In the coming year, we'll have to make unprecedented choices, as a nation and in every community, about who we want to be.
It’s been quite a year. From the election to weather extremes and the pent-up outrage we saw after the violent murder of a corporate CEO, we’ve faced unprecedented challenges. We know even bigger challenges await us in the next four years.
That’s why I am so grateful to every member of the People’s Action family, and for all of the ways you have joined with others this year to make this country better for us all. Thank you.
In 2024, you made millions of phone calls, knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors, and held meaningful conversations all across the country with complete strangers to change hearts and minds. You elected champions from your communities to state, local and federal governments, where they will fight for regular people, no matter the odds. You took time to listen to one another, and to imagine, together, how our lives will be better if we set aside fear and divisions.
This is what gives me hope as we look towards 2025. Because I know we will always be stronger together. You show me time and again that we have the strength and courage to reach across differences and come together with our neighbors in the shared humanity that unites us.
This will be especially important in the coming year, when the ultra-wealthy and powerful will try and divide us at every turn. We will have to make unprecedented choices, as a nation and in every community, about who we want to be.
Do we really want our neighbors to be ripped from their homes, and children separated from their parents? Do we really want giant corporations to deny us health care, drive the cost of groceries and homes beyond our reach, and fuel our climate crisis, all for the sake of shareholders and executives?
The majority of Americans do not want these things. No matter who we voted for. Yet in Project 2025, the incoming administration has already told us this is exactly what they want. Even before taking office, they want the rich and powerful to have unprecedented influence over our lives and government. In the next four years they will go even further.
Yet I am hopeful, because we have a vision and a plan to make this country better, and because we are part of a movement with millions of people full of goodness who will overcome these obstacles. I have experienced the goodness of people in every community too many times to not believe that we will overcome these obstacles. And I have witnessed your courage and generosity too many times to doubt whether we are up to the challenge.
This was made crystal clear to me at our Movement Builders’ Conference earlier this month. This year-end tradition, which stretches back decades to the earliest days of our organization, is where directors and organizers from across our network of grassroots groups gather to share stories and plan for the future. More than a hundred and fifty of you from People’s Action member groups all across the country came to Durham, North Carolina, where we were hosted by Down Home North Carolina, who told us about some impressive organizing and electoral victories this year that bucked the national trend.
Seeing the strength and variety within our family, and hearing about these victories, reminded me of the power of good organizing and the resiliency of our movement! We also heard inspiring stories from Missouri, where Jobs with Justice won higher wages and protections for workers, and Washington State, where Firelands, OneAmerica and Washington CAN defeated a billionaires’ bid to strip more than $2 billion in funding from schools and health care.
They all credit good, long-term organizing as vital to their success, and how being part of a national network with a shared vision where they can develop with peers from all across the country helps them sharpen their strategy and practice.
We also had deep and frank conversations about our need to go deeper - to reach the 90 million people who did not even vote this year, and to offer a new sense of purpose through our Organizing Revival to all those who feel isolated and alone.
We spoke honestly about what we must do if immigration raids start to happen nationwide, and if the next administration follows through on its promises to gut essential programs like Social Security and Medicare. I am deeply moved by the commitment of you all to stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants and to be ready to fight against deportations in every community.
I am also inspired by how People’s Action members fight for solutions for climate, housing and health care. In the last two weeks, there has been a massive outpouring of public frustration about denials of health care by private corporations, and the next administration plans to further privatize our care.
Through peaceful actions and protests nationwide, for the last two years our Care Over Cost campaign has offered a constructive pathway for change to those harmed by health care denials. We bring real and honest stories of pain to the doorsteps of healthcare giants like Elevance, Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealth and to the halls of Congress. In doing so, we have helped overturn some of these denials of care. But there are millions more, so we need public action to reform our broken health care system.
Tens of thousands of people joined our Care Over Cost livestream this week to discuss how our healthcare system must change to put our health before profits. Thank you to Carly, Alysia, Sara, Laura, Matt, Patty, Mindy and to everyone who has joined this effort. I'm so moved by the courage of doctors and nurses who speak out, and those directly impacted by denials who choose to share their stories and inspire others to join them in this fight. Together, they show us how organized, collective action creates a pathway for people to turn their private pain into solutions that will benefit millions of people.
You are not alone. I am not alone. Together, we have the power to move mountains. This is what you have shown me this year, and what will nourish me as we fearlessly move forward together.
Thank you!
Sulma Arias is executive director of People's Action / Institute, a national network of grassroots, member-led powerbuilding groups with more than a million members in 38 states.
