During Sanders’ speech, shouts of “eat the rich” and “tax the rich” were repeatedly tossed out from a crowd that nearly filled the Jon M. Huntsman Center arena at the University of Utah’s campus in Salt Lake City. Though Utah is a Republican-controlled state, its capital of Salt Lake City is a democratic stronghold — and there, frustrated Utah Democrats turned out in droves.

Sanders’ team estimated 20,000 attended. The arena has a roughly 15,000-seat capacity, according to the university. An estimated 1,000 more packed the arena floor, and about 4,000 crowded outside the arena, according to Sanders’ team.

Sanders, alongside another one of the country’s leading progressives, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, urged Utahns and Americans to stand up against what they described as a democracy falling victim to corporate interests and greed — as well as politics that are dividing working-class Americans rather than uniting them.

“We do not want a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class,” Sanders said to ear-splitting cheers that at times drowned out his voice. “We want a government that represents all of us, not just the 1%.”

‘Dangerous moment’ of billionaire control

Sanders delivered a similar line to the one that made headlines from his speech one day earlier, in Los Angeles, where he told a crowd of 36,000 — his biggest yet, according to his team — that America is facing a “dangerous” time. He accused Trump of moving the country “rapidly toward an authoritarian form of society,” the L.A. Times reported.

“We are living in the most dangerous moment in modern history of this country. … We are living in a moment where a handful of billionaires control our government,” he told the Salt Lake City crowd, which responded with booming boos.

Ocasio-Cortez said “this moment didn’t come out of nowhere.”

“It has been a long time coming,” she said. “The destruction of our rights and democracy is directly tied to the growing and extreme wealth inequality that has been building in America for years.”

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez also urged Utahns and Americans alike to demand change to the nation’s campaign finance laws, which they said have enabled the wealthy to control Washington, D.C. for too long.

At one point, Sanders, an independent, went after the party he caucuses with, saying “corruption exists” not just with Republicans, but “in the Democratic party as well.”

“For too many years Democrats have not had the courage to take on powerful special interests,” he said.

While urging Utahns to turn their ire against billionaires and corporations — especially when it comes to pharmaceutical companies and the health care system — Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez both also urged progressives to resist “hate” and work to find common ground with their fellow Americans, rather than fall into political “traps” that divide them.

“This movement isn’t about partisan labels or purity tests,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But it is about class solidarity.”

“I do know that 99% is a larger number than 1%,” Sanders said. “If we stand together and not let them divide us up by the color of our skin, or where we were born, or sexual orientation —  if we stand together, we can defeat Trumpism and defeat the authoritarians and the oligarchy.”

What is the ‘Fight Oligarchy’ tour?

Utah was one stop of many on Sanders’ tour out West for his Fight Oligarchy tour, which his website described as an effort to “have real discussions across America on how we move forward to take on the Oligarchs and corporate interests who have so much power and influence in this country.”

Sanders’ visit to Salt Lake City came the day after he also made a surprise appearance at the star-studded Coachella music festival in California, where he told young Americans “the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” CBS News reported.

Though Sanders drew a big crowd in Los Angeles, Politico reported his progressive movement is “on its heels,” describing California — the biggest state that Sanders won during his failed presidential bid in 2020 — as “more like the wilderness than the promised land.” The outlet noted that progressive efforts in even deep blue California to enact single-payer health care and other policies have “fizzled,” with prominent Democrats including Gov. Gavin Newsom leaning center.

“In the nation’s blue bastion of California, the influence of progressivism during the Trump era has waned,” Politico reported. “Progressive priorities are being challenged not just by conservatives, but centrists who cast the left as contributing to problems around homelessness and crime. And Democrats in California now find themselves merely trying to hold onto gains they have made amid major threats to federal funding from President Donald Trump, an escalation of deportations and aggressive rhetoric on crime.”

Beyond Sanders’ win of the 2020 California Democratic presidential primary, Democrats at the time didn’t embrace him for their presidential nominee, going instead with former President Joe Biden, who successfully beat Trump that year.

Still, Sanders is one of the most prominent progressive faces in American politics today. Over his decades in the political arena, Sanders has gone from a party outsider and democratic socialist to a front-line act in the progressive movement. He is the longest-serving registered independent in the U.S. Congress, but he caucuses with the Democrats.

He and Ocasio-Cortez, headlined the tour, which embraced populism from a progressive lens. While Trump employed populist rhetoric against Washington D.C. “elites,” Sanders and AOC’s tour took aim at the influence of billionaires and corporations in American politics — in particular Trump and Elon Musk’s foray into controlling federal spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The “Fight Oligarchy” tour comes as the Democrats look to find a foothold in a bleak political landscape, fresh off the heels of a blistering loss during the 2024 election that saw Trump recapture the White House as Republicans swept up control of the House and Senate.

In wake of those losses, the Democratic Party’s popularity has also hit an all-time low, according to an NBC poll last month, with just 27% of registered voters saying they have positive views of the party.

Utah Democrats join rally

Several prominent Utah Democrats attended Sunday’s rally, including Caroline Gleich, who last year unsuccessfully ran to represent Utah in the U.S. Senate. She lost to Sen. John Curtis, a Republican.

Beaming at the crowd, Gleich said she got “chills” from the turnout.

“This is Utah rising,” she said. “Utah is about to become the battleground state of the future.”

Gleich and state Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, urged Utah progressives to not get discouraged by their state’s Republican-dominated politics.

Blouin delivered fiery opening remarks, saying that what he’s always liked about Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez is “they know how to stand up to bullies.”

“Here in Utah, we know a thing or two about bullies,” he said, to loud cheers. He went on to accuse Gov. Spencer Cox of being a “cowardly governor trying to bully us into being nicer,” and he said the GOP-controlled Utah Legislature has a “habit of bullying refugees and immigrants.”

Other elected Salt Lake City Democrats joined the crowd, including House Minority Leader Angela Romero and Rep. Ashlee Matthews. As Sanders exited the stage, he stopped to greet both of the women, while Romero held Matthews’ baby son, Joey Matthews, in her arms.

Much of Sanders’ and Ocasio-Cortez’s message focused on young Americans. Vasey Payne, 18, a senior at East High School in Salt Lake City, came to the rally, saying she was initially surprised to learn that Sanders would bring his tour to conservative Utah, but she was encouraged by the thousands of like-minded Utahns who showed up.

Payne said she’s a registered Democrat, though she added that sometimes she doesn’t fully align with the party itself, saying she sees herself as “very far left just because of the way our government has been pushing further right.”

“I don’t know, in 2025, somehow empathy has become a radical take,” she said. “I just tend to believe that people should be able to do what they want without fear … and be able to afford housing and health care and food. Which for some reason makes me a radical.”

Not everyone who attended was a Democrat. A Republican, Lea Vanderlin, 33, came from Ogden to the rally dressed in a Lady Liberty costume. She said under Trump, “it feels like liberty is not for all but for some.”

“So I’m here to resist,” she said.

Vanderlin said Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s message should resonate with all working-class Americans — regardless of whether they’re conservative or liberal. She said she’s a registered Republican, but tries to vote for “moderates.”

To her, America’s “wealth gap” is a time bomb. If it’s not defused, it could spell disaster.

“Every major empire has fallen because the middle class has thinned,” she said. “That’s something everybody should be worried about. It’s a road map for trouble.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.