Many of the Vermont senator’s progressive supporters have already taken up his call to mobilise against the president-elect, with both local and federal organising

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Bernie Sanders swept into New York City on Monday evening and urged his supporters to continue mobilising against Donald Trump, at a book signing just 10 blocks south of the president-elect’s home.



Sanders’ appearance, after days of protests against Trump in several cities, came as the Vermont senator’s supporters outlined plans for a “Tea Party of the left”, aimed at combating Trump’s presidency and sweeping progressive Democrats to power in the 2018 midterm elections.

Bernie Sanders: our job is to oppose Trump's bigotry vigorously Read more

Hundreds of Sanders’ supporters – some of whom had spent the night out on the streets – had lined up along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to meet the Vermont senator. Trump Tower, where Trump has been holed up selecting his cabinet, was almost visible in the distance. When Sanders arrived, he urged his supporters to continue to oppose the incoming president’s plans.

“I think what they have to understand is that more than ever it is imperative for the American people to be involved in the political process. Many of the positions that Trump advocated during the campaign are positions not shared by the majority of American people,” Sanders said.

“So our job is to mobilise our people and make sure that Trump listens on issue after issue to what the American people want.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bernie Sanders signs copies of Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In at a Barnes & Noble in New York City. Photograph: John Lamparski/WireImage

The Vermont senator was in New York to promote his book Our Revolution, which tells the story of his unlikely presidential bid and sets out his vision for the future of the progressive movement. Our Revolution, which was published on Tuesday, is already the top-selling book on Amazon – an indication of Sanders’ enduring popularity.

Gregory Fritz Jr, 39, had been waiting outside Barnes & Noble, in Midtown Manhattan, since 6.30pm on Sunday night. He had driven from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and slept under “a couple of blankets” in order to be the first in line to meet Sanders.

“He changed my life,” Fritz said. “He made me a better person. He opened my eyes.”

Fritz said he had not been politically engaged before Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination, but he said he would now continue to campaign for ideas raised by the Vermont senator, like universal healthcare and a national minimum wage.

“We got to keep active. Keep protesting, keep involved in our local communities,” Fritz said.

“We got to build from the bottom up so we have local candidates, state candidates.”

Across the US, tens of thousands of people have been protesting in the days following Trump’s electoral victory. But behind the scenes and away from the megaphones, progressive groups across the country are working towards keeping Sanders’ momentum going, and keeping Trump in check.

“It’s our role to make sure we do what we can to protect the Americans who are most at risk under a Trump presidency: women, minority groups, the elderly, students and working people,” said Winnie Wong, the co-founder of the People for Bernie organisation that supported Sanders’ campaign.

“This is very important. The GOP are coming for our entitlements. This is not a game.”

People for Bernie is an independent activist group originally founded to support Sanders’ presidential bid but was now focused on a range of issues. Wong said the group planned to work alongside “single issue” organisations – activists focused specifically on equal pay for women, for example, or protecting Medicare – to protect those at-risk groups.

She gave the example of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial, anti-immigrant Arizona sheriff who was ousted on 8 November.

“That is a great example of cooperative creative organising. Where progressive groups from across the spectrum came together and moved bodies to Arizona and ousted him. There’s going to be a lot of tactics like that deployed.”

Friday will be the first opportunity after Trump’s election to put those plans into action. Hundreds of liberal activists from across the country will descend on Washington DC for the progressive RootsCamp convention. The three-day event will bring together groups focusing on a range of issues with the aim of setting out a plan for the next two to four years.

“It takes many and many different types of actions in order to make the wheel turn,” Wong said. “It takes mobilising and training people to step into leadership roles. It’s really a time of leadership development.”

Ripples of a revolution: what will Bernie Sanders' supporters do next? Read more

One of the people who has emerged as a leader within the progressive movement is Moumita Ahmed, who worked with the Millennials for Bernie group and is now organising a “million millennials march against racism and xenophobia” – a response to Trump’s presidency – in DC on 21 January.

“People are upset right now,” Ahmed said. “People don’t want to march for progress. They want to march because they’re angry about the electoral college, they’re upset with Americans who think it’s OK for someone who campaigned with anti-gay, anti-Muslim rhetoric to now be president.

“And our goal is to channel all of that energy into the 2018 midterms and 2020.”

Ahmed compared the climate to 2008 when Obama won the presidency and the Democratic party controlled both the Senate and House. That spurred a conservative movement that saw a number of rightwing Republicans elected in the 2010 midterm elections.

“It’s really like that’s the moment where the Tea Party mobilised. How we’re feeling right now that’s how they felt when Obama won. So that’s what we think will happen here as well,” she said.

“You’re probably going to see some sort of actual Tea Party of the left.”

Wong and Ahmed’s efforts are representative of a flurry of activity at all levels of the progressive movement.

At the top level, Sanders, who in July announced he would return to the Senate as an independent, despite having won 13m votes in the Democratic primary, has been pressuring the Democratic National Committee to adopt the left-leaning Keith Ellison as its chair.

At a grassroots level are events like RootsCamp, the anti-Trump protests that have taken place across the country, and a “People’s Rally” due to take place in DC on Thursday.

Sanders himself will speak at that event, which was originally planned as an anti-Trans-Pacific Partnership event.

People’s Action, a progressive organisation with more than a million volunteers and 600 paid organizers, is another activist group laying specific plans for the coming months.

George Goehl, the organisation’s co-director, said People’s Action is aiming to target people across the rust belt and in swing states who backed Trump as a protest vote, and draw their attention to the difference between Trump the presidential candidate and Trump the president.

“To expose that there’s no plans to move an economic populist agenda in a Trump presidency,” Goehl said.

“He closed hard with the ‘drain the swamp’ message. I feel like in the last two or three weeks that was a message he pushed hard.

“And he’s already pretty quickly refilled the swamp. With Priebus and the people he’s surrounding himself with: lobbyists, consultants, lots of people who are guilty of the kind of revolving door from Congress to lobbyist to Congress.”

Goehl said the group would focus on issues at a local level. In October Cook County, in Illinois, implemented a $13-an-hour minimum wage after lobbying by People’s Action.

“I see a lot of momentum building in states and in organisations like ours around down-ballot, bottom-up political movement work,” Goehl said.

“In 2017, 48 of the 100 biggest cities in the country have municipal elections. I think we’ll see a big push there.”

Sanders’ own organisation, also called Our Revolution, promises to be another influential group in the coming months. Our Revolution backed a number of left-leaning Democratic candidates at various levels, and with varying degrees of success, in the 8 November election and offers a “find an event” page where people can find protests and campaigning efforts in their neighbourhoods.

For Wong, there is no reason why activists cannot continue to push for a progressive agenda, focusing on things like healthcare, income inequality, equal pay and financial reform, even under a Trump presidency.

“We’re not going to stop doing the things that we set out to do after Bernie lost the primary and when we thought that Hillary was going to be president. That plan, that agenda is still very much on the table.

“We’re going to do our best to elect more progressives to the Senate and to the legislature. Both at the federal and at the local levels. We want America to be full of Berniecrats. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do,” Wong said.

“It feels really dire now in this moment, but the reality is we survived George Bush, we survived Ronald Reagan, and we’re going to survive Trump.”