In Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, as well as all over this country, people are struggling. When jobs are leaving, wages are declining, benefits are cut, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing, factories are shutting down and leaving, people are paying attention to this.
The majority of Americans, 61 percent, believe that the rich pay too little in taxes. The majority of Americans believe that this is not right and that it is a cause for concern regarding their struggle to support their families, send their kids to college, and to get the care they need when they are sick. We are beginning to find it unacceptable how so many have so little in one of the richest countries in the world.
Regardless of which candidate would have won the 2016 election out of the two major party nominees, regardless of which candidate would have won out of the primaries, there is a way for the people to create the country we can be. Remember, only 9 percent of the country selected the two major party nominees. This is not an accurate representation of the real diversity of ideas in America today.
Social Security, healthcare, income equality, economic reform, educating our children, these are not small issues that Americans ignore. This is what we are concerned about regardless of where we place on the political spectrum. We might have different ideas on how to accomplish what we want to accomplish, but we have roughly the same goals.
Not many people actually want to see people sick and dying in the streets. We do not want our youth to drop out of school and end up in jails, disproportionately targeting people of color, we don't want a predatory student loan system, we don't want 52 percent of all new income going to the top 1 percent, and we don't want to lose our raises, wages, jobs, and benefits.
This is not the time, however, to only talk about what the next four years of this government will mean. Historically, relying on the government to create real positive change without the people has not been the case. It is not the time to fall victim to partisan politics on what should be bipartisan issues with bipartisan solutions. We cannot fall for the tactics of politicians, mainstream media personalities, and the powerful billionaires who fund them, to divide us up. When we politicize the issues in the wrong direction, we may become divided and weak against an agenda that only has one goal: keep the people divided.
The people running this country, those politicians and the very wealthy, have a strategy that involves manipulating the American people. We are conditioned to point fingers at each other and not at those who have set the rules in opposition to us. Instead of standing together against a rigged economy, we are being told that our neighbors are the enemy.
Our neighbors who, regardless of their background, their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, are in the same situation as we are. We live and work in this country because we have found opportunity here and it's pretty safe to say that most of us do not have plans to migrate. We continue to work, pay taxes, vote, and maybe even try to make this country a better place while doing so.
We're still here, we're not leaving, and we will not accept the idea that we should turn against each other. In our darkest times, the United States has found a way to abolish slavery, to give women and people of all ethnicities the right to vote, to end segregation, grant marriage equality, and more. These were not the ends to our problems, but all of this happened because of millions of people who stood up and demanded that it be done.
"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history." - Mahatma Gandhi
Public servants are hired by the people. Elections are job interviews and voters are the real bosses. Our taxes pay their salary and we only give them one main job: represent the people who hired you. If they listen to the majority of their constituents, they keep their job. If not, we fire them from office.
Whatever party you belong to, even if it's none of them, we need your voice. If President Trump, the Senate, the House, or your state's elected officials are trying to do something that you don't agree with, organize and make your message heard until you are heard. You will win. You will be louder than the voices of your opposition because you will be organized and united while they are disorganized and divided from their fellow Americans.
You will face vigorous opposition by those who don't share your beliefs, but while they are spending time on you, you are spending time dealing with the people who actually have the power to create real change. For every one of us who gets involved in politics, shows up at town halls, makes phone calls to our representatives, and overall lets those who represent us know what we want, we will hold those in power responsible for representing the people.
We will find a way to take care of our neighbors regardless of their income, age, race, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation, immigration status and so on because we the people have been fighting for this since the birth of this country. This has always been a marathon, not a sprint. It's time to keep running.
