Bernie and AOC: Figureheads of Liberalism’s Hollow Symbolic Resistance

The fire-turned-fizzle of Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’ idealism is a reminder that the Democratic Party is not a vehicle for progressive change, but rather a mechanism to contain and neutralize it.

The illusion of American democracy is in a sorry state when even its supposed left-wing champions offer little more than hollow gestures and symbolic protests, followed by relentless efforts to drag the base ever further to the right. To put it gently, the Democratic Party today is simply incapable of mounting genuine opposition to the extreme rightward lurch of American politics.

Instead, we’ve seen the emergence of figureheads like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), both of whom rose to recognition as perceived disruptors, but have since descended back to earth, now a tempering and redirecting force for grassroots energy rather than vehicles of transformative change.

Rather than rising to an appropriate level of resistance, they sell away any supposed leftist credibility, setting up “Fighting Oligarchy” publicity tours in the same fashion as so many MAGA rallies, with the only difference being the platitudes being uttered from the stage to similarly hornswaggled audiences.

All this, with the blessing of the very party they claim to be rebeling against.

Those who’ve followed politics over the past few decades know the routine; after the firing up of the base, the inevitable kowtowing to estlablishment stalwarts for the sake of preserving the empire, above all.

Meanwhile, party leadership substitutes toothless virtue signaling for impactful, substantive resistance – a trend encapsulated by tone-deaf stunts like congresswomen donning pink blazers to "protest" Donald Trump, as if wardrobe choices might adequately counter the accelerated rise of fascism. If this is what passes for a political left, it’s a clear sign of how anemic this alleged democracy’s defenses have become.

The Democratic Party Exists Where a Leftist Party Should Be

The Democratic Party does not represent the American left. Instead, it occupies the space where a true leftist party should exist, serving to pacify dissent and block the emergence of alternatives. Its role in American politics is not to push the country leftward, but to keep it anchored in the neoliberal center while masquerading as a counterweight to right-wing extremism.

This is not a recent development, nor is it an aberration—it’s an historical throughline. For decades, the DNC has perfected the art of feigning progressivism while aggressively stifling any genuine leftist movement.

By positioning itself as the last line of defense against Republican extremism (even as it cozies up to conservative darlings), it pressures voters to fall in line, using the fear of the GOP as a bludgeon against anyone who dares to demand more.

The party’s entire strategy is built on absorbing progressive outrage and energy, redirecting it into electoral efforts that culminate in the same centrist compromises and corporate-friendly policies. It is not a malfunctioning left-wing institution—it is a functioning right-wing one, operating exactly as designed.

Performative Protests Instead of Real Opposition

A timely example of the Democratic Party’s hollow resistance was the much-ballyhooed “pink blazers” protest during President Trump’s joint address to Congress in early March. Dozens of Democratic congresswomen showed up adorned in rosy colored outfits as their chosen form of dissent.

This sartorial statement was meant to signal defiance, with pink signifying power and protest, but such a message was hardly evident from the optics, and it utimately amounted to little more than an embarrassing stunt.

Even left-leaning commentators derided the spectacle as spineless and performative, quipping that Democrats were “bringing pink blazers to a fight for democracy.” The comparison is not without credence; whereas the far right are preparing a fascist, authoritarian coup, Democratic leaders seem content to respond with coordinated outfits and hashtags.

The contrast became even more glaring when Representative Al Green stood up during that same address and interrupted Trump to denounce proposed Medicaid cuts. He was immediately removed from the chamber and later censured by a bipartisan vote—including ten of his fellow Democratic party members.

The attire-related protest was certainly not the beginning of cringe-worthy actions. In 2020, amid nationwide uproar over the extrajudicial murder of George Floyd, top Democrats took a knee in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall draped in colorful Ghanaian kente stoles – a gesture widely criticized as performative and pandering.

Allies implored them to focus on policy rather than pandering symbolism; comedian Nicole Byer, for instance, tweeted that Democrats should “hang up the kente cloth, write laws and defund the police.”

Repeatedly, when faced with crises – be it attacks on women’s rights, racial injustice, persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals, or the erosion of democratic norms – the party’s response has been tepid symbolism and empty promises.

Think of Nancy Pelosi ripping up Trump’s State of the Union speech on live TV, or lawmakers singing “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps after legislative defeats. These gestures generate viral clips, which is great content for the party’s marketing efforts, but not so much for actual messaging and subsequent action.

Real lives are on the line, yet Democratic leaders too often settle for hollow symbolic resistance instead of wielding their power to block or reverse harmful policies.

A Party Drifting Right, Embracing Hollow Bipartisanship

While offering only superficial resistance to the right, the Democratic Party itself has slid further in that direction. Rather than champion bold progressive policies, party leaders seem more comfortable teaming up with so-called “moderate” Republicans in the name of “saving democracy.” Such was the case in the most recent election cycle, when Vice President Kamala Harris literally campaigned alongside arch-conservative Liz Cheney (and accepted endorsement from her war criminal father), in an unlikely alliance​.

The two stood united in a common goal of preventing Donald Trump’s return to power – framing the election as a battle for the soul of democracy, and the most important election of all time (just like every other election). This bizarre bipartisan roadshow (Harris even sharing a stage with Liz in the Republican Party’s birthplace) signaled just how far Democrats will go to court disaffected GOP voters, rather than even consider a more progressive platform.

Democrats heralded Cheney – a staunch neoconservative who voted with Trump over 90% of the time – as a brave defender of the Constitution, simply because she opposed Trump’s election lies.

Previously, in 2020, Joe Biden’s campaign famously gave prime convention airtime to Republicans like John Kasich, signaling to suburban moderates that there was plenty of room on the Democratic bandwagon.

Such overtures might broaden the coalition’s appeal, but they also accelerate the party’s ideological dilution. At this juncture in time, every olive branch to Republicans comes at the expense of actual systemic change, reinforcing the sense that Democratic leaders stand for little beyond not being Trump.

Bernie Sanders: A Revolution Deferred

Many on the left once looked to Bernie Sanders as a game-changer – a politician who would spark a “political revolution” from inside the Democratic Party.

To his credit, Sanders galvanized millions of voters, especially young people with his 2016 and 2020 primary campaigns, which centered around for Medicare for All (M4A), tuition-free college, and challenging the oligarchs that have long puppeteered the American political process.

Sanders’ back-to-back presidential campaigns provide textbook examples of how the Democratic establishment ensures that progressive movements never translate into power.

In 2016, despite generating unprecedented enthusiasm and grassroots fundraising, Sanders faced a Democratic National Committee that was openly working against him.

Leaked emails revealed that top officials had actively strategized to undermine his campaign, reinforcing the suspicion that the party had already chosen its nominee before a single vote was cast. The DNC coordinated media narratives, suppressed favorable polling, and funneled support toward Hillary Clinton, ensuring Sanders' loss.

Further undermining any claims of neutrality, it later emerged that the Clinton campaign had entered into a joint fundraising agreement with the DNC as early as August 2015—months before a single primary vote had been cast. This arrangement gave the Clinton team de facto control over party resources, including staffing and budgeting decisions, in exchange for helping the DNC dig itself out of debt.

Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile would go on to confirm that the agreement effectively handed operational control to the Clinton campaign, sparking outrage and further validating Sanders supporters’ claims that the process had been rigged from the start.

The DNC’s state-level fundraising apparatus was another tool used to tilt the scales. Funds raised through state party committees were funneled back to the national party, which then deployed those resources in support of Clinton’s candidacy.

This created a closed-loop system that turned nominally neutral institutions into arms of the Clinton campaign—all while grassroots activists, believing they were contributing to a broader Democratic effort through Sanders' campaign, ultimately saw their small-dollar donations benefit the very campaign they were organizing to oppose.

The 2016 Democratic National Convention served as a particularly grotesque spectacle of establishment gaslighting. Al Franken and Sarah Silverman were trotted out to pacify rightly indignant Sanders supporters, with Silverman famously telling the crowd they were being “ridiculous” for continuing to boo.

The message was clear: accept the crumbs being offered or get nothing at all—a manipulative tactic long used to coerce dissenters into submission. Far from any semblance of unity, this was dominance dressed up in diplomacy.

The 2020 primary saw a more refined, but equally ruthless, strategy. After winning Nevada, Sanders was in prime position to take control of the race. However, after meetings with Biden, key moderate candidates—Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar—suddenly dropped out and endorsed the then-Vice President, thereby consolidating the moderate vote and preventing Sanders from fortifying a decisive lead.

Elizabeth Warren, the candidate perhaps most ideologically aligned with Sanders, remained in the race just long enough to split the progressive vote, effectively neutralizing Sanders’ advantage, before ultimately throwing her support behind Biden.

Sarah Silverman’s transition from Bernie to Hilary occured in a matter of roughy eight minutes

After 2016, Sanders folded his insurgency into the Clinton campaign; after 2020, he became a loyal surrogate for Biden, then Harris.

His reward? A few platform concessions and task forces, while M4A was summarily dropped from the platform and Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief. There was no structural upheaval in the party, no newly empowered progressive bloc calling the shots – just the same old guard with Sanders relegated to the sidelines, a cheerleader for the democratic party’s purposes.

Sanders, who spent most of his career as an Independent and self-described democratic socialist, caucused with the Democratic Party not out of allegiance but as a calculated and strategic move—perhaps with truly altruistic intentions to shift the party’s platform leftward from within.

However, instead of pulling the party toward the progressive base that rallied behind him, however, he was cajoled into becoming a party surrogate, pulling his base closer to the establishment, all the while establishing the party-friendly parameters within which resistance and protest are be permitted.

Worse yet, Sanders continues to lease out his dwindling credibility, headlining these Blue MAGA political rallies on its behalf, reinforcing the illusion that the Democratic Party is a legitimate vehicle for leftist politics, one that listens to its dissidents. In reality, these events are carefully orchestrated performances aimed at keeping the youth and ideological constituents docile, pacified, and voting blue.

At the “Fighting Oligarchy” travelling roadshow stop last week in Tempe, Arizona, Sanders declared, “We will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy… We’re not gonna allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and other billionaires to wreak havoc on the working families of this country.”

The crowd roared loudly—but the irony was deafening. Here was Bernie, making this declaration as a representative of a party propped up by billionaire donors, foreign lobbyists and the very oligarchical interests he previously spent his carreer condemning.

Sanders may continue to speak the language of revolution, but his role has been reduced to that of a pressure release valve—offering catharsis without confrontation, performance without power and hope without heart.

In the end, Bernie’s fiery speeches about oligarchy gave way to urging his followers to settle for incrementalism. He encouraged the crowd to resist oligarchs by getting involved in the “political process,” an arguably tone-deaf message, given the current state of politics—not to mention his own experience with the futility of challenging the establishment.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: From Firebrand to Party Loyalist

If Sanders represents the elder statesman of mischief managed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ is a tale of young blood, a rising star once hopeful of energizing the base and moving the party into the future. Where Sanders’ downfall illustrated how the party neutralizes external progressive challenges, AOC’s trajectory shows how it smothers them from within.

Upon entering Congress in 2018, Ocasio-Cortez quickly positioned herself as an insurgent force, challenging establishment leadership, refusing corporate PAC money, and advocating for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All (M4A).

However, when she attempted to mount an internal challenge to the Democratic establishment, she was swiftly cut down.

In her first term, AOC and her allies floated the idea of replacing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. The effort fizzled almost immediately as even supposed progressives like Hakeem Jeffries and Marcia Fudge—both proposed replacements for the speakership— lined up behind Pelosi. The Democratic machine had no tolerance for an actual ideological shift, and those who stepped out of line were quickly brought to heel.

Since that moment AOC’s transformation has been stark. Her once-defiant stance has softened, her challenges to leadership have grown infrequent, and her rhetoric now aligns more with party messaging than with the grassroots movement that put her in office. Like Sanders, she became a symbol of resistance—one that ultimately reinforces party control rather than disrupts it.

A clear example of this new, tepid approach came in 2021, when AOC declined to force a floor vote on M4A during Nancy Pelosi’s re-election as House Speaker.

Progressive activists had called for the short-lived #FORCETHEVOTE campaign, arguing that AOC and other left-wing Democrats should withhold their support for Pelosi unless she agreed to bring M4A to a vote. Instead, AOC chose to back Pelosi without extracting any concessions, a decision that confirmed her reluctance to challenge leadership when it mattered most.

Meanwhile, several top Democratic consulting firms—the very strategists and advisors who steer the party's campaigns—are working with the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a lobbying group explicitly created to kill Medicare for All and protect private insurance industry profits. This is quite telling when it comes to how committed these narrative shapers and agenda crafters are to the very principles they claim to support, to say the least.

Later, in 2021, AOC’s efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour were blocked by eight Senate Democrats during stimulus negotiations, proving once again that progressive demands make for good marketing material, but when the time comes to legislate, the party apparatus acts more like a barrier than a bridge.

In 2023, AOC expressed tacit support for increased military aid to Israel’s genocide, changing her “no” vote to “present,” which, while not a vote in the affirmative for aid, was almost certainly a signal of acquiescence to her establishment overlords. She later attempted to explain her “present” vote, noting a litany of reasons why she wanted to vote “no,” but never quite justifying the reason why she voted “present” instead.

More than anything, the vote signified her willingness to conform to the party’s foreign policy consensus rather than take a stand that might jeopardize her position within the establishment.

She’s also condemned pro-Palestinian protests, which, given the recent events surrounding Mahmoud Khalil’s unconstitutional detention as a political prisoner, indicates a stark contrast from her remarks during Tempe’s “Fighting Oligarchy” stop. At one point in her speech, she was reminded “of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and I just want to know who’s our MLK here? Who’s getting arrested in the streets?”

Throughout the ongoing U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Palestinians, she’s carefully walked the edge between maintaining lock-step with the party and doing even the bare minimum to end the pogroms and massacres.

For five and a half months as bombardment rained down relentlessly on Gaza, she avoided calling the attack a genocide, instead deflecting by acknowledging that "many people" believed it to be one. In her defense, she did eventually use the term, referring to the atrocities committed against Palestinians as an "unfolding genocide" in late March 2024, by which point over 32,000 people had been murdered by Israel.

Even in her attempts to appear thoroughly leftist, AOC often reveals her spectacle over substance play. In a Twitter livestream, she once donned a “Tax the Rich” sweatshirt—a legitimate call to action if it werent emblazoned above her official branding and available for a nominal fee of $58—while cheekily shouting out her “fellow radicals” in a way that immediately brings to mind one of the classic 30 Rock-related memes.

In the video, AOC targets an amorphous “system,” but never identifies specific mechanisms for change or directly. Meanwhile, throughout her buzzword-filled clip, in which she calls for broadly agreeable ideas like raising the minimum wage and health care access, she never confronts the reality that her own party leadership that has long stood in the way.

The moment felt more like curated marketing than movement-building—an aesthetic of dissent, shabbily affixed with party-approved branding, but just enough to satiate the placated masses in their id-pol bubbles.

Then again, such is perhaps to be expected from a party that harbors insider traders like Nancy Pelosi and keeps indicted fraudsters like Bob Menendez on payroll while rubber-stamping police budget increases year after year. The same Democrats who claim to oppose authoritarianism are the same facilitating the further expansion of the carceal state through private prisons, and funding every Cop City that pops up across the country.

These days, AOC’s trajectory mirrors that of Sanders: enthusiastic, principled resistance converted into party-approved rhetoric, and movement-building replaced by message discipline. The longer they remain affiliated with the Democratic Party, the more they serve to legitimize the very entities they rail against.

Modern Bipartisanship as a Vehicle for Right-Wing Policy

The Democratic Party’s rightward drift is not just historical—it continues in real time. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer illustrated this last week by supporting a GOP funding bill that prioritizes immigration crackdowns and military spending over social programs.

Schumer’s maneuvering highlights how Democratic leadership consistently caves to right-wing framing, reinforcing austerity and hawkish militarization while abandoning progressive policies. It also underscores a broader truth: that when push comes to shove, the party would rather align with Republicans than fight for the leftist policies it claims to support.

This isn’t a new trend. As early as 2017, Schumer publicly floated the idea of cooperating with Donald Trump on infrastructure, suggesting that Democrats could find “common ground” with the new administration.

Despite his public optimism, the bipartisan infrastructure cooperation he hoped to broker collapsed under the weight of Trump’s erratic behavior, GOP infighting, and a general lack of coherent policy planning from the administration.

After all was said and done, nothing of substance materialized from Schumer’s willingness to entertain collaboration—no transformative legislation, no lasting bipartisan framework—just more normalization of a presidency that was already careening toward authoritarian spectacle.

In the aftermath of the blunder, Schumer meted out leadership appointments like so many dog treats to obedient pups. In particular, he elevated Warren and Sanders to pacify, or “mollify,” the leftmost figures to prevent any insurgency or attempted revolt against the establishment.

That mindset hasn’t changed. Whether it’s border militarization or austerity budgets, Schumer and the Democrats have made clear that their strategy is hypernormalization of the new status quo, even when it comes at the expense of the party’s supposed progressive values.

Strange Bedfellows: Trump and Schumer buddy up after the former’s ascencion to power

A Feeble Facade of Resistance

From performative antics to aligning with Republicans, the sheer fecklessness of the Democratic Party’s opposition has become impossible to ignore. Leaders drape themselves in symbolic virtue while refusing to truly challenge the status quo or deliver relief to the working class.

Meanwhile, figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – who were supposed to invigorate the left – have instead helped to neuter it, channeling outrage into party-approved channels and reassuring the establishment that the left poses no real threat.

As one columnist lamented after the pink protest, “if this is the ‘opposition,’ then we are all doomed.” Indeed, this ostensible democracy is in dire straits if token resistance is all that the so-called left has to offer.

For some reason, people continue to place faith in the very institutions that have demonstrated nothing but indifference to their suffering; comprised of the same leaders who ignored poisoned water in Flint while corporations cashed in on public subsidies. The same policymakers who greenlight drone strikes, knowing civilians will be reduced to collateral damage—and then to silence in redacted reports.

Essentially, the public is expected to believe that these leaders will wake up one day and magically decide prioritize public health, economic equity, or human dignity over their own interests; that they will suddenly allow us commoners to vote away their power, and dismantle or restructure the hierarchies that reinforce it.

That’s the big myth; one designed to keep voters voting and hopers hoping—tethered to a machine that only functions to serve itself. It subsists by turning desperation into political capital, then selling it back to the populace as progress.

During the founding convention of the IWW, Lucy Parsons asked, “Do you think that they will allow you to vote them away from them by passing a law and saying, ’Be it enacted that on and after a certain day Mr. Capitalist shall be dispossessed?’” adding, “You may, but I do not believe it.”

The moment that enough people stop believing the myth, then the real opposition can begin—not within their hierarchies of power, nor within their imposed parameters of what is considered the “proper” way to resist, but outside of it, and without them, entirely.