Bernie Sanders at Coachella shows time is not on the Democrats’ side

As the Church of England faces an exodus of parishioners, some of its more inventive clerics have rushed to embrace EDM as a new medium to draw young people back to their faith. “Our 90s-themed silent disco will be appropriate to and respectful of the cathedral,” curiously insisted the Very Reverend David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, to much derision over that sacred space’s conversion into a party zone for 3,000 revelers in 2024. 

If you are unsurprised to learn that studious Anglican vicars buzzing about crowds of fist-pumping British youth has yet to turn the tide of declining religious practice in the United Kingdom, you may well shake your head in disdain at news of the Democratic Party’s pathetically similar outreach at this year’s Coachella, a California music festival that takes place over two consecutive weekends in April. 

Last Saturday, an indie-pop twentysomething songstress called “Clairo” was about to take the stage when 83-year-old Vermont senator and two-time failed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, technically an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a surprise appearance to deliver a political message. 

In what could have been a Saturday Night Live skit back when that comedy show was still funny, the bespectacled, blue-blazered, hunched-over Sanders proceeded to lecture his captive audience, mostly young white women in fanciful costumes who paid between $599 and $1,399 to attend the six-day musical festival held on the grounds of a polo club, that, “The future of what happens in America is dependent upon your generation… you can turn away, and you can ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you’re doing it at your own peril.” 

After briefly haranguing the assembled youth about climate change, healthcare and the “billionaire class,” Sanders yielded the floor to Clairo, thanking her for her political “work,” which appears to consist of barely literate social media diatribes about abortion, Gaza and Donald Trump, whose reelection last November she said filled her with “sadness and rage.”  

Sanders gave off a heavy, Upper West Side grandpa vibe for a festival known for its flower crowns and Vogue outfit ratings. The optics looked embarrassingly like a lefty senior citizen going overboard in a desperate attempt to win back the love of a nihilistic, Bushwick-dwelling grandchild. But, having lost the presidency and both houses of Congress, and now polling a dismal 27 percent approval rating, such is the state of the Democratic Party. 

Last November, Donald Trump dramatically increased his share of the youth vote, which the Democrats long took for granted, winning a 56 percent majority of men between the ages of 18 and 29, while reducing his gap among women in that age group from 17 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2024 and winning 55 percent of all white women. Trump’s poll numbers, though slightly down since he returned to office in January, are at record high levels, while almost all his policies continue to command majority support.  

A clear demonstration of this difference in momentum was on display in Miami the same night as Bernie’s awkward appearance, when Trump attended an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts match alongside several members of his cabinet, Elon Musk and popular podcast host Joe Rogan. Trump, who shook some hands but made no statement to the assembled crowd, entered to a standing ovation and rousing chants of “U-S-A!”

“It says we’re doing a good job,” he told reporters of his rousing reception after the event, “If we weren’t doing a good job, we’d get the opposite.” 

Frozen out of leadership and stuck to a party whose internal debate is focused less on defeating Trump than trying to dethrone its own failed leaders, Sanders is crisscrossing the country in a “Fight the Oligarchy” tour along with New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the greatest assets to Republican electoral success going. Earlier on Saturday, Sanders appeared at a Los Angeles event alongside more age-appropriate musicians like Neil Young (age 79) and Joan Baez (age 84) to try shore up support for the Democrats. No matter how many molly-induced woos he got in his brief, bizarre appearance at Coachella, time is not on his side.