This story about progressive members of Congress speaking at Denver and Greeley venues, was written by Chase Woodruff and Lindsey Toomer and appeared on Colorado Newsline on March 21, 2025. We are sharing the story in two parts.
The two most prominent voices on the Democratic Party’s progressive left wing visited Colorado’s Front Range on Friday to make the case that a fight against a billionaire “oligarchy” should be the focal point of the party’s resistance to the second Trump administration.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York drew large crowds at stops in Greeley and Denver, part of a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour through multiple Western states while Congress is in recess. The Denver crowd at Civic Center Park was estimated at 30,000 people, with fences that closed off the event surrounded by spectators as well.
“In the hundreds of rallies that I have done, we have never, ever had a rally as large as this,” Sanders said. “And Denver, your presence here today is not just significant for Colorado. You are sending a profound message all over the world. The whole world is watching, and they want to know if the people of America are going to stand up to Trumpism, oligarchy and authoritarianism.”
A capacity crowd packed into the University of Northern Colorado’s Bank of Colorado Arena booed as Sanders, an independent socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, recounted his attendance at President Donald Trump’s second inauguration alongside Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and other ultra-wealthy figures with close ties to the president.
“Abraham Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Sanders said. “Well, Trump has a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires. And what these guys are busy doing right now is going after Medicaid, going after Social Security, going after nutrition. The rich want to get richer and they don’t care who they step on.”
In its first months in office, the Trump administration has attempted an unprecedented expansion of executive power, including through the actions of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, spearheaded by Musk. Many of its efforts — including attempted shutdowns of congressionally established agencies, mass firings of federal workers and a freeze on certain federal funds that has persisted in defiance of court orders — run contrary to longstanding separation-of-powers principles in the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s not just oligarchy we’ve got to deal with — under Trump, this country is moving very rapidly to an authoritarian form of society,” Sanders said in Greeley. “Today we have a president who is undermining our Constitution every single day, who is threatening freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”
He expanded on the theme in Denver, saying, “People fought and died to create a democratic society,” and that Trump cannot take it away. He said the founders of America created the separation of powers because they took on “the most powerful person in the world at that time, the king of England,” and they did not want one person have “all the power” in the U.S.
“When I was in elementary school, we learned about how the government was formed, the constitutional convention and all that stuff,” Sanders said. “I should have studied it harder, but Trump should have learned it in the first place.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who has represented New York’s 14th Congressional District since 2019, urged crowds in Greeley and Denver to volunteer, join neighborhood associations and seek other ways to “build community,” which she called a powerful weapon against authoritarianism and corruption.
“Elections, they come and go,” she said in Greeley. “But in the meantime, and during, throughout, before and after all of that, we need to build our bonds with each other as communities.
“If you don’t know your neighbor, it’s easier to turn on them,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “That’s why they want to keep us separated, alone and apart. Scrolling on our phones. Thinking that the person next to us is some kind of enemy. But they’re not.”
That message resonated with Monica Hernandez Jackson, a UNC student who said she wants to follow in Ocasio-Cortez’s footsteps and run for office one day.
“Being here, it was very emotional, because we saw like-minded individuals — we’re not alone, we’re all angry,” she said. “I didn’t think things like this happened in Greeley. People would always go to Fort Collins. So it’s just like a little bit of hope…”
Juliette Wilson, a Fort Collins resident and retired former science writer for the U.S. Geological Survey, called Trump and Musk’s firings of federal workers “unconscionable, cruel and stupid.”
“I wanted to come see these two incredible people today to try to get that spark of hope, to act in any way I can, to try to save this democracy,” Wilson said after the Greeley rally. “This country is too important to let it be destroyed by a couple of wealthy narcissists.”
“I hope all of us together can save our country — for the masses, not for the few,” she added…