Let me
take this opportunity to wish you a very happy holiday season and a wonderful
new year.
Whenever
I am asked about running for president in 2020, I answer that if I am the best
candidate to beat Donald Trump, then I will probably run. That is the truth.
If
that happens, the political, financial and media elite of this country will
stop at nothing to defeat us. You know that. We’ve lived through it together
once before. Our ideas terrify them. So what they will do is try to divide us
up with attacks — some old, some new — and our political opponents will spend
obscene sums of money on ads to defeat us.
I
just did not expect the attack ads to begin before I even made a decision. But
they have…
Right
now, a group of Wall Street Democrats known as the Third Way is running ads in
early primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — calling
me out by name and saying our ideas, like Medicare for all, are a path to
defeat in 2020.
They
not only want to discourage or defeat a Sanders candidacy, they want to make
sure that the progressive agenda is not advanced by anyone. They want us to go
back to their failed corporate approach which has led to a massive level of
income and wealth inequality, a bloated military budget and a failure to
address the crises of climate change, a broken criminal justice system and
inhumane immigration policies.
Last
time we ran, we made the financial elite pay a price for their attacks on our
progressive agenda. It is just as important we do it again today:
Our
agenda terrifies the political and financial establishment of this country.
But
the truth is, their agenda should terrify all of us.
Our
ideas will lift people out of poverty, they will guarantee health care as a
right for every man, woman and child, and they will make certain that every
person in this country with the ability and the desire can get the education
they need, regardless of the income of their family.
Ours
is not a radical agenda. It's the agenda the American people want.
Their
agenda, paid for by wealthy campaign contributors, has led to record levels of
inequality, a health care system that costs more per capita than any other
developed nation while leaving millions uninsured and underinsured, and
grotesque amounts of student debt that rob many of our young people of their
futures.
Theirs
is the agenda that made Donald Trump possible. Ours is the agenda that will
defeat him.
And
that’s why it’s so important progressives stand up to their attacks today:
In
2016 we faced the kitchen sink. If we run again, you should expect no less. But
the political revolution is stronger and larger than ever, and they will be no
match for us if we’re in this fight together.
In
solidarity,
Bernie
Sanders
Paid
for by Friends of Bernie Sanders
PO
BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
