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If you believe in democracy, if you believe in science, if you believe in justice and workers’ rights, let me be very clear: The next several months will be the most important in modern American history.
Yes, Donald Trump is a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe, a homophobe, and a religious bigot.
Yes, Donald Trump denied his election defeat, peddled conspiracy theories, and converted the Republican Party into a cult of the individual.
Yes, Donald Trump has contempt for a free media and criticism. He has encouraged violence and the never-before-seen use of the military and federal agents against U.S. citizens.
But if you believe Donald Trump’s first term was dangerous, I want you to think for a moment about what a second term would look like in terms of policy if a majority of Americans vote to support him and give him a mandate for another four years in the White House.
If Donald Trump is elected this November, the fight against climate change is over. Period. Not only does Trump believe climate change is a “hoax,” but he has and will once again appoint agency leaders and judges who undermine our ability to move toward sustainable energy and protect the environment. If the U.S. retreats from the fight against climate change, countries like China, India, and the rest of the world will follow. That would have irreversible implications for the future habitability of our planet for future generations.
If Donald Trump is elected in November, the already obscene levels of income and wealth inequality in this country will only get worse. In his first administration, Trump signed tax cuts into law where 83 percent of the benefits went to the top 1 percent while raising taxes for middle class families. The cuts added almost $2 trillion to the deficit, yet Republicans wasted no time finding religion on the issue of the debt when it came to paid family leave, universal pre-K, expanded home care, and more. During this current campaign, Trump has promised to extend those tax cuts for the rich and lower the corporate tax rate even further. We should believe him.
If Donald Trump is elected again in November, we can expect him and the Republican Party to escalate the attacks on women’s reproductive health in this country. No, it was not enough for the Trump to brag about appointing justices who overturned Roe v. Wade in this country, he and other Republicans have backed a federal abortion ban if he is elected for another term.
If Donald Trump is elected again, I happen to believe that the almost 250-year experiment of American democracy is all but over. It goes without saying that Trump tried to overturn the results of the last presidential election, but his attack on democracy goes far deeper than the violence of January 6, 2021. If Trump wins, you can expect more extreme gerrymandering, more election workers being harassed and threatened, and as a result of his policies and lies, more and more people increasingly believing democracy itself, and our government, does not work for them.
It does not end there.
If Donald Trump is elected, he will once again attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act and throw millions of people off of their health care.
If Trump is elected, we will take gigantic leaps backward on issues of education, gun control, criminal justice reform, and immigration.
And if Donald Trump is elected again, it would strengthen the hand of authoritarian leaders he openly respects and admires around the world like Orban in Hungary, Putin in Russia, Xi in China, and many other countries like Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
So those are the stakes. Now what do we do about it?
Of course, it goes without saying that we must do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden. No excuses!
But let me also add that while President Biden and those of us who have worked with him have every right to be proud of what we have accomplished – especially given the fact that the work was done in a very divided and contentious Congress – I personally agree there are a number of areas where the administration’s response to issues has been inadequate or dead wrong.
So while it is critically important we do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump, it is just as important we work to elect progressives this November and push President Biden to enact a progressive agenda in his second term.
That is going to be a major focus for me throughout the rest of this year, and I can use your help in getting it done.
Senator Bernie Sanders is an Independent representing Vermont.
