Evelyn Quartz: What the Democratic Party Still Doesn’t Understand About the West
By Evelyn Quartz
When I saw the video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stepping out into a roaring crowd in Montana—7,500 people packed into the public university’s arena in a deep-red state—I wasn’t surprised in the way that many people, especially those who don’t live here, seemed to be. I live in a part of the West that is very similar to that part of Montana. And I’ve seen firsthand how hungry people here are for a politics that speaks to their lives—not just their identities or zip codes. What Bernie Sanders and AOC are tapping into isn’t a cultural anomaly. It’s a movement that the Democratic establishment understands all too well—and continues to resist. As Sanders, in a voice stronger than his usual cadence, blasted to his followers in a viral video yesterday, “The status quo is not working, and cannot, and should not be defended.”
At the rally, AOC made a point that cut through the noise: “Donald Trump is not a fluke—he is the inevitable conclusion of a political system dominated by big money.” And if we want to defeat him, she said, “we have to defeat the system that created him.” That line struck a nerve. Because out here, people have watched both parties cater to corporate interests while their wages stagnate, their housing costs soar, and their communities hollow out. Trump offered them someone to blame. AOC and Sanders are offering something different: a structural analysis and a plan to fight back. Not with better branding or technocratic tweaks, but by organizing the one thing the oligarchs can’t buy—people.
The “Fighting Oligarchy” tour has also been strategic about where it goes. It’s not stopping only in safe blue cities or college towns—it’s showing up in working-class Western cities the party long ago wrote off: places like Folsom and Bakersfield, CA; Nampa, ID; Tucson, AZ; Greeley, CO. These are not progressive enclaves. They’re towns and small cities that sit just outside the glow of urban wealth, where many residents have become part of a service underclass propping up the lifestyle of an elite class that views the American West as a recreational playground. These are places that the party stopped believing it could win and stopped trying to understand. But the people turning out for these rallies aren’t responding to celebrity or branding. They’re responding to someone finally naming the forces that broke their towns—and offering a way to fight back.
What stood out most at the rally—beyond the crowd size—was how central labor was to the message. This wasn’t just progressive branding or campaign talk. The union presence was heavy, unapologetic, and woven into every part of the Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. From union leader Sara Nelson’s fiery call to a united working class at the Montana rally—“Nothing can move without our labor, and it’s time to exercise our power”—to her invocation of Dr. King’s legacy, the message was clear: social justice is tied to economic justice. King’s vision wasn’t limited to civil rights. He fought to build a multiracial movement for economic freedom—and that part of his legacy has largely been erased from mainstream political discourse.
At one point in the rally, AOC shared her own story—growing up in New York, watching her mother struggle to keep a household afloat on a house cleaner’s income, and working as a waitress herself to help make ends meet. She wasn’t there to deliver a scripted message from a distant political class—she was there to talk about survival, labor, and dignity. Speaking to a mostly white crowd in Missoula, she said, “We might all come from different places, but we share so many of the same experiences.” Someone in the crowd shouted back, “Power to the people!” And for a moment, you could feel what real solidarity sounds like—not as a slogan, but as a lived connection across class and geography.
In the 1970s and 1980s, facing economic shifts and conservative backlash, the Democratic Party made a choice: to align with a rising class of professionals, technocrats, and finance-aligned urban elites. Labor was sidelined. Class politics was replaced with targeted messaging. And a party once rooted in working-class solidarity became increasingly allergic to conflict, redistribution, or mass organizing. “There is a reason why over the years, the Democratic Party has not been as strong as it should be in standing up for the working class,” Sanders told the Missoula crowd. “And that is the power of big money in the Democratic Party.” He went on to say that he believes he speaks for the overwhelming majority of the American people—regardless of political party—who understand there is something fundamentally wrong with our system when billionaires can buy elections.
Both Sanders and AOC made it clear that defending democracy doesn’t mean preserving the status quo—it means challenging the forces that have hollowed it out. They spoke about the recent, unconstitutional detentions of Americans in El Salvador as a warning of how authoritarianism spreads—and as proof that protecting democracy and fighting economic injustice are not opposing ideas, but intertwined imperatives. What they offered wasn’t a nostalgic defense of American institutions, but a bold call to reimagine them—to rebuild democracy not just as a set of procedures, but as a system grounded in dignity, equality, and shared power. It was a vision rooted in the highest ideals of what this country claims to be, paired with the urgency of what it must become.
If Democrats are serious about protecting democracy, they have to be just as serious about rethinking power. That means leaving the comfort of safe districts and donor circuits and showing up in the places they’ve long ignored—not just to perform empathy, but to listen, organize, and build. The people turning out for Sanders and AOC aren’t asking to be inspired. They’re asking to be believed. To be fought for. To be seen not as a demographic problem, but as the foundation of a political future rooted in solidarity, not spectacle. The party doesn’t need a new message. It needs a moral reckoning—and the courage to choose a side.
Evelyn Quartz is a political communications professional, former Capitol Hill staffer, and most recently served as Press Secretary for The Lincoln Project. She writes about politics, agency, and democracy on Substack. She lives in Central Oregon.
