Thousands of Coachella attendees were patiently waiting for their favorite indie pop sweetheart, Clairo, to take the stage. As all Coachella goers usually are, they were thirsty, tired, sweating and finally about to see what many of them came to the desert for. But to their surprise, an 83-year-old man wobbled onto the stage. Of all the Coachella openers in the industry — US Senator Bernie Sanders took the mic and delivered a message:

“This country faces some very difficult challenges, and the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” Sanders lectured the crowd.

Sounds like a buzzkill, right?

Wrong.

“Now, you can turn away and you can ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you do it at your own peril,” he preached. “We need you to stand up — to fight.”

His words resonated.

“Now we’ve got a president of the United States who’s—”

The crowd interrupted him with ‘Boo’s.

“I agree,” Sanders responded. “He thinks that climate change is a hoax.”

The crowd roared with disapproval.

In a sea of micro shorts, Sanders’s message hit harder than Afrojack’s bass drop. Political relevance in 2025 isn’t just on TikTok — it’s in the desert, with a mic, a mission and a blazer.