Bernie and AOC, Put Your Platform on the Ballot

Bernie and AOC have a national platform, an energized base, and the infrastructure to gather small donations. Now they need winnable policies to back. It seems impossible in the MAGA-controlled government — unless they turn to state ballot initiatives.

Bernie Sanders Holds "Fighting Oligarchy" Rally In Idaho

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders at a “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” event on April 13, 2025, in Nampa, Idaho. (Natalie Behring / Getty Images)


In a recent CNN town hall, an audience member named Grace Thomas asked Bernie Sanders how the Democrats could win back men, particularly white men, without abandoning marginalized communities. A fiery Sanders, who moments later would be shouting at Anderson Cooper about CNN’s insufficient attention to America’s health care crisis, answered Grace with his nice-Jewish-grandpa-explains-right-and-wrong voice. There are certainly things that Americans disagree over, he said, but there are also many things most of us agree on, particularly when it comes to economic issues that impact people’s daily lives.

To illustrate, Sanders asked the bipartisan audience a question of his own: “Who thinks the American health care system is broken?” Everyone raised their hands.

While President Donald Trump and his brigade of billionaires ransack the federal government, Sanders is one of the few opposition politicians actually trying to do politics. His tour with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has drawn packed crowds across the country. Their message: fight oligarchy by standing up to corporations and addressing the pressing needs of the working majority.

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