Come November

I had an opportunity to say a few words at the No Kings March in New York City on Saturday. I thought I would share them with you.

Come November

We live in some difficult days. People are struggling. The country drowns in greed, selfishness, and hatred. These are indeed difficult days. But we’ve gathered here to claim the power of the people, to reclaim our democracy from the hands of those who would have us bent and bowed. You are what they are afraid of. This is what they fear: the organizing and mobilizing of people, from every walk of life, on behalf of genuine freedom.

There is no doubt that we face in this moment an existential threat. And the horse races of this political season ought not blind us to that fact. There are those among us who have used the democratic process for undemocratic ends. They govern for the billionaire class and feed their people the red meat of hatred. They reject the idea of a multiracial democracy and insist that this country belongs only to them. They rob the public coffers, fill their pockets with cash, dismantle the mechanisms of accountability, disregard norms and law, while everyday people struggle to make ends meet. They sell it all with brazen lies.

And they have tried to overwhelm us with it all, to make us feel powerless in the face of their destruction.

But we gather today to demonstrate our power. We reject their vision of this country. These midterm elections will mark the beginning of our ongoing effort to reimagine America as we show them the power of our vote and our voices. We must overwhelm the polls. Turn out in record numbers. Disrupt the math that shaped redistricting. Overrun their efforts to cheat by showing up in numbers this country has never seen before.

Organize your neighborhoods. Organize your family. Organize your workplace. Vote and vote early.

You are what they are afraid of!

History calls us now. Ours isn’t the challenge of the Jim Crow South, with its vicious racists and the heroism of unsung sharecroppers. This isn’t the call to beat back Nazism in the context of World War II. Ours isn’t a moment where we struggle to organize workers against Henry Ford or to demand the right of women to vote. Those generations answered the call of their time. We must answer ours. With courage and with the fullness of our imaginations, we must decide to release this nation from the ghosts that have it by the throat. Each generation must find its feet and understand its charge – not to imitate the days of old, but to bring the fullness of its experience to bear as we fight for a better world.

We have our mission. Come November the moral monsters will see it clearly.

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