns. But the moment is another. Faced with democratic inertia, such flags return to the only minimally concrete horizon for the reconstruction of the social pact in the US.
The atmosphere in the rallies makes this evident. Interviewed by New Yorkerthe worker Nikki Montaño Brown summarizes the collective feeling: “It was always a fight, but this is the biggest of my life. No one is helping us.” It is a direct, devastating diagnosis – that the “professionals of the political center” pretend not to listen.
The contrast between the progressive crowd and moderate silence became even clearer after Trump’s budget approval with the support of Chuck Schumer, Senator Democrats by New York. Meanwhile, other Democratic leaders like Ro Khanna and Tim Walz are late to resume contact with conservative districts. But there is doubt whether these actions are conviction or electoral calculation.
Popular anger, however, cannot be confused with irrationalism. She carries direction. “The contempt of Trump and Republicans for the working class is not only in poor creation. It is the summary of an agenda to deceive and explore workers,” Ocasio-Cortez said in Arizona. And Sanders went further: “The government was captured by a billionaire caste. They no longer know what to do with so much money. They buy mansions, jets, islands… and go to space.”
The statements gain strength in the absence of real alternatives in the stablishment. Instead of a firm opposition, what is seen is institutional passivity and programmatic emptying. “They need to improve communication, take the old guard and let the progressive wing represent the people,” said Brendan Crowley, a technical worker at the Tucson rally.
The dissatisfaction goes beyond the traditional left field. It involves independent, veterans, indigenous sectors, trade workers, precarious professionals. The crowds gather not only by ideological affinity, but by material necessity. “It’s the biggest struggle of my life,” repeats Brown. “And no one is helping us.”
Despite the symbolic force of the rallies, analysts point out that the success of the mobilization will depend on the capacity for collective organization. The articulate Eric Blanc, in an article in the The Guardianstates that the rallies need to become sustained actions, with the base being called to organize neighbors, colleagues and family. He argues that Sanders and Occortion-Cortez express explicitly that the audience acts as a mobilizer.
In this sense, the acts have been used to boost the National Action Day “Hands Off!”, Scheduled for April 5 by organizations such as MoveOn, Indivisible e Working Families Party. The goal is to defend public services threatened by Trump and Musk, such as social security, national parks and the veteran affairs department.
Greg Casar, Texas deputy and Progressive Caucus president in the House, said that internal opposition to trump is not to be summed up to electoral calculations. For him, cleavage in the Democratic Party today is not between left and center, but between those who fight and who surrender. The first ones take to the streets. The seconds sign scammer budgets.
Is there anything new in the air? It is early to say safely. But it is possible to state, based on what was seen in the fields of Tucson and Denver, that there is again real opposition to the oligarchy and authoritarianism in the United States.
Source: vermelho.org.br
