John, I was honored to join progressive political activists in Baltimore, Maryland for the 2024 Netroots Nation convention yesterday.
I spoke to the crowd of dedicated organizers and strategists about what’s at stake in this critical election year, and want to share some of my speech with you. But before I do, can you chip in to fuel our progressive movement as we gear up for November?
Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans up and down the ballot represent a three-pronged existential threat: a threat to our democracy, a threat to our freedom, and a threat to our economy.
Project 2025 is a ONE-THOUSAND-PAGE MANIFESTO that is so extreme that Trump himself is now trying to say it’s not his. Bullshit.
Let me just give you a few highlights. He wants to get rid of all our civil servants and replace them with Trump loyalists so he can do what the MAGA extremist Supreme Court just ruled that he could do: anything he wants, whether illegal or not, because he can’t be held accountable for his “official” actions in office.
They don’t just want to get rid of abortion—they want to get rid of IVF and contraception. They will criminalize personal health choices in every single state and the MAGA Supreme Court will back them up.
They want to abolish the Department of Education, eliminate birthright citizenship, build massive military detention camps to imprison asylum seekers, and systematically remove all LGBTQ protections.
And let’s not forget what he wants to do to our economy and our people. As Attorney General James proved in a court of law, Trump is a billionaire who will lie, cheat, and steal to enrich himself at the expense of others. That robber baron philosophy is only magnified when he is in power.
Everyone remembers the economic disaster of Trump’s presidency. The United States lost 2.7 million jobs during those 4 dark years. Wealth inequality increased at historic rates. His disastrous tax law, just like the Bush tax cuts for the rich, was a trickle-down failure. Thanks to Trump, the rich got richer while the middle class, and poor and working people across the country, were left behind.
If he gets back in office, it will be worse than ever before. So it’s this simple: We have to win. We cannot let Trump return to the White House. We can’t surrender our democracy to a dictator who has been charged with 91 felony counts and for sexually assaulting women. We cannot.
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Let’s not forget that since Trump was last in office, our movement pushed Democrats from the White House to the House and Senate to embrace OUR agenda—an agenda that was about working and poor people across this country, an agenda that reminded us that we all DESERVE universal health care, college for all, expanded social security, union power, a fair tax system that makes the wealthy pay their fair share, clean air, clean water, and a planet that survives us for future generations.
It was the Progressive Caucus—not the moderates, not the centrists—that held the line and insisted on passing both the Infrastructure Law — which is investing in new green, union jobs –– but also Build Back Better. And THAT is exactly why we were finally able to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed and signed into law, the largest single investment in taking on climate change in our nation’s history.
That’s how we created the first-ever American Climate Corps so that 20,000 young people can get jobs that help preserve our planet and our people. That’s how we demanded Justice 40—so that 40% of our investments go into communities that are most disproportionately burdened. That’s how we demanded in my final negotiations over the Chips and Science Act that corporations who do stock buybacks don’t get taxpayer dollars.
By pushing hard and holding the line, we took on age-old battles and won—like finally forcing Big Pharma to negotiate drug prices with Medicare and capping the cost of insulin at $35 for seniors; by finally making the wealthiest corporations and individuals pay more of their fair share in taxes; by finally passing the first major gun safety law in over 30 years; and yes, by getting the Administration to use its executive power to finally cancel billions in student debt, pardon thousands of people charged for simply possessing marijuana, and finally get medical debt off your credit reports; by increasing funding for NLRB so we can crack down on union-busting corporations and increasing funding for the IRS so we can crack down on wealthy tax cheats.
We have a whole lot more work to do, and it’s going to be a helluva fight. There’s a lot of chaos going on right now, and our work is to stay focused on the prize: defeating Trump at the ballot box in November, rebuilding our fragile coalition across the Democratic Party, and enacting the bold, progressive change our communities deserve.
Thank you for anything you can give to help us meet this pivotal moment in our country with the urgency it deserves.
Strength comes in times of crisis. Our beauty comes in recognizing the anger, the pain, and the hurt, and turning that into POWER, just as so many before us have done. Not to walk away from something but toward something. Not to hate but to love. Not to fall into despair but to lift us up into possibility.
Let’s put love and generosity over scarcity and fear. Let’s organize and win.
In solidarity,
Pramila Jayapal
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