Sisters and brothers -

These are crazy times. These are dangerous times.

It appears that every day we’re dealing with one crisis or another, outrageous decisions and statements from the White House, and the continued undermining of the Constitution by Trump.

One day he's calling on Greg Abbott and other Republican governors to redistrict their states mid-decade because he knows his agenda will lose him the House.

The next day he's deploying the National Guard on the streets of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

One day he's taking health care away from millions of people.

The next day he's picking undocumented workers off the streets in front of Home Depots.

One day it's tariffs or the Epstein files.

The next day he's hanging huge banners of himself off federal buildings and forcing the military to hold a parade for him on his birthday.

Crazy stuff. Every day. And on and on and on it goes.

Question. How does a man like this get elected? Why do millions of people — including working people, young people, and people of color vote for him?

Answer. The current political and economic systems are broken and failing ordinary Americans. As our major institutions collapse, the Democratic leadership offers nothing more than tinkering around the edges and defending the status quo.

Pathetically, despite his horrific anti-worker policies, Donald Trump has become the agent of “change.”

Take a hard look at the world you’re living in. In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, we are not even providing the basic necessities of life for working families.

Wages have been stagnant for decades. Some 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Millions work for starvation wages. We have the highest rates of childhood and senior poverty of almost any major country on earth.

Millions can't find affordable housing. Some 800,000 Americans are homeless and 20 million households spend at least 50% of their incomes on shelter. All across the country, people are terrified that their landlords will raise their rent and drive them out of their homes.

Our health care system, despite being wildly expensive, is on the verge of collapse. 85 million are uninsured or under-insured and there are not enough doctors, nurses, dentists, or psychologists. We pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and some 60,000 Americans die each year because they don’t get to a doctor on time.

Our educational systems — from childcare to college to trade schools — are inadequate and far too expensive. We used to be the best educated country in the world. Not any more. Millions of young people leave school deeply in debt.

Our food system, dominated by agribusiness and the food industry, is making our kids sick. They supply children with addictive ultra-processed food which leads to obesity, diabetes, and other illnesses. Buying healthy food is unaffordable for most families.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all that, one person owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of households, Trump and Congress provide massive tax breaks to billionaires and politicians maintain a corrupt campaign finance system that allows the very rich to buy elections.

So where do we go from here?

In my view, we need to make it clear to the American people that now is not the time to think small. Given the major crises that we face, we need to think big.

We need to make it clear that, with all of the advances in worker productivity that exploding new technologies like AI and robotics will provide, we now have the opportunity to create the kind of society that has only been dreamed of in the past — a nation in which every man, woman and child has a decent standard of living. This is not utopian thinking. This is doable and exactly what we should be fighting for.

But how?

We must defend and expand our democracy: Working people need democracy and a responsive government which can advance their interests and put checks on the greed of the Oligarchs.

We must make the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes: We need a fair and progressive tax system that demands that the wealthiest people in our country finally start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can fund the needs of the working class. No one should possess more than a billion dollars in wealth.

We must cut military spending: We can make significant cuts in military spending, retain the strong defense that we need and transfer tens of billions into social needs.

We must make certain that the working class benefits from new technology: AI and robotics cannot simply be a means by which the rich become richer while working class people lose out.

We must guarantee basic human needs: Yes. In the United States, we can afford to provide quality health care, education, nutrition, housing, and retirement security to all as a human right.

We must enact Medicare for All: The function of a rational health care system is not to make insurance companies and drug companies tens of billions a year in profits. It’s to provide quality care for all and focus on disease prevention.

We must provide quality education for all: Today our childcare system is broken, public education is under siege and higher education is extremely expensive. That has got to change. We must guarantee that every family in America can send their kids to high quality childcare, regardless of income.

We must make housing affordable: We must expand the National Housing Trust Fund to build at least 4 million more units of low-income and affordable housing, cap the price of rent, end the gentrification of neighborhoods, and stop Wall Street speculators from ripping off tenants and flipping homes.

We must improve the wages and benefits for the American people, pass the PRO Act to make it easier for people to form a union, raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $17 an hour, guarantee paid family and medical leave, expand Social Security, and bring back defined benefit pensions.

These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas. They are not radical. They are not fringe. They are not ideas to be afraid of.

These are all ideas widely accepted and supported by the majority of the American people. And I am not talking just about Democrats in so-called "blue states." I am talking about the working people coming out to our rallies in droves in places like West Virginia and Texas.

And I am talking about many of the working people who have fled the Democratic Party for Trump because he promised to bring about massive change.

In this difficult moment in American history, we must have the courage to stand together and fight back against corporate greed.

We must have the courage to fight back against massive income and wealth inequality.

We must have the courage to fight back against a corrupt political system and to listen to the needs of working families, and not just corporate CEOs.

It's not just good policy, but it is good politics.

And if we do that, we'll not only win elections everywhere, but we can finally create an economy and a government that works for all, not just the 1 percent.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

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