Dear John,
There was a time when America was known for doing great things. We were a young and resourceful country, full of imagination and grit and technical know-how. We set our sights on something big and we did it. We were the United States of America, and everything seemed possible.
Some of us remember those days, and to others it sounds like a fairy tale describing a country they’ve heard about but never knew. Today, it can feel like a downward spiral is pulling us all into an abyss of the unknown. From foreign wars to climate change to economic uncertainty to the frequency of senseless violence, there are simply too many stress points in our world today. We’ve lost our we-can-do-anything swagger. A country that has always been fueled by hope is running out of it.
Well, that’s just simply got to change.
Yes, the economic policies of the last fifty years are horrifically skewed in the direction of helping the rich get richer and everyone else simply accepting things the way that they are. And those policies do need to change; otherwise, I wouldn’t be running for president. But we need to rise up now, willing to exert the energy it will take to elect new people, transform our communities, forge new bridges, become more active citizens, and create a season of repair.
That is the great thing that America will do next: declare ourselves independent of the economic corruption that has destroyed our middle class and led to such depression and anxiety among us. We must summon from deep within ourselves the positivity it will take to stand for what we want, not just bemoan what is. America is in a rough spot now, but only we the people can change that. We need to end one chapter in our history and begin a new one.
I invite you to peruse the issues section of my website; read about some of the policy changes I will seek to effectuate from day one in the Oval Office. But the president doesn’t have a magic wand, nor should she. The most important thing that will change when I’m in office is the spirit of possibility that will prevail when I’m your president. It will be an energy fueled by the fact that millions of us, all over the country, will have arisen in our time as other generations have arisen in theirs, refused to look away from the problems in our midst, and committed with all our strength to solving them.
The American can-do-spirit isn’t gone, it’s simply been buried for a while. And it’s up to you and me to get it back.
We stand for justice. We stand for freedom. And we stand for love.
All my best,
