Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is hitting the road again after a brief pause in his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that has
drawn thousands
of supporters against President Trump’s policies.
“If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, now is that time,” Sanders
said in a video
posted online Thursday, adding that his goal is to “defeat oligarchy, authoritarianism and horrific attacks against low-income and working-class Americans throughout our country.”
Sanders teased that a “new series of rallies” would be announced soon in “rural conservative areas — exactly the areas that we have got to turn around further.”
His campaign website already features RSVP links for upcoming stops in
McAllen
, Texas, on June 20;
Shreveport
, La., and
Tulsa
, Okla., on June 21; and
Amarillo
, Texas, and
Fort Worth
, Texas, on June 22.
According to the event notices, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) is scheduled to take part in each of Sanders’s upcoming Texas rallies, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), who unsuccessfully ran for Texas governor in 2022, is slated to join Sanders for the June 22 events.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is a native of Shreveport, but Sanders’s event is scheduled to take place at an auditorium outside of Johnson’s deeply conservative district.
Sanders launched his
anti-oligarchy
, pro-progressive campaign in February alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
“We are building a political movement which is taking on the billionaire class, taking on the right-wing extremist Republican Party, and taking on a corporate-dominated Democratic Party whose leadership is wedded to maintaining the status quo,” he said in the video posted Thursday.
Sanders’s campaign arm didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for more information about his tour plans.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.)
suggested in April
that Democrats should stop using the word “oligarchy” to attack Trump and his allies, because it doesn’t resonate beyond left-leaning coastal audiences. She suggested instead that Democrats should say the party opposes “kings.”
Protests organized under the name “No Kings” are slated to take place
throughout the country
this weekend to demonstrate against Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.
Sanders, meanwhile, stood by his “oligarchy” warnings.
“Let us be clear, we are living under an oligarchic form of society which has created more income and wealth inequality than at any time in our history,” he said in Thursday’s video. “That oligarchic form of society created a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to make unlimited amounts of campaign contributions.”
