Because courageous ones before us laid a path, we now have rights. It is now our turn to fight to defend and expand them.
Nothing fills my heart more than when ordinary people speak up for the ones they love. That’s what our members just did last week in Washington, D.C., when thousands came from all across the country to demand our elected officials do their jobs and stop the Trump administration from ripping health care and housing away from tens of millions of Americans.
That’s what will happen if the cruel budget Congressional Republicans have proposed gets passed. Nearly a trillion dollars will be cut from Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP food aid, education and housing. And every penny they take away from you and me will go to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich and big corporations.
Our people spoke up, because they know firsthand the harm these cuts will cause to their families. They also know from their own experience that you can work three jobs in America and still not have health care or enough to eat.
For the tens of millions of working Americans who rely on government services to live with basic dignity, the Trump budget will be nothing short of a catastrophe. That’s why they came to Washington: to bring their stories, to raise their voices and to be in solidarity with others holding their leaders accountable.
You can see the transformation that happens when people first raise their voices, and discover their power to unite with others for the first time. As a community organizer, I’ve seen it time and again, and I’ve experienced it myself.
So now is the time to fight. We must use every tool we have left to ensure the wealth we generate goes to help those who need it the most. That is how we close the gap of inequality and that is how we bring about prosperity to all. Trump and his ultra-rich friends can only plunder our tax dollars if Congress lets them. And Congress must, at least in theory, answer to us before they destroy programs that save lives.
And yet the truth is, we may not win this fight. In a few weeks, this cruel budget will go to the Republican controlled Senate for a vote, and Trump has vowed to sign it by July 4th. It is in moments like this that we must remember that for for every visible victory - like the 1965 CIvil Rights Act, which abolished racial discrimination, the Obergefell decision in 2015, which established the right to marry who you love, or the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in 1920 - there were decades of setbacks and defeats. And there were countless protests and meetings led by dedicated organizers in church basements and union halls that never made the headlines.
Yet victories like these came to pass because ordinary people believed, as we do now, that we as a nation could do better, that democracy with all its imperfections can expand to create a more just society for us all. So we persevere, as they did, despite real setbacks.
Why raise our voices, some ask, when our government only seems to answer to the rich and powerful? Why put ourselves at risk, when citizens and noncitizens alike are being stripped of rights and treated with unprecedented cruelty, and even shipped out of the country?
The reason is if we don’t fight now, there will be no one left to speak up for what could be different. If we want our children and neighbors to stand up for what is right, we must first do it ourselves. Before they take action, they must see and hear us speak out: this is why we must stand up now.
We already know that our health care, housing and educational systems are far from perfect. Even before these cuts, too many of our loved ones are left out in the cold. Yet to achieve a better world, we must first imagine it. How can we reimagine our future, if we haven't been part of the fight for justice in the present? How do we rebuild, if we stayed on the sidelines? How do we come back from losing, if we give up?
I have every confidence that we can, and will, come back from this dark moment. But only if each and every one of us raises our voices, and comes together, now.
The framers of the Constitution thought long and hard about how to create an order that would resist the tyranny of the powerful. It is being tested now as it has before, but it has endured for 250 years. Yet we are not naive. Many, indeed most of us - women and people of color - were not even considered full persons by the framers. So we have had to fight to be recognized and included in democracy’s promise. We fought, and won. Because courageous ones before us laid a path for us to follow, we now have rights. It is now our turn to fight to defend and expand these rights.
It’s our time to fight. Join us.
