Yesterday the CEO of Verizon said that I was “contemptible.” He doesn’t like that yesterday I walked the picket line with striking Verizon workers, or that I think Verizon needs to pay its fair share in taxes.
Verizon’s attack reminded me of what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in New York City in 1936:
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
“They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Like FDR, I welcome the contempt of Verizon’s CEO. I welcome the hatred and contempt of every Wall Street banker, hedge fund manager, pharmaceutical lobbyist and fracking executive trying to stop our campaign.
They know how powerful we are when we stand together.
I visited FDR’s gravesite this week while I was campaigning in New York. I took the time to reflect on his presidency, and how he stood up to the powerful interests on Wall Street who wrecked the nation’s economy and sent our country spiraling into the Great Depression.
FDR thought big. When people said that Social Security was impossible, he defied them and created the safety net we have today. When people told him that he couldn’t rein in Wall Street greed, he signed the Glass-Steagall Act into law.
Today we are thinking big, and the billionaire class is telling us what we’re doing is impossible. But people keep underestimating us, and we keep proving them wrong. Let’s show them again on Tuesday in New York’s primary.
I’m going to be on stage for tonight’s Democratic debate in several hours, and I know that with your support, we can win.
Nothing is impossible.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
