A weekend at Bernie’s

As Republicans continue to skip town hall style meetings with their constituents, fearing mobs of angry protestors, at least one Democrat is taking the opposite strategy.

Over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders continued on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” holding rallies in Kenosha, Wisconsin; Altoona, Wisconsin; and Warren, Michigan. He reportedly turned out around 4,000 people at the Kenosha event on Friday, 2,600 in Altoona, and more than 10,000 on Saturday night in Michigan - pretty stunning numbers for an off-year political event in smallish midwestern towns.

The crowds packed high school gymnasiums and overflow rooms to get a chance to hear the 83-year-old democratic socialist rage against the billionaire class, the Trump administration’s chaos, and Elon Musk’s DOGE. Along the way, Sanders called out local GOP congressmen by name for dodging their constituents and lifted up progressive leaders like UAW chief Shawn Fain, activist Abdul El-Sayed, Rep. Mark Pocan, and a few local Democratic Party officials.

At one point on Saturday, there was a pretty remarkable moment where he directly engaged with the audience, asking them to share some of their biggest concerns at the moment.

Content from the events reached millions of people online, from TikTok to IG and X. Livestreams of the Kenosha and Warren events on YouTube received over 120,000 views each. Steve Peoples at the Associated Press, chronicling the weekend’s events, wrote, “For now, at least, Sanders stands alone as the only elected progressive willing to mount a national campaign to harness the fear and anger of the sprawling anti-Trump movement.”

It’s such a shame that that’s the case.

I get that Bernie is a very unique figure in American politics, but he shouldn’t be. For one, he’s part of a gerontocracy that has overstayed its welcome in DC. However, with the exception of a few bright spots, very few other Democrats have attempted to harness the same sort of grassroots energy that Bernie has, or have even paid attention long enough to take notes.

When asked by the AP about Bernie’s strategy, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez really hit the point home. “It’s not about whether Bernie should or shouldn’t be doing this. It’s about that we all should,” she said. “But he is unique in this country, and so long as we are blessed to have that capacity on our side, I think we should be thankful for it.”

Dems reckon with trans sports bans

California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a podcast, and on his first episode, he gave a platform to right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk. He used the opportunity to agree with Kirk that transgender female athletes competing in women’s sports is “unfair.” At the same time, Senate Democrats, led by Tammy Baldwin, are attempting to punt the issue to state and local authorities. "Republicans in Washington are saying they know better than parents and local school districts," Baldwin, who is the first out lesbian elected to the Senate, told Axios. "They are wrong. I trust parents, schools and local sports leagues to make these decisions for their children."

According to a weekend column in POLITICO Magazine by Rachel Bade, the movement on the issue last week “jump-started a conversation that Democrats need to have.” Bade’s column highlighted recent polling on the issue, which showed 67% of Democrats and 79% of Americans of either party opposing transgender female athletes participating in women’s sports. Those are pretty terrible numbers. 

If a Democratic politician has a deeply held belief on an issue, they shouldn’t be exiled from the party if it deviates from the platform or DC liberal orthodoxy. However, there are tons of 80-20 issues that Democrats hold the high ground on against Republicans (see: ending mass shootings, universal healthcare, taxing the rich), and Republicans haven’t abandoned their positions on those as soon as a new attack ad drops. 

Democrats as a party should be careful jettisoning the rights of an incredibly small minority in an attempt to appease their Republican critics. They’re already under intense scrutiny for failing to take any sort of courageous stand against the excesses of the Trump administration. Regardless of where Democrats eventually land on the issue, Republicans will continue to hammer them for it online and off. Just like they have done for decades on taxes or crime or border security, GOP ad makers aren’t going just to stop attacking Democrats in any way they think will resonate with voters. 

Trump’s White House digital lead speaks

Drew Harwell and Sarah Ellison at the Washington Post published an inside look at the Trump White House’s digital strategy team, led by Deputy Assistant to the President, Kaelan Dorr. The Post article summarizes a few key digital moments of Trump’s 2nd term thus far, including that bizarre Valentine’s Day graphic. 

Kaelan Dorr has a long resume in the MAGA universe, serving in various roles in the first Trump administration, Sinclair Broadcast Group, the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute, and the conservative social media platform GETTR. 

During a recent White House event to engage conservative media, he gave a brief video interview about his team’s work:

The interview isn’t terribly noteworthy, other than a basic acknowledgement that I tend to agree with: that Democrats have fallen into a trap of speaking to people in confusing, elitist ways. “Everyone just wants to be spoken to like a human being,” he says. Here’s more recent reporting on Donald Trump’s digital strategies:

• New Yorker: Donald Trump’s A.I. Propaganda

• The Atlantic: Trump is Breaking the Fourth Wall

More things you should read:

• On Saturday, POLITICO ran an excellent item in Playbook about how conservatives have begun waging an online war against MAGA Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

• The New York Times just published a new profile of Meidas Touch, the Democratic red-meat media operation that is growth hacking YouTube.

• Dan Bongino is postponing his start date as Deputy Director of the FBI so he can make more money from sponsorship deals, according to this report in Mother Jones. 

• Tucker Carlson published a video interview with fraudster and former Democratic donor Sam Bankman-Fried, who is currently in prison. It’s kind of a wild video to watch. The bizarre jailhouse interview with a right-wing media star is just one part of SBF’s strategy to score a pardon from President Trump.

• Veteran DC political journalist Tara Palmeri, who most recently wrote a gossip-ish newsletter for Puck, is striking out on her own and building a YouTube show. 

• According to a new whistleblower complaint from a former Meta employee, Mark Zuckerberg wanted to expand Facebook’s operations into China so severely that he “was willing to allow the ruling party to oversee all social media content appearing in the country and quash dissenting opinions.” This of course, runs counter to Mark’s recent publicity tour where he has publicly opposed platform censorship in most forms. 

One last thing: Candace Owens & Theo Von slam Trump on Gaza

Moving around TikTok this week: a clip of podcaster Theo Von and conservative media personality Candace Owens criticizing Trump’s stance on leveling Gaza and turning it into hotels. It’s worth a watch:

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