On Friday evening, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Omaha to a crowd of over a thousand people — with more outside who had to be turned away when the room reached capacity. Some guests had driven from Iowa and Kansas to attend the event, and they started arriving well before the doors officially opened at 5:30 p.m.
Sanders has drawn similarly-sized crowds in the Omaha area during his runs for president in 2016 and 2020. In 2017, he headlined an event at the Baxter Arena for then-mayoral candidate Heath Mello. Friday’s event, however, was a campaign stop without a candidate, instead being billed as a call to “Fight Oligarchy.”
Labor Unions and the Billionaires
Introducing Sanders were OPPD Board of Directors member Eric Williams (District 6), 2020 “Blue Dot” Elector Precious McKesson, and Nebraska DNC National Committeeman Ron Kaminski. There was a strong emphasis on organized labor at the event, which was originally scheduled to be held at the Laborers International Union on Sorensen Parkway. Kaminski and McKesson both proudly cited their own union affiliations.
Sanders spoke for around 40 minutes, with much of his speech revolving around familiar campaign issues, like healthcare as a “human right,” raising the minimum wage (to at least $17/hour), and making public colleges tuition-free.
Sanders spoke with a kind of religious fervor, addressing the crowd as “brothers and sisters.” And, while the event was promoted as a “town hall discussion,” there was no interaction with the crowd other than the intermittent shouting of phrases like, “eat the rich,” “Tesla sucks,” or “Elon Musk is a Nazi.”
As with his Presidential campaign stops, the target of Sanders’ ire was once again “the billionaires.”
“I was there at the inauguration. And seated right behind Trump were Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg,” said Sanders. “They are the three wealthiest people in America, right behind the president as he’s getting sworn in. … [They] have more wealth than the bottom half of American society — 170 million people. Today, the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90%.”
Pivot away from identity politics?
Throughout the event, there was no mention of identity politics, transgender rights, or the initials “LGBTQ.” Also absent from the speech was any mention of racial grievances. In fact, Sanders closed his remarks with a surprisingly unifying message.
“When we stand together — and not let them divide us up by the color of our skin, or where we were born, or our sexual orientation, or our religion — When we stand together, we can defeat them,” Sanders said.
Sanders also harkened back repeatedly to moments of America’s historic greatness, highlighting colonial Americans taking on the British Empire, the loss of life during the Civil War to end the “horror of slavery,” and the attack on Pearl Harbor and the fight against fascism in World War II.
Calling on Congressman Bacon
The purpose of Sanders’ rally in Omaha, as well as the one held in Iowa City the following day, became a bit clearer toward the end, when he called on the crowd to contact their members of Congress to vote against a budget reconciliation bill currently under consideration in the House.
“They have a three-vote majority. That is not much. If two Republicans go to the Speaker of the House and say, ‘Mr. Speaker, no way am I going to betray my constituents …’ that terrible bill is defeated,” Sanders said. “And what I am asking you to do is make sure that your congressman, Mr. Bacon, is one of those two Republicans.”
Sanders used his event in Iowa City to similarly target Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a message he said he would bring “all over the country.” Sanders directed guests to a page on his official campaign website with the phone numbers of their members of Congress as well as their senators. One guest near me could be heard immediately calling this number and getting a voicemail greeting via speakerphone.
Don Bacon had not responded to Sanders’ challenge by Sunday afternoon. Bacon has expressed concerns in recent days about budget reconciliation with regard to its impact on Medicaid. By targeting swing districts with a populist message, Sanders and the Democrats are clearly attempting to sway a narrowly-divided Congress in a more favorable direction ahead of the 2026 midterms.
