Yesterday there was a rally in Downtown LA that drew 36,000 people. It was thrown by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and had musical guests including Neil Young, Joan Baez, and Maggie Rogers. We were planning to go, too—but woke up exhausted and with a chore list a mile long. So instead we watched the livestream on our TV. It felt really good to hear politicians and union leaders and others with some significant voice say it like it is: we’re in a world of hurt. And: a lot of the mess we’re in is because the Democratic Party has, as a rule, been too captured by corporate money to make a strong case against oligarchy, let alone to fight tooth and nail for policies that really help working people.
After virtually attending the rally, a few little thoughts:
- The musical guests were great. Especially Neil Young, who was on his A-game, playing guitar and singing and generally being the weirdest person to cross the stage. Neil Young multiple times led the crowd in chants of “Take America Back.” As counter-MAGA slogans go, it’s pretty good!
- There were many union leaders up on stage—and it’s kind of wild to see union leaders, real workers who have been elected by their fellow union workers to lead them for a while, on your TV. Unlike geriatric members of congress and airbrushed entertainment industry people, these are real Americans, by which I mean they seem like the people I went to high school with. It’s great to see Bernie share his stage with them.
- AOC has real star power. My partner said it was like seeing Obama in 2007, 2008. She just has it—a clear voice and a striking charisma. No wonder they loathe her in MAGAland.
And one big takeaway: it was exciting to watch the rally, even on TV. It felt pressing and a little unscripted. (At one point, the president of a nurse’s union left the stage, along with the eight other nurses on stage with her, to act as first responders to someone in the crowd who was having a medical emergency. When they came back to stage, five minutes later, it was to grand cheering.) More than anything, it reminded me of the Trump rallies my proudly Democratic stepdad couldn’t stop watching, back in 2015. There is something powerful about live political speech in front of a great, big audience, and it means something when big crowds turn out for political events. Back in 2015 it was a harbinger of MAGA’s decade to come. Today, though, there’s something brewing on the left.
