Dear John,

Jared Kushner said in an interview that he’d told his father-in-law a few years ago that there were a lot of angry people out there; that they could harness all that anger and make him president.

When I read those words I thought, I see a lot of wonderful, decent, loving people out there; we could harness all that and change the world.

That has been the guiding principle of my presidential campaign: that goodness, decency, and love must now be harnessed for political purposes. 

Yet love is not a passive concept; it is only meaningful if it is active. Love can’t just be in our hearts; it has to show itself in our politics too.

First and foremost, love does not look away.

Love does not look away from the fact that 40 percent of all Americans live with chronic economic anxiety. See my economic policies.

Love does not look away from millions of traumatized American children. See my plan for a US Department of Children and Youth as well as Child Advocacy policies.

Love does not look away from the fact that we are facing the spectrum of an ecosystem implosion that could lead to nothing short of catastrophic consequences for our children and our children’s children. See my environmental policies.

Love does not look away from the moral and economic debt we owe to the descendants of slavery in America, as well as to Native Americans. See my Reparations Plan and my Native American Justice Plan.

Love does not look away from the perpetual pattern of war-preparedness which has come to dominate our national security agenda, at the expense of diplomatic and humanitarian peace-building efforts. See my plan for a US Department of Peace.

Love is not weak; it is strong—but only when it is applied. 

Love does not look away. And neither will I.

As president, I will preside over a season of repair for America. We will realign our policies with the best of who we are, as conscience, a sense of justice, and a love for democracy become the guiding principles of all domestic and international policies.

In the words of Thomas Paine, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” 

That is the calling of our generation. I hope you’ll join me to answer it.

With love,
Marianne