Jim Hightower Urges Progressives To Defeat Trump

Progressive leader and Bernie Sanders supporter Jim Hightower (in picture at left from Other Words) is asking progressives to put there effort into defeating Donald Trump. He writes:

The Bernie for President campaign is over, but the political revolution that he launched against corporate rule is just beginning.

We can’t let up. Here are three things we must do to make sure the revolution to continues in full force:

• Defeat Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is elected, he'll destroy our progress—and this country—faster than a hog eats supper!
• Take back the U.S. Senate (and maybe even the House!). With Trump dragging Republicans down in the polls, there's a huge opportunity to elect progressive champions—like Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois—to the Senate, and to make Bernie and Elizabeth Warren chairs of powerful committees.¹ But key Senate races—in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—are neck and neck.² Which means we need to organize.
• Push from the left. During and after the election, we've got to push Democrats to be bold progressives.

Bernie's revolution lifted us progressives from the political scrap heap up to the top of our national conversation—fighting to pass a $15 minimum wage, remove crushing education debt from the backs of students, address head-on the imminent crisis of climate change, defeat TPP, and repeal the Supreme Court’s democracy-destroying Citizens United edict.

But now the biggest obstacle standing in the way of our progress is an unreal reality show—starring The Donald.

Don't think Trump can win? Shoot, I'm from Texas, the state that brought you King George the W. and Rick Perry (a guy who put the "goober” in gubernatorial). They seemed improbable, too, and look at what a mess they made when they got elected. And even if Trump does lose, we still need to take back Congress.

As Bernie’s message spread through mass rallies and social media last fall and winter, I traveled the country and saw a revolution deeply motivated by hope—a belief in and a yearning for a more egalitarian America, a society dedicated to democracy’s fundamental principle: We’re all in this together.

That’s why I know that, if we put our collective shoulder to the wheel, we can defeat Trump in November and keep building the insurgency Bernie sparked to democratize our country’s wealth and power to benefit all and serve the common good.

Let’s do something, together. 

In solidarity,

–Jim Hightower