Tim RyanAnd all while the rich get richer.We are fed up. I am fed up. And that is why I am running for president. I’m going to lead a revolution for working people in America. This includes all workers: white, black and brown, men and women, gay and straight, urban and rural. In other words, I want to fight for all the Americans left behind by Trump’s elitist economic agenda that puts the well-being of millionaires, billionaires and corporations above that of hardworking Americans.We need a president who doesn’t just visit our forgotten communities for rallies, but one who lives in them — one who knows the pain and suffering that comes with being unseen and unheard. And this isn’t a recent problem — the hollowing out of our communities has been happening for the last 40 years. It’s pathetic that a country this powerful and wealthy can’t come together to fix the structural problems — from job losses to tax cuts for the rich — that continue to hurt hard-working Americans. Why do these communities keep getting forgotten? Because the decades-old, right-wing hate agenda has successfully pitted working families against each other.
They have spread fear instead of sympathy for the families seeking refuge and asylum in our country. They tell us that women shouldn’t be allowed freedom of choice when it comes to reproductive rights. They tell us that gay couples will destroy the institution of marriage and the American family. The stories that are told on the right-wing media’s nightly news are not about the promise of America. Instead, their goal is to spread fear.Michael Bennet: Americans haven’t given up on their country And President Donald Trump has turned it into an art form. Fear is the foundation of his political agenda. But as Franklin Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” So, look out, Trump. Look out, all of you passive, enabling Republicans who have prioritized political power over everything.
We are coming for you.I know the pain working men and women are experiencing. I have lived my whole life just outside Youngstown, Ohio. We watched the steel mills close and 50,000 jobs disappear in the late 1970s. We watched businesses move overseas throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. I’ll never forget my cousin Donnie, who had a good job at a GM supplier, telling me that his last act on the job after he was laid off was to unbolt his machine and ship it to China. Late last year, General Motors announced its plans to shut down four plants in the US along with one in Canada, slashing the company’s total number of salaried and contract jobs by about 15%. The Lordstown, Ohio, plant, which had 1,435 hourly workers at the time of the announcement, ceased production in March. These are my family, my friends, my neighbors. I stood arm-in-arm with them. I cried with them. And I am fighting for them.I also know their hopes and dreams.
