Bernie 🤝 AOC 🤝 Utah
20,000 people showed up in Salt Lake City. That matters. But what happens next matters more.
Photo Credit: Harry Sisson (X)
I. This Wasn’t the Movement. It Was a Test.
When Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came to Salt Lake City on Sunday, something unusual happened: Utah got loud.
A red state showed up in blue. A flyover state that’s used to being ignored by national politicians, including most of our own, filled an arena with 20,000 people on a Sunday night to chant, cheer, and organize.
And yes, it was powerful. But more than that, it was revealing.
Now, we were there. And we felt it. But we also have a lot of thoughts. So we are going to a bit frank here. This wasn’t the movement. It was a test of one.
Because rallies aren’t revolutions. They’re the signal flare. The pulse check. They don’t create power, but they can help uncover where it’s hiding and whether it’s ready to move.
The real question isn’t whether protests work. It’s whether they’re connected to something deeper. Something organized. Something sustainable. That’s what determines whether these moments echo or just fade.
II. Why Protest Matters (Even in Utah)
Protests and rallies are often dismissed as irrational. Disruptive. Fringe. And we’ve heard the question a hundred times: Do protests work?
Yes. But not in the way most people think they do.
Protests have always been a part of democratic systems, especially when those systems are failing. They build power by showing that power exists outside the ballot box. That ordinary people, when organized, are a force to be reckoned with.
Look at some of the most significant political breakthroughs in U.S. history: the women’s suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, and more recently, LGBTQ+ rights. Each of them succeeded because of a combination of external pressure from mass movements and internal political pressure from elected officials trying to retain power.
The suffrage movement didn’t win the vote because one day Congress saw the light. It won because women marched, picketed the White House, were arrested, went on hunger strikes, and made the cost of silence higher than the cost of action. By 1918, with the U.S. entering WWI and public sympathy rising for jailed suffragists, President Woodrow Wilson, facing political backlash, finally endorsed the 19th Amendment. Not because he suddenly believed in equality, but because he needed their support to govern.
The civil rights movement didn’t pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because Congress felt inspired. It passed because Black Americans and their allies forced the issue into national consciousness, with sit-ins, freedom rides, marches, and televised police brutality in places like Birmingham and Selma. President Lyndon B. Johnson, a master of political calculation, recognized the movement’s moral momentum and seized the moment, knowing his legacy depended on it.
Both movements succeeded not just by protesting, but by making sure those protests intersected with political leverage: elections coming up, allies in office, national outrage, and increasing costs of opposition.
That combination of external moral force and internal political pressure is what turns a movement into a victory.
So, no. Protests don’t flip laws overnight. They don’t elect new leaders the next morning. They don’t magically turn red states blue. But they do something more foundational: they shift pressure. They move the emotional needle. They tell a story bigger than the moment.
They say: You might not like it, but we’re here. We’re watching. We’re not quiet. And we’re not going away.
They remind people on the sidelines of power: You’re not alone. You’re not the only one. You’re part of something. And you’re not wrong for wanting better.
And they say to movements: You’re still alive.
In a state like Utah, where so many progressives feel politically isolated, that kind of affirmation is a lifeline. Protests don’t just influence policy. They expand what feels possible.
And that matters. Because when institutions are failing (and Utah’s have failed to reflect its evolving majority) disruption becomes a kind of clarity. Not chaos. Not nihilism. But a reminder: this is not normal. And we won’t pretend it is.
Protests rarely win in the short term. But they do something else, something arguably more important. They politicize people. They wake them up. They create long-term behavioral change, the kind that wins elections, reshapes coalitions, and, over time, shifts the balance of power.
They don’t guarantee change. But they make change feel believable. And belief is where movements begin.
So yes, protests and rallies matter. They always have. And they still do.
III. So… Why Utah?
Photo Credit: Senator Nate Blouin
Some people have asked: Why would Bernie and AOC come to Utah? Why not Arizona, Nevada, or some other swing state?
Because Utah is where the pressure is building.
It’s the youngest, fastest-growing state in the country. A political test kitchen where the far right runs trial balloons and fringe policies before launching them nationally.
Banning DEI?
Banning pride flags and fluoride?
Splitting up Salt Lake to weaken voters?
Passing a bill to gut collective bargaining for public workers?
Trying to kill off ballot initiatives altogether?
That’s not theoretical. That’s Utah. And the national right is watching.
But, what’s also happening, quietly but steadily, is something very different.
Utahns aren’t MAGA clones. In fact, more and more Utahns, especially younger Latter-day Saints, transplants, and politically disaffected moderates, are pulling away from the far right. Provo swung 52 points from Bush to Biden. LDS voters under 40 are breaking away from Trump. Trump only got 56% in Utah’s GOP presidential caucus. In Utah, Kamala Harris performed better than any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.
This isn’t red-state obedience or complacency. This is a state on the edge of realignment. Utah is changing.
So why Utah, you ask? Because the right already knows what this state is worth. It’s time the left stopped treating it like a lost cause and started treating it like the battleground it is.
IV. Hope Is the Hidden Power of Protest
Let’s talk about the emotion underneath all this.
Some people say: “What does this even accomplish? Does this really change anything?”
But here’s what we say: Change never starts quietly. It starts with disruption. But it only succeeds with structure.
Because here’s the truth: Anger doesn’t exist without hope.
You don’t get angry unless you believe something better could exist. You don’t speak up unless you believe your voice could matter. You don’t protest unless you think someone might listen. You don’t show up unless some part of you still believes this place is worth fighting for.
People think of hope as soft. Passive. But that’s wrong. Hope is not weakness. It’s strategy.
It’s the thing that gets you off the couch. That puts clipboards in your hands. That keeps you knocking doors long after the cameras and celebrity politicians leave.
Hope is what made people drive across the state to stand in line for hours.
Hope is what made people chant “Tax the Rich” in the middle of a Utah arena.
Hope is what made people stay after the speeches, signing referendum petitions and registering voters in the stairwells.
Cynicism doesn’t do that. Cynicism says “why bother” and stays home.
Hope says, “not yet, but soon if we keep working.”
Hope is the most radical thing we have.
Because it dares to imagine a different Utah and acts like it’s already on the way.
And that’s the secret the status quo doesn’t want you to know: Hope is strategic.
It’s not naïve. It’s not weak. It’s not a feeling you stumble into; it’s a decision. It’s the fuel that keeps people going. It’s what sustains organizers through the quiet months, the legislative losses, the doors that never open.
So when people showed up to that rally and didn’t just chant, but signed petitions to protect workers?
When they found their neighbors in the crowd and made plans to carpool to canvasses?
When they created Facebook groups to organize women and friends and gather together in solidarity?
When they walked out saying “Okay, now what?”, that was the moment the rally stopped being symbolic and started being strategic.
That was hope in action.
And capacity, the people power we build in moments like this, is what wins long-term. Not just for one bill. But for a movement that can outlast the headlines, out-organize the opposition, and out-love the systems that have told us we don’t belong.
The anger you feel? That’s not the end of the story. It’s the beginning.
Because underneath it is a belief that something better is still possible.
That belief is your power.
And it’s time to use it.
V. Where We Go From Here
Here’s the deal: the right already treats Utah like a power center. The left still treats us like a write-off.
But what if we changed that? What if we said: This is where it starts.
And just to be clear: We’re not saying that being as progressive as Bernie Sanders, or talking like Bernie Sanders, or being the being the age of Bernie Sanders is the secret to winning elections in Utah. That’s not the takeaway. What we are saying is: people showed up. And they showed up because they’re hungry for something different. We can share the same values and fight for the same things (economic dignity, human rights, better healthcare, real democracy) without using the exact same words. Our coalition has to be broad enough to include people we don’t agree with 100% of the time. That’s how movements win.
A rally is a spark. But we need a fire. We need people to:
Defend the HB267 referendum.
Register their friends to vote.
Talk to their friends and family about how bad policy is impacting them, then listen and learn without judgment (even if they disagree).
Volunteer for candidates in local races.
Show up for municipal elections, even when turnout is 9%.
Turn protest into practice and practice into policy.
We know rallies don’t rewrite constitutions. But they can shift narratives. And narratives are how movements begin.
Because movements don’t start when politicians show up. They start when people realize they’re not alone and decide to stay.
Because as Bernie said, “It’s not Bernie. It’s not AOC. It’s you.” It’s about Utah. And Utah isn’t red because people don’t care. It’s red because too many people were told it didn’t matter to try.
We’re done with that.
If Sunday proved anything, it’s this:
We’re here.
We’re awake.
And we’re not waiting for permission anymore. We’re using hope as a strategy.
