The left, for about the 318th time in the past 365 days, is talking about a “vibes shift” in its favor.
The reason? Long lines of spectators for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.
Thursday marked the first leg of the western part of the tour, which — if one is to judge by the reaction on social media — was something equivalent to Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, but without music and with a somewhat less famous (if no less humorless) millennial on stage.
NBC News covered the events Thursday by noting that it was a barnstorming appearance featuring “two of the Democratic Party’s most unabashed progressive lawmakers” who “had plenty to say about President Donald Trump. But they also had some strong words for their own party.”
“This isn’t just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the Las Vegas gathering.
“While Ocasio-Cortez did not mention any Democratic leaders by name, the crowd broke out into multiple ‘Primary Chuck’ chants — a reference to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who backed down from a funding fight with Trump last week,” NBC News’ report added.
Clearly, these are people who are in touch with the activist base, but perhaps not with reality, considering that Schumer’s move was an acknowledgement that he held no winning cards. Naturally, Ocasio-Cortez — who would be the ideal primary Schumer opponent for progressives — has nothing to lose from encouraging these kinds of chants and/or ignoring reality.
However, the western leg of the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour (it’s a catchier name than “Eras,” if you think about it, and I’m assuming tickets are cheaper) fell victim to the same social media reality vacuum that the Democrats fell into last year — namely, confusing event lines with votes.
For instance, do these posts remind you of anything?
Here’s the line in Las Vegas for today’s “Fighting Oligarchy” rally with @SenSanders & @AOC pic.twitter.com/EzGhP0UbpW
— Maeve Reston (@MaeveReston) March 20, 2025
Here’s the line of people waiting to get into Senator Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” rally in North Las Vegas today. pic.twitter.com/GePhOhlOLd
— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) March 20, 2025
Huge long line of people waiting to get into the Bernie & AOC rally here in Tempe.
The people are showing up to Fight Oligarchy! pic.twitter.com/wYTO1x1jpu
— Kai Newkirk (@kai_newkirk) March 21, 2025
Those are videos of lines at the Las Vegas and Tempe, Arizona events. When the duo hits Colorado on Friday, you can expect to see more of them, and there are plenty more X posts about Thursday’s lines where that came from.
If those look familiar to you, it’s because they’re virtually identical to the posts activists and/or reporters were making outside Kamala Harris events last summer:
Hate to compare this to the RNC, but I am waiting in an absurdly long line at the #DNC to hear the Obamas. The line was 20 min max to get in. It was worth it to step outside of the perimeter because I recorded an excellent podcast with two of the top reporters on the Kamala… pic.twitter.com/Vz3MKU2Euv
— Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) August 21, 2024
Hundreds of Kamala Harris supporters are standing in line outside the McHale Center at Wilkes university for her rally this evening.
Harris won’t be speaking until 7pm. pic.twitter.com/XfxYuodK28
— SeanKitchen.bsky.social (@pennslinger) September 13, 2024
the queue for @KamalaHarris’ rally in Philly might be the longest line I’ve ever seen. runs all the way down Franklin Pwky to Logan Square, then wraps all the way back around and up the hill
was at the Olympics this summer and didn’t see lines like this pic.twitter.com/PfsWhTirri
— Chris Bolman 🔆 (@ChrisBolman) November 4, 2024
Took this an hour and a half before @kamalaharris was scheduled to show here in deep-blue Madison. People are packed to the rafters. Campaign says more than 10,500, which is as many as the fire marshal allowed. pic.twitter.com/qitqw41bf0
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) September 21, 2024
This is the line outside of Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee just over an hour before Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak… pic.twitter.com/SQE5czy0Oh
— Evan Casey (@ecaseymedia) August 20, 2024
Whew! You can sense the definite vibe shift from here. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kamala got 400 electoral … wait, what’s that? Oh. I’m being told from the folks back in the MSNBC studios that she lost all those states.
But the lines! Back to you, Joy. Oh wait, Joy’s done for, too. Um, back to you, Rachel!
Yes, apparently, the veterans from Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign weren’t around to tell either Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and/or the activists that stadium turnout ≠ vote totals.
Will the Democrats learn their lessons from the 2024 election?
Even the Kamala veterans seem to have forgotten this; it feels like just yesterday when reporters were marveling over the huge crowds Harris was drawing (with the aid of stars like Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion) and the teeny tiny crowds Donald Trump was getting, only to be floored when Trump not only won every single swing state (and came awfully close to winning some that weren’t even in play) and managed to pull out the popular vote, as well.
That’s because, in political time, it practically was yesterday. I have a kid who was born when Joe Biden was still the nominee and he’s not even a year old. In between his birth and now, we’ve seen the breakdown of a candidate, followed by a period of “joy” and “vibes” where everyone thought that it was the senescent doddering fool who was the source of the left’s problems, only to find out it was actually the policies.
And now, the two members of Congress who have done more than anyone, arguably, to push the Democratic Party hard to the left are getting attention because of … lines. Again.
One does not wish to stop these fools from fully self-destructing because they continue to get high off their own hopium supply — but have they learned nothing from the 2024 debacle, to the point where they’re even recycling their own demonstrably faulty narrative tropes as proof of a groundswell that just isn’t there?
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