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John: We need to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House.
For the last four years, the occupant of the White House has been a man devoid of decency, who cannot tell right from wrong, and wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the backside.
We have an opportunity to make a profound change with Joe Biden. A man of immense decency, a man who strives to heal his family, his friends and his nation, and a man committed to strengthening our democracy.
There couldn’t be a more important time for Joe Biden, when the foundational right of our democracy is under assault — the right to vote.
Americans fought to earn it. Women protested and went on hunger strikes. Black Americans sat in, and bled in the streets and on bridges, marched and died to ensure they could vote, freely and fairly.
That progress, towards realization of the right to vote, has been halting and unsteady. For we are still an imperfect union. And today, the right to vote is under assault in new and dangerous ways.
By deep structural barriers to voting, which target Black and Brown communities. By restrictive voting times and polling places. By deliberately burdensome voter ID laws and the purging of voter rolls.
And by a President desperate to cling to power. A President willing to disenfranchise millions during a pandemic by forcing them to choose their vote or their health. And by a President willing to invite, indeed coerce, foreign intervention in our election to help him cheat.
Over the last four years, I have come to a terrible realization.
The threat from without – from foreign election interference and influence efforts that seek to divide us and choose our leaders for us – is significant, but not as significant as the threat from within:
From a president unbound and unmoored. Without morals, without scruples, without any guiding principles. Who will say anything, and more pernicious, do anything to maintain his grip on power.
Who will invite, plead with, or coerce foreign nations to help him cheat. Who will sabotage our Postal Service. Who will lie about voting by mail. Who will do anything to try and stop people from voting at all.
Who is willing, as President Obama said last night, to tear down our democracy if necessary. And if we don’t stop him now, we will not recognize our country in another four years.
Those are the stakes.
Our standing in the world? Yes. Our national security? Undoubtedly. But perhaps most damaging, our own idea of what America represents. Its promise. Its optimism about the future. Its welcoming of immigrants. Its aspiration to treat all its citizens equally and without bigotry.
That idea, always elusive but what we strive for, is what Joe Biden calls the soul of America. And it’s what he will work every day to restore and protect.
The last six months have only raised the stakes. We now face three crises.
A crisis of health, with a pandemic that has infected over 5 million and taken more than 170,000 American lives. A crisis in the economy, with tens of millions unemployed, struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table. And a crisis of racial injustice, with millions of Black Americans struggling to breath under the knee of systemic racism.
It didn’t have to be this way and it doesn’t have to be this way.
As Michelle Obama put it, we have a President in over his head. Unable to lead. But able to do a lot of damage.
You may remember that a few months ago, I asked Republicans in the Senate a simple question:
“You may be asking, how much damage can he really do in the next several months until the election?” And I answered, “a lot, a lot of damage.”
But we never could have anticipated just how much.
This loss of life was not inevitable. This economic hardship was not inevitable. It is not what it is. It is what Donald Trump has made of it, through denial, deceit and incompetence.
As Elizabeth Warren put it perfectly, the devastation is enormous, and big problems demand big solutions.
We need to heal the nation. To alleviate the economic suffering. To address the persistent inequality and racism that plagues us.
And that means we need to elect Joe Biden as President and Kamala Harris as Vice President.
We need to flip the Senate and kick those who have enabled Trump’s mendacity to the curb.
And we need to hold the House, and expand our Majority, so we can make the big, bold, progressive change necessary.
Because the soul of our nation is worth fighting for, and because we can build back a better, stronger, more just and fair America.
Where right will always matter, and the truth matters, and we believe in being decent to each other.
We need to stop Trump’s damage, and start to heal the nation. Lives are on the line. Our democracy is on the line. We have 75 days left.
Can you chip in $10 or more to support Joe Biden and me in the final stretch of this campaign?
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Now, let’s go win this thing.
Adam