The coast-to-coast “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” featuring Senator Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), hit the Central Valley town of Bakersfield, where oil and agriculture dominate the economy. Enthusiastic San Joaquin Valley residents came to welcome the two national figures at the forefront of resistance to the Trump administration’s unlawful actions and attacks on the Constitution.
Some 5,000 people crammed in and around the Dignity Health convention center for Sanders and AOC. It’s the hottest political act in the country right now. The diverse, working-class crowd was primed for information and inspiration. And they got plenty of both in the program.
Nicole Moore is president of Rideshare Drivers United. She told about the reality of working in the tech world that is not all that it seems on the surface. “As drivers, we work in the belly of the beast at the crossroads of corporate greed and algorithmic management, which is robots managing you.
“We are the future of work, and we can tell you as it is now, it is not freedom. It’s a trap. But make no mistake, this isn’t just about drivers. This is a new playbook. They’re coming for nurses, for teachers, for everyone because everyone can be managed and deployed by an app. And if so, maybe they can get rid of your rights too.”
Theresa Romero is president of the United Farm Workers (UFW). She spoke of the climate of fear caused by the Trump administration’s deportation actions. “We are suing the Trump administration over the unconstitutional ‘show me your papers’ registry, and we’re going to fight like hell if they come for farmworkers’ wages and worker protections.
“Let’s be clear about one thing. Donald Trump and his billionaire friends want us to be afraid, because the bosses know that when workers are afraid of federal agents, they’re also less likely to report wage theft or unsafe working conditions, or to organize.”
UFW organizer Carolina addressed the crowd in Spanish. The mother of seven has labored in agriculture for 30 years and led a successful organizing effort at a farm where she worked. She advised people not to be afraid of the rich, the bosses and the politicians.
Next, AOC got a rousing reception as she articulated the theme that has brought so many people together, in Bakersfield and all over the nation. “We share in the frustration and heartache that comes from watching those in power actively tear down, or refuse to fight for, everyday working Americans like us.
“And we are also here together because an extreme concentration of power, greed and corruption is taking over this country like never before, and there’s a word for it. It is oligarchy.”
AOC focused on the Republican’s Project 2025 agenda, pointing at a regional GOP lawmaker. “Just look at what Republicans have been quietly doing in Congress, including your congressman out here, Rep. David Valadao [R–Hanford].
“They’ve been voting to advance cuts on hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and veterans benefits so that they can take that money and give it to billionaires in the form of tax cuts and sweetheart government contracts to their companies like Space X and Blue Origin.
“And again, Bakersfield, you know who voted for that? Congressman David Valadao. He knows that’s not what you want. He knows it is deeply unpopular, and he knows that it hurts the people of Bakersfield, but he is not there to serve the working families of this community. He’s there to serve himself and the billionaires who support him and the Republican Party.”
Focusing her message locally, AOC painted a chilling portrait of the nation’s existential crisis. “In America, we are watching as our neighbors, students and friends are being fired, targeted and disappeared. It is real. Even out here in Bakersfield, we’ve had a UFW organizer that was taken up.
“People we love are being targeted and harassed for being LGBTQ. Our coworkers, U.S. citizens and immigrants alike, are being disappeared off the street by men in vans with no uniform.
“And it’ll never, never just be institutions and officials alone that uphold our democracy. It will always be the people, the masses who refuse to comply with authoritarian regimes who are the last and strongest defense of our country and our freedoms. You, Bakersfield.”
Concluding on a hopeful note, AOC spoke from her personal working-class life experience. “So many of us know what it feels like for life to be one bad day, one piece of bad news, one setback away from feeling like it’s all gonna fall apart.
“And we’re here to say, Bakersfield, I’m here to say that we don’t have to live like this anymore. We can make a new world, a better country, where we fight for the dignity of all people.
“And Bakersfield, that dignity looks like living wages. It looks like stable housing. It looks like guaranteed healthcare, and it looks like respect for all our differences.”
Already quite energized, the audience gave a warm welcome to the man who has been promoting those values throughout his long political career, providing inspiration to progressives. Then Sanders made his case. “You’ve got millions and millions of people working for starvation wages. People cannot afford housing. People cannot afford the prescription drugs they need. People want to buy good food for their kids, so they go into a grocery store and the price of food is off the charts.”
Sanders observed that 800,000 Americans are homeless and 20 million others are spending 50% or more of their limited incomes on housing. He suggested instead of spending a trillion dollars a year on the military, building five million units of affordable housing. While condemning cuts to veteran care, Sanders emotionally went to the heart of why he is fighting.
“During World War II, some 400,000 young Americans, men and women, died to defeat fascism and authoritarianism. And I will be damned if we’re going to dishonor those men and women who fought and died for democracy by allowing Trump to become a dictator.”
Earlier in the day of his April 15 Bakersfield appearance, Sanders wrote on social media that if you paid $1 in federal income taxes, you paid more than Tesla in 2024 and 2022, AT&T in 2021, Nike in 2020, Elon Musk in 2018, Amazon in 2017 and Jeff Bezos in 2011.
Sanders noted the consequences of doing nothing about that. “If we sit back and allow the billionaire class and the oligarchs to do with us what they want, they will succeed. Our job now is to stand up and tell them, enough is enough.”
