Friends -
The next 74 days will be the most important in modern American political history.
Our job, during this period, is to do everything possible to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president. We must defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of the United States. As I said the other night at the Democratic Convention, "the price of failure is just too great to imagine."
No excuses! We all need to come together and be on board for this effort.
But we need to do more than just elect Joe and Kamala. Not only must we elect a Democratic House and Senate, we must mobilize our grassroots movement to make sure progressives win as many victories as possible at the local, county and state level of government so we can move forward a comprehensive agenda that brings about the transformative change this country desperately needs.
Our agenda is the agenda of the working families of this country. It is the agenda that has the courage to take on the 1 percent and the powerful special interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country. It is an agenda that demands that:
We end the growing crisis of oligarchy, income and wealth inequality and a corrupt political system.
Raises the minimum wage to a living wage of at least $15 per hour, giving 40 million people in this country a pay raise. But we cannot stop there — we must guarantee that if workers want to form a union, they have the right to do so, and make certain that women receive equal pay for equal work.
Guarantees that parents in our country have access to universal, affordable childcare. And young people know that they can get the education they need because we will make public colleges and universities tuition-free while we cancel student debt.
As the pandemic has made absolutely clear we need to guarantee health care as a human right, not a job benefit, through a Medicare for All, single-payer system.
We have an agenda that brings comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for the 11 million undocumented in this country.
We bring about fundamental reform to a broken and racist criminal justice system which includes legalizing marijuana, eliminating private prisons and detention facilities, ending cash bail and rethinking the nature of policing in our country.
We also cannot forget the message of the Parkland students and need to finally help them in their fight to keep our communities safer from gun violence. No child should go to school worried about a mass shooting.
No matter what state you live in, women have the right to control their own bodies. We must make sure the Hyde Amendment is fully repealed, and that comprehensive reproductive health coverage is provided to all, free at the point of service, including abortion.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, if we do not confront the existential threat of climate change then the planet we leave our kids and future generations will become increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of our planet is at stake and that we need to pass a Green New Deal.
We all know why this election is so important. The question is what can you do about it? Over the next 74 days our action together will determine the future of our country for decades to come. Let me take this opportunity to describe some of the work that I, and our campaign organization, will be doing and where we need your help.
We will have to get out the vote for candidates who share our values up and down the ticket. Unlike previous campaigns, we won’t be able to knock on doors or hold large in-person rallies. However, there is still so much we can do.
We will have teams making phone calls and sending text messages to reach out to voters and get them to the polls. If possible we will, safely and abiding by social distancing rules, distribute literature and other campaign material.
We will need people reaching out online and through social media, making videos to spread our message and speaking to your neighbors about why their vote is so important. Some of you may choose to write columns or letters to the editor of your local paper to get the word out even further.
Last weekend we held online town halls in West Virginia and Kentucky. This weekend we will be holding events in Wisconsin and Iowa. Please check out our social media feeds and join them. That’s a start. But hopefully you can do more — hopefully you can also ask your social media friends and followers to join you as these events begin.
Now is not a time for despair or cynicism. Now is a time for hard work. Now is a time to stand up and fight for the country that we know we can become.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
This email was sent to [email protected]. If you need to, unsubscribe here. You can also sign up to receive fewer emails. We hope you'll stay, because emails are such an important part of how we organize and how we raise money. In fact, there is no single greater source for our campaign's fundraising than emails like this one. And that's important, because no one person, not even Bernie Sanders, can take on the billionaire class alone.
Before you go about the rest of your day, help power our fight against the billionaire class by making a contribution today.
Submit this form to update your contact information.