The "Trump is Too Stupid to Commit a Crime" Defense is the GOP's Best Strategy for Avoiding Impeachment. Mainly because the FACTS Support It... Dot Dot Dot Means Words Were Removed From Transcript...

After all... It WORKED for Don Junior... He Was NOT Arrested and HE Used the "Too Stupid" Defense about the Trump Tower Meeting with Russians where he hoped to get DIRT on Hillary... and Since DJ Trump DID THE CRIME and then ADMITTED HE DID THE CRIME and then DID THE SAME CRIME AGAIN... Obviously he does not GRASP THE CONCEPT that only Americans should participate in American Elections... Sure, Trump got away with Receiving Russian Help in 2016 but... This Time Democrats Won the House... and NOW We Have Impeachment Coming... and All the Republicriminals will have to answer to their voters why they Ignored Reality and voted to give Trump a "Mulligan" - The Vast Majority of Americans Support Impeachment and The GOP is Likely to be Thrown Out of the Senate, House and White House in 2020. That will start a new GOLDEN AGE where Honesty and Good Deeds are Honored and CORRUPTION IS A DISGRACE...  The Exact Opposite of what Mad King Donald Believes... 

an Alternative Defense is "Trump was Just Joking. " The GOP Uses this Line whenever Trump OBVIOUSLY DOES SOMETHING INSANE... 

~~~~~~ (~);-} ~~~~~~

What IS Bubble UP Economics and How Does it Work? Simply Raise the Minimum Wage to Fifteen Dollars an Hour. Then all Those people will spend the extra money in their paychecks at American Businesses. Increasing Profits. Making Stockholders Happy! Then those businesses will have to hire more people to handle the extra Customers. Decreasing Unemployment Insurance Payments. Everybody WINS! With EMPLOYMENT AT A JOB becoming a Viable Alternative to Selling Drugs for a Street Gang, Some teenagers will choose Employment... Reducing CRIME... Reducing Costs for Prisons... Reducing Costs for Law Enforcement... People will buy more food for their Children. Causing Better Health and Smarter Kids... Starvation is Not Good for Children's Brains... Farmers will sell More. Truckers will move more merchandise to stores. Increased Competition for Workers will cause Everybody's Wages to Go Up. All those Workers will pay more in Income Taxes... That would make the Government happy... Right NOW, we are having a National Debt Ceiling Crisis because the Government is Spending More that it Takes in with Taxes... Bubble UP Economics would reverse that trend... The Money Bubbles UP Through Every Layer of Society... With a rising tide, every boat floats! We Tried Ronald Reagan's "Voodoo" Economics and It Has Failed... "People" Say That Bubble UP! Economics WILL MAKE Employers LAY OFF Workers... However... Employers HAVE ALREADY LAID OFF EVERYONE THEY POSSIBLY CAN... Have you Ever Seen a Business where People Work There but Have Nothing To DO? Never! 

Who Could Possibly be Opposed to the JOY of Bubble UP! Economics? Well, there are people in this world that have COMPULSIVE HOARDING OF MONEY SYNDROME. It's a Mental Health Disease just Like The Crazy Cat Lady or People that save thousands of newspapers until their house is a maze of paths thru stacks of papers that they never read. People with CHOMS want more, more, more money even though they cannot possibly spend what they already have. Think about it, Once someone owns five mansions, what is the motivation to buy a SIXTH Mansion?  OH! That's right, it's a disease! COMPULSIVE HOARDING of Money! However, We can Help these people... If you meet them, have a talk, explain that doing evil for money is not the best way to live life. Simple Conversations Can Have an Effect. Repetitive Conversations... It May Take Many, Many, Many Explanations because PEER Pressure is REAL... Currently, people with CHOMS are surrounded by Other Greed Freaks... Encouraging Evil Behavior as a Sick Game. I remember that Michael Milkin and Ivan Boesky competed to see who could win the most money on the stock market and they used DOLLARS AS A WAY TO KEEP SCORE. Then they went to prison... Well, Maybe we could talk to CHOMS Victims before they Get Arrested. And if not, maybe we can expose them in the press or online and help them by PUTTING THEM IN JAIL.  

For Example: The CEO of Dow Chemical makes a Pesticide (sulfoxaflor) that is Killing BEES. The EPA just ruled that they can continue to sell the pesticide if they just put a warning label on the side of the barrel... BUT BEES CAN'T READ! It is possible to GOOGLE Dow Chemical and find out Who the CEO is and Where He Lives... Maybe a person could get a Job as a Waiter at the Catering Company that serves his Mansion... Maybe they could ask him to stop Killing Bees? Tell Him: NO BEES, NO FOOD. MASS STARVATION... and even You Can't Eat Money... 


BUT... There is Hope for the Future! Hey, If Katy Perry and Taylor Swift can bury the Hatchet and become friends, then anything is Possible. Maybe the 1% and the 99% Could stop fighting... Lions laying down with Lambs... It's All Possible... All you need is LOVE, La, la la la lah... 

Trump-0-Nomics FAILED - That's Why Homelessness has INCREASED Dramatically in the Last Three Years... Suicide UP, Drug Overdoses UP, Alcoholism UP, Prices UP, Wages Down...

Headline: The US economy is  slowing...
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/economy/us-gdp-third-quarter/index.html 

and on a different subject... Parking Lot Shade is Provided by Solar Panels at Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico.

FUNNY SONG Satire! - "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" REWRITTEN to Mock Mad King Donald the Corrupt... BOOS and CHANTS OF "LOCK HIM UP!" GREET tRUMP AT WORLD SERIES BASEBALL GAME... VIDEO so You Can Sing Along!

Everybody Sing! "Take Him out of the Office... Drag him out if you must... Go back to Trump Steaks... and Lousy Hotels... please take Eric and Junior as well... we all root. root, root for impeachment... if Trump's not removed, it's insane! for it's one term is more than enough... you're a Shame, Shame, Shame!" https://twitter.com/i/status/1188987564004274182

Click on the Twitter Link Above to See the Song on 

the Giant Screen at The Baseball Game! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BApHB0sngpw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4WxNQO9EA

Trump leaves World Series game early after crowd boos and chants ‘lock him up’

Fans behind home plate also hold up signs calling for president to be impeached

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-booed-baseball-game-world-series-astros-nationals-lock-him-up-chant-impeach-a9173801.html

Free Coloring Book Art
 Trump - Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Feel Free to Print This and Color with Felt Pens
Include Your Own Favorite LIE

Find More FREE COLORING BOOK ART! 

at Google Image Search

using the Keywords: gvan42 free coloring book art

or click on this link!

https://tinyurl.com/gvan42

Is Al Baghdadi REALLY Dead or is tRUMP Lying Again? Is This A Fake Event Designed to DISTRACT US from tRUMP's Failed Economy? Did They Substitute The Body of Al Bundy Just To Make It Seem Real?

It all seems a BIT too Contrived... No Body... BUT... 
We are all distracted from Impeachment... 
and tRUMP's FAILED ECONOMY... 

tRUMPs Failed Economy Caused
Massive Increase in Homelessness

and we are also distracted from tRUMP's FAILURE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT INFRASTRUCTURE... and Now a Million People are Without Electric Power Due to Failed INFRASTRUCTURE... 

Take a Moment to NOTICE REALITY...
The Talking Heads on TV
Say that The Economy is Booming but...
ONLY FOR PEOPLE THAT ARE
ALREADY RICH...
The Stock Market is UP!
But Only People Who are
ALREADY RICH OWN STOCK!
The Average Joe is Facing
Higher Prices and Lower Wages... 

STILL NO ACTION BY LAWMAKERS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE... Post from over a Year Ago... Massive Student Walkout on Wednesday 3/14/2018 Protesting Gun Murder in the USA. #NeverAgain #OutlawAssaultRifles

The first large-scale, coordinated national demonstration is planned for March 14, when organizers of the Women’s March have called for a 17-minute walkout, one minute for each of the 17 students and staff members killed in Florida.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/schools-brace-for-massive-student-walkouts-over-gun-violence

Trump FAILS to ask for an age limit change from 18 to 21 years old to buy guns. NRA pulls his strings and the puppet dances...
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/377916-trump-not-enough-political-support-to-raise-age-for-buying-a-gun

So Many Protest Marches... and NOTHING DONE... and the Killing Continues... 

FEEL FREE TO COPY AND PASTE ANY OF THE PICTURES INTO YOUR OWN BLOG... 

OR USE THE HANDY BUTTONS BELOW TO LIKE AND SHARE THIS POST... 

Trump's Deregulation of the Banking Industry sets us up for ANOTHER DISASTER like the Stock Market Crash of 2008 and the Taxpayer Bailout of Wall Street.

tRUMP pretends that Deregulation Will
Make America Great Again.
NOT TRUE !
It Will only Let Rich People Get More Money
While Destroying the Environment...
and People's Health...

WAKE UP AMERICA!
Every Move He Makes Harms the 99%

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/09/14/trump-republicans-inviting-new-wall-street-crash-lehman-anniversary-column/1292862002/

Headline: Wall Street firms reward people for risky behavior. I know because I was there. We need rules, not the deregulation pushed by Trump and Republicans.

Lehman Bros., one of the largest investment banks in the USA, filed for bankruptcy protection a decade ago Saturday and triggered the worst financial crisis in modern American history. In the aftermath of the financial system’s collapse, as the excesses of Wall Street were revealed to the American public, people were shocked that banks had been allowed to make such reckless bets with their money. It seemed absurd that there were no rules in place to prevent these bankers from playing roulette with the U.S. economy on the line.

Ten years later, many of the rules and regulations put in place to prevent such a crisis from happening again are under attack. It would have been unthinkable as recently as a few years ago, but in the past year we’ve actually seen banking deregulation legislation pass Congress. In an effort to inflate profits for big banks, the Trump administration and Congress are setting us up for another crash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008
Massive bail-outs of financial institutions were employed to prevent a possible collapse of the world financial system. In total, $623 billion in taxpayer money was dispersed via bailouts...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/28/bank-bailout-cost-taxpayers
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report (pdf) with what seemed like good news: the bailout of 2008 – which fronted $700bn in taxpayer funds to prop up the financial institutions that brought the economy to the brink – ended up cheaper than expected. The price tag was revised down to $21bn from $24bn.

The picture was even rosier once you looked past how much it cost to bailout General Motors and insurance giant AIG. The cost of the bank bailout alone is, in fact, projected to be "almost nothing", as Politico's Morning Money blog put it. So insignificant was the harm done to taxpayers that Politico put "bailout" in quotation marks.

So, the hullabaloo was apparently for nothing. Far from being victims robbed of their tax dollars, the American public is essentially a winner in the bank rescue scheme – a shrewd investor who (involuntarily) played her cards right.

This is the line the banks and the US Treasury would like us to swallow. It is, of course, totally false. The bailout cost us plenty, and continues to do so. Sadly, it is the gift that keeps on giving to the very banks that drove our economy over a cliff – and took trillions in housing wealth, retirement funds and millions of jobs with it.

First of all, $21bn is no bargain. It's a hefty sum for a government we're constantly told is broke – and needs to cut everything from air traffic controllers to Medicare, and from meals for needy seniors to public defenders and housing aid. Broke – but somehow able to front $700bn for reckless, wildly mismanaged banks.

For Unpopular Men, Guns are a Practical Alternative to Having a Girlfriend... Firing a Gun Causes a Massive Endorphin Dump similar to SEX...

Does Gun Ownership Cause Impotence? Look at a Field and Stream... The back of the magazine is PACKED with ads for erection pills... 

Music Video: "MELT the GUNS" - by Greg Vanderlaan - Feel Free To Record This and Make a Top Ten Record. Pass this On to a Friend... Chords and Lyrics Provided.

video is at: https://youtu.be/ml5ziDRoqcc
Contact: gregvan@yahoo.com

Too many Children Dying... [A* C*]  
Too Many Families Crying... [A# A]
Everybody Realizes... [A* C*] 
We Should Collect 'em All... [A# A]
and Melt the Guns, Melt 'em... [G D A] 3X
Then They'll Never Kill Again... [E]

They say: "Guns Don't Kill People, [A* C*]
Bullets Kill People" [A# A] 2X
But If We Melt All the Guns... [G D A] 3X
The Bullets will be Harmless... [E]

Hey, Hey, NRA, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? 4X
[CHANT - Knuckles Knock on the Guitar Body]

No, It's Not Video Games... [A* C*] 
No, It's Not Mental Health... [A# A] 2X
That's Just Our Puppet President Pretending... [G D A] 2X
When The NRA Jerks His Chain, He Jumps! Good Dog! OBEY! [E A] 3X

Too many Children Dying... [A* C*]  
Too Many Families Crying... [A# A]
Everybody Realizes... [A* C*] 
We Should Collect 'em All... [A# A]
and Melt the Guns, Melt 'em... [G D A] 3X
Then They'll Never Kill Again... and Again... and Again... [E] 
and Again... and Again... and Again... and Again... [E F F# G Ab A]

[Spoken] Are You Happy Buying Bulletproof Backpacks for Your Children?

A* = E0 A7 D7 G6 B0 e0
C* = E0 A0 D5 G5 B5 e0
A# = E0 A0 D3 G3 B3 e0

I like the fact that some lyrics are Sung over Very Discordant Chords and Others are Very Consonant. Like, Good Ideas are Consonant and Bad Ideas are Discordant... 

I Heard The Chant in the Sixties: Originally it was: "Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"

I Intentionally Misquoted the NRA Slogan: "Guns Don't Kill People, Bullets Kill People"

Free Coloring Book ART!

MELT GUNS Two-Tone COFFEE MUG for Sale!

We could end the Killing 
if we just Collected all the GUNS and Melted them... 
It would be a Great Source of Free American Metal... 
Handy for Building Cars OR Washing Machines!

MELT GUNS Two-Tone COFFEE MUG
by gregvan

MELT GUNS BUTTON
by gregvan

MELT GUNS Two-Tone COFFEE MUG for Sale!

Black and White Graphic... Melt Guns Slogan... a Bold Image... a Bold Statement...

MELT GUNS Two-Tone COFFEE MUG
by gregvan

MELT GUNS SQUARE STICKER
by gregvan

MELT GUNS BUTTON
by gregvan

MELT GUNS Two-Tone COFFEE MUG
by gregvan

Trump's FAILED Economy Causes Dramatic Increase in Homelessness.

Rent Has Gone UP. Gas Prices Have Gone UP. Wages Have Stayed the Same. Social Security Checks Have Remained the Same. Most Jobs No Longer Have any Benefits. No Healthcare, No Vacation, No Sick Leave, No Minimum Wage in The So-Called "Gig" Economy...    

If YOU are a Member of the 99%, Trump-0-Nomics Has Caused Your REAL INCOME to Go Down. 

The number of homeless people in San Jose is up 

by 42 percent from two years ago... 

 “I don't know how you can impeach
somebody who's done a great job,”
the president tells Fox & Friends.

Trump Town USA
Amazon Pays No Taxes, People Live in Tents.
and the Talking Head on TV Says
"The Economy is Booming"
True for the 1% but False for You, Me
and The Guy Living in His
Van Down By The River!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/us/politics

/hud-affordable-housing-crisis.html

The Trump administration’s main policy response, unveiled this spring by Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development: a plan to triple rents for about 712,000 of the poorest tenants receiving federal housing aid and to loosen the cap on rents on 4.5 million households enrolled in federal voucher and public housing programs nationwide, with the goal of moving longtime tenants out of the system to make way for new ones.

Complete Transcript: President Obama delivers a Eulogy for Elijah Cummings... and... an Inspirational "Get Out The Vote" Speech for 2018. It's Time to Take Action AGAIN. 2020 is a New Opportunity to Throw The Evil Ones OUT! We Had GREAT SUCCESS in 2018 and IMPEACHMENT WAS THE RESULT! In 2020 We Will Win The Presidency, The Senate and The House and a NEW AGE of Peace and Prosperity Will Follow.

Barack Obama: (00:40)
To the bishop and first lady and the new [Salmas 00:00:43] family… To the Cummings family. Maya, Mr. President, Madam Secretary, Madam Speaker, Governor, friends, colleagues, staff.

Barack Obama: (01:18)
The seeds on good sower. The Parable of the Sower tells us, stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. The seed on good sower. Elijah Cummings came from good sower, and in this sturdy frame goodness took root.

Barack Obama: (02:19)
His parents were sharecroppers from the South. They picked tobacco and strawberries and then sought something better in this city, south Baltimore. Robert worked shifts at a plant and Ruth cleaned other people’s homes. They became parents of seven. Preachers to a small flock. I remember I had the pleasure of meeting Elijah’s mother, Ruth, and she told me she prayed for me every day, and I knew it was true. And I felt better for it. Sometimes people say they’re praying for you, and you don’t know. They might be praying about you, but you don’t know if they’re praying for you. But I knew Ms. Ruth was telling the truth. So they were the proverbial salt of the earth and they passed on that strength and that grit, but also that kindness and that faith to their son.

Barack Obama: (04:07)
As a boy Elijah’s dad made him shine his shoes and tie his tie, and they’d go to the airport, not to board their planes, but to watch others do it. I remember Elijah telling me this story. Robert would say, “I have not flied. I may not fly, but you will fly one day. We can’t afford it right now, but you will fly.” His grandmother, as Elijah relayed it, and as grandmothers do, was a little more impatient with her advice. “Your daddy,” she said, “he’d been waiting and waiting and waiting for a better day. Don’t you wait.” Elijah did not wait.

Barack Obama: (05:07)
Against all odds Elijah earned his degrees. He learned about the rights that all people in this country are supposed to possess. With a little help, apparently, from Perry Mason Elijah became a lawyer to make sure that others had rights, and his people had their God given rights. And from the State house to the House of Representatives, his commitment to justice and the rights of others would never, ever waiver. Elijah’s example, the son of parents who rose from nothing to carve out just a little something. The public servant who toiled to guarantee the least of us have the same opportunities that he had earned. A leader who once said he’d die for his people even as he lived every minute for them. His life validates the things we tell ourselves about what’s possible in this country. Not guaranteed, but possible. The possibility that our destinies are not pre-ordained, but rather through our works and our dedication and our willingness to open our hearts to God’s message of love for all people, we can live a purposeful life. That we can reap about a full harvest, that we are neither sentenced to wither among the rocks, nor assured a bounty, but we have a capacity, the chance as individuals and as a nation to root ourselves in good soil.

Barack Obama: (07:44)
Elijah understood that. That’s why he fought for justice. That’s why he embraced this beloved community of Baltimore. That’s why he went on to fight for the rights and opportunities of forgotten people all across America, not just in his district. He was never complacent, for he knew that without clarity of purpose and a steadfast faith and the dogged determination demanded by our liberty, the promise of this nation can wither. Complacency, he knew was not only corrosive for our collective lives, but for our individual lives. It’s been remarked that Elijah was a kind man.

Barack Obama: (08:59)
I tell my daughters, and I have to say listening to Elijah’s daughter speak, that got me choked up. I’m sure those of you who have sons feel the same way, but there’s something about daughters and their father. And I was thinking I’d want my daughters to know how much I love them, but I’d also want them to know that being a strong man includes being kind. That there’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.

Barack Obama: (10:13)
I was sitting here, and I was just noticing the honorable Elijah E. Cummings, and this is a title that we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office. We’re supposed to introduce them as honorable, but Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected office. There’s a difference. There’s a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably outside the limelight, on the side of a road, in a quiet moment counseling somebody you work with, letting your daughters know you love them.

Barack Obama: (11:42)
You know, as President, I knew I could always count on Elijah being honorable and doing the right thing. And people have talked about his voice. There is something about his voice that just made you feel better. You know, there’s some people that we have a deep baritone, a prophetic voice. And when it was good times, and we achieved victories together, that voice and that laugh was a gift. But you needed it more during the tough times. When the path ahead looked crooked, when obstacles abounded. When I entertained doubts or I saw those who were in the fight start to waiver, that’s when Elijah’s voice mattered most. And more than once during my presidency when the economy still looked like it might plunge into depression. When the healthcare bill was pronounced dead in Congress, I would watch Elijah rally his colleagues. “The cost of doing nothing isn’t nothing,” he would say, and folks would remember why they entered into public service.

Barack Obama: (13:22)
Our children are the living messengers we send to a future we will never see. He would say, and he would remind all of us that our time is too short not to fight for what’s good and what is true and what is best in America. 200 years to 300 years from now he would say people will look back at this moment and they will ask the question, what did you do? And hearing him, we would be reminded that it falls upon each of us to give voice to the voices and comfort to the sick and opportunity to those not born to it and to preserve and nurture our democracy.

Barack Obama: (14:18)
Elijah Cummings was a man of noble and good heart. His parents and his faith planted the seeds of hope and love and compassion and the righteousness and that good soil of his. He has harvested all the crop that he could, for the Lord has now called Elijah home to give His humble, faithful servant rest.

Barack Obama: (15:01)
And it now falls on us to continue his work so that other young boys and girls in Baltimore, across Maryland, across the United States, and around the world, might, too, have a chance to grow and to flourish. That’s how we will honor him. That’s how we will remember him. That’s what he would hope for. May God bless the memory of the very honorable Elijah Cummings, and may God bless this city and this state and this nation that he loved. God bless you. Thank you.

https://www.rev.com/blog/elijah-cummings-funeral-eulogy-transcripts-barack-obama-nancy-pelosi-and-hillary-clinton-among-speakers-at-late-representatives-funeral




https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/7/17832024/obama-speech-trump-illinois-transcript

BARACK OBAMA: Hello, Illinois! I.L.L.! I.L.L.! Okay, okay. Just checking to see if you’re awake. Please have a seat, everybody. It is good to be home. It’s good to see corn, beans. I was trying to explain to somebody as we were flying in, that’s corn. That’s beans. They were very impressed at my agricultural knowledge. Please give it up for Amari, once again, for that outstanding introduction.

I have a bunch of good friends here today, including somebody who I served with who is one of the finest senators in the country, and we’re lucky to have your senator, Dick Durbin, is here. I also noticed, by the way, former governor Edgar here, who I haven’t seen in a long time, and somehow he has not aged and it was great to see him.

I want to thank everybody at the U of I system for making it possible for me to be here today. I am deeply honored at the Paul Douglas award that is being given to me.

He is somebody who set the path for so much outstanding public service here in Illinois. Now, I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room. I know people are still wondering why I didn’t speak at the 2017 commencement. The student body president sent a very thoughtful invitation. Students made a spiffy video, and when I declined, I hear there was speculation that I was boycotting campus until Antonio’s pizza reopened. So I want to be clear. I did not take sides in that late-night food debate.

The truth is, after eight years in the white house, I needed to spend some time one on one with Michelle if I wanted to stay married. And she says hello, by the way. I also wanted to spend some quality time with my daughters, who were suddenly young women on their way out the door. And I should add, by the way, now that I have a daughter in college, I can tell all the students here, your parents, they cry privately. It is brutal. So please call. Send a text. We need to hear from you. Just a little something.

Truth was, I was also intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.

Truth was, I was also intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.

We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example. After he led the colonies to victory as General Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no constitution. There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all-powerful, could have made himself potentially president for life.

Instead, he resigned as commander in chief and moved back to his country estate. Six years later, he was elected president. But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.

The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy, is that in a government of and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class. There are only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives, determine our course and determine our character.

I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are. Just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen — not as an ex-president, but as a fellow citizen — I’m here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it.

Now, some of you may think I’m exaggerating when I say this November’s elections are more important than any I can remember in my lifetime. I know politicians say that all the time. I have been guilty of saying it a few times, particularly when I was on the ballot. But just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different. The stakes really are higher. The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire.

And it’s not as if we haven’t had big elections before or big choices to make in our history. Fact is, democracy has never been easy, and our founding fathers argued about everything. We waged a civil war. We overcame depression. We’ve lurched from eras of great progressive change to periods of still, most Americans alive today, certainly the students who are here, have operated under some common assumptions about who we are and what we stand for.

Out of the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, America adapted a new economy, a 20th century economy, guiding our free market with regulations to protect health and safety and fair competition, empowering workers with union movements, investing in science and infrastructure and educational institutions like U of I, strengthening our system of primary and secondary education, and stitching together a social safety net. All of this led to unrivaled prosperity and the rise of a broad and deep middle class and the sense that if you worked hard, you could climb the ladder of success.

Not everyone was included in this prosperity. There was a lot more work to do. And so in response to the stain of slavery and segregation and the reality of racial discrimination, the civil rights movement not only opened new doors for African-Americans but also opened up the floodgates of opportunity for women and Americans with disabilities and LGBT Americans and others to make their own claims to full and equal citizenship.

And although discrimination remained a pernicious force in our society and continues to this day, and although there are controversies about how to best ensure genuine equality of opportunity, there’s been at least rough agreement among the overwhelming majority of Americans that our country is strongest when everybody’s treated fairly, when people are judged on the merits and the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the way in which they worship God or their last names. And that consensus then extended beyond our borders.

And from the wreckage of world War II, we built a post-war architecture, system of alliances and institutions to underwrite freedom and oppose Soviet totalitarianism and to help poorer countries develop. American leadership across the globe wasn’t perfect. We made mistakes. At times we lost sight of our ideals. We had fierce arguments about Vietnam and we had fierce arguments about Iraq. But thanks to our leadership, a bipartisan leadership, and the efforts of diplomats and peace corps volunteers, and most of all thanks to the constant sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, we not only reduced the prospects of war between the world’s great powers, we not only won the Cold War, we helped spread a commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy and the notion of the inherent dignity and worth of every individual.

And even those countries that didn’t abide by those principles were still subject to shame and still had to at least give lip service to the idea, and that provided a lever to continually improve the prospects for people around the world. That’s the story of America. A story of progress, fitful progress, incomplete progress, but progress. And that progress wasn’t achieved by just a handful of famous leaders making speeches. It was won because of countless acts of quiet heroism and dedication by citizens, by ordinary people, many of them not much older than you. It was won because rather than be bystanders to history, ordinary people fought and marched and mobilized and built, and yes, voted to make history.

Of course, there’s always been another darker aspect to America’s story. Progress doesn’t just move in a straight line. There’s a reason why progress hasn’t been easy and why throughout our history every two steps forward seems to sometimes produce one step back. Each time we painstakingly pull ourselves closer to our founding ideals, that all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, the ideals that say every child should have opportunity and every man and woman in this country who’s willing to work hard should be able to find a job and support a family and pursue their small peace of the American dream, ideals that say we have a collective responsibility to care for the sick and the and we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the natural resources of this country and of this planet for future generations — each time we’ve gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back.

The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments.

It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.

By the way, it is brief. When I heard Amari was 11 when I got elected and now he’s like started a company — that was yesterday!

But think about it. You’ve come of age in a smaller, more connected world where demographic shifts and the wind of change have scrambled not only traditional economic arrangements but our social arrangements and our religious commitments and our civic institutions. Most of you don’t remember a time before 9/11, when you didn’t have to take off your shoes at an airport. Most of you don’t remember a time when America wasn’t at war or when money and images and information could travel instantly around the globe. Or when the climate wasn’t changing faster than our efforts to address it.

This change has happened fast, faster than any time in human history. And it created a new economy that has unleashed incredible prosperity, but it’s also upended people’s lives in profound ways. For those with unique skills or access to technology and capital, a global market has meant unprecedented wealth. For those not so lucky, for the factory worker, for the office worker, or even middle managers, those same forces may have wiped out your job or at least put you in no position to ask for a raise, and as wages slowed and inequality accelerated, those at the top of the economic pyramid have been able to influence government to skew things even more in their direction.

Cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans, unwinding regulations and weakening worker protections, shrinking the safety net. So you have come of age during a time of growing inequality, a fracturing of economic opportunity. And that growing economic divide compounded other divisions in our country. Regional, racial, religious, cultural. And made it harder to build consensus on issues. It made politicians less willing to compromise, which increased gridlock, which made people even more cynical about politics. And then the reckless behavior of financial elites triggered a massive financial crisis.

Ten years ago this week a crisis that resulted in the worst recession in any of our lifetimes and caused years of hardship for the American people. For many of your parents, for many of your families. Most of you weren’t old enough to fully focus on what was going on at the time, but when I came into office in 2009, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. 800,000. Millions of people were losing their homes. Many were worried we were entering into a second great depression.

So we worked hard to end that crisis but also to break some of these longer term trends. The actions we took during that crisis returned the economy to healthy growth and initiated the longest streak of job creation on record. And we covered another 20 million Americans with health insurance and cut our deficits by more than half, partly by making sure that people like me who have been given such amazing opportunities by this country pay our fair share of taxes to help folks coming up behind me.

And by the time I left office, household income was near its all-time high, and the uninsured rate hit an all-time low, poverty rates were falling. I mention this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started. I’m glad it’s continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers and suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle, I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016 and -- anyway. I digress.

So we made progress, but -- and this is the truth -- my administration couldn’t reverse 40-year trends in only eight especially once Republicans took over the house of representatives in 2010 and decided to block everything we did. Even things they used to support.


So we pulled the economy out of crisis, but to this day, too many people who once felt solidly middle class still feel very real and very personal economic insecurity. Even though we took out bin Laden and wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, got Iran to halt its nuclear program, the world’s still full of threats and disorder that come streaming through people’s televisions every single day. And these challenges get people worried and it frays our civic trust and it makes a lot of people feel like the fix is in and the game is rigged and nobody’s looking out for them.

Especially those communities outside our big urban centers. And even though your generation is the most diverse in history with a greater acceptance and celebration of our differences than ever before, those are the kinds of conditions that are ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and no shame about tapping into America’s dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division. Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do, that’s an old playbook. It’s as old as time.

And in a healthy democracy, it doesn’t work. Our antibodies kick in, and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum call out the bigots and the fear mongers and work to compromise and get things done and promote the better angels of our nature.

But when there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn away and stop paying attention and stop engaging and stop believing and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circuses, then other voices fill the void.

A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment takes hold and demagogues promise simple fixes to complex problems. No promise to fight for the little guy, even as they cater to the wealthiest and most powerful. No promise to clean up corruption and then plunder away. They start undermining norms that ensure accountability and try to change the rules to entrench their power further. They appeal to racial nationalism that’s barely veiled, if veiled at all. Sound familiar?

I understand this is not just a matter of Democrats versus Republicans or liberals versus conservatives. At various times in our history, this kind of politics has infected both parties. Southern Democrats were the bigger defenders of slavery. It took a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, to end it. Although it was a Democratic president and a majority Democrat Congress spurred on by young marchers and protesters that got the civil rights act and the voting rights act over the finish line, those historic laws also got passed because of the leadership of Republicans like Illinois’s own Everett Dirksen. So neither party has had a monopoly on wisdom.

Neither party has been exclusively responsible for us going backwards instead of forwards. But I have to say this because sometimes we hear a plague on both your houses. Over the past few decades, it wasn’t true when Jim Edgar was governor here in Illinois.

But over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party. This Congress has championed the unwinding of campaign finance laws to give billionaires outside influence over our politics. Systematically attacked voting rights to make it harder for young people and minorities and the poor to vote. Handed out tax cuts without regard to deficits. Slashed the safety net wherever it could, cast dozens of votes to take away health insurance from ordinary Americans, embraced wild conspiracy theories like those surrounding Benghazi or my birth certificate, rejected science, rejected facts on things like climate change, embraced a rising absolutism from a willingness to default on America’s debt by not paying our bills to a refusal to even meet much less consider a qualified nominee for the supreme court because he happened to be nominated by a Democratic president.

None of this is conservative. I don’t mean to pretend I’m channelling Abraham Lincoln now, but that’s not what he had in mind, I think, when he helped form the Republican party. It’s not conservative. It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says the protection of our power and those who back us is all that matters even when it hurts the country. It’s a vision that says the few who can afford high-price lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions set the agenda, and over the past two years, this vision is now nearing its logical conclusion.

So with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, without any checks or balances whatsoever, they’ve provided another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to people like me who I promise don’t need it and don’t even pretend to pay for them. It’s supposed to be the party supposedly of fiscal conservatism. Suddenly deficits do not matter. Even though just two years ago when the deficit was lower, they said I couldn’t afford to help working families or seniors on medicare because the deficit was in existential crisis. What changed? What changed?

They’re subsidizing corporate polluters with taxpayer dollars, allowing dishonest lenders to take advantage of veterans and consumers and students again. They’ve made it so that the only nation on Earth to pull out of the global climate agreement, it’s not North Korea, it’s not Syria, it’s not Russia or Saudi Arabia, it’s us. The only country. There are a lot of countries in the world. We’re the only ones.

They’re undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia. What happened to the Republican party? Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of the KGB.

Actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened? Their sabotage of the affordable care act has already cost more than 3 million Americans their health insurance, and if they’re still in power next fall, you better believe they’re coming at it again. They’ve said so. In a healthy democracy, there’s some checks and balances on this kind of behavior, this kind of inconsistency, but right now there’s nothing. Republicans who know better in Congress, and they’re there, they’re quoted saying, yeah, we know this is kind of crazy, are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work.

And by the way, the claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders, that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work. These people aren’t elected. They’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this white house, and then saying, don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10%.

That’s not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal. These are extraordinary times. And they’re dangerous times.

But here’s the good news. In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics. Because there is actually only one real check on bad policy and abuse of power. That’s you. You and your vote. Look, Americans will always have disagreements on policy. This is a big country. It is a raucous country.

I happen to be a Democrat. I believe our policies are better and we have a bigger, bolder vision of equality and justice and inclusive democracy. We know there are a lot of jobs young people aren’t getting a chance to occupy or aren’t getting paid enough or aren’t getting benefits like insurance. It’s harder for young people to save for a rainy day let alone retirement.

So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like a higher minimum wage, they’re running on good new ideas like medicare for all, giving workers seats on corporate boards, reversing the most egregious corporate tax cuts to make sure college students graduate.

We know that people are tired of toxic corruption and that democracy depends on transparency and accountability, so Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, but on good new ideas like barring lobbyists from getting paid by foreign governments.

We know that climate change isn’t just coming. It’s here. So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like increasing gas mileage in our cars, which I did and which Republicans are trying to reverse, but on good new ideas like putting a price on carbon pollution.

We know in a smaller, more connected world, we can’t just put technology back in a box. We can’t just put walls up all around America. Walls don’t keep out threats like terrorism or disease. And that’s why we propose leading our alliances and helping other countries develop and pushing back against tyrants.

Democrats talk about reforming our immigration system so, yes, it is orderly and it is fair and it is legal, but it continues to welcome strivers and dreamers from all around the world. That’s why I’m a Democrat. That’s a set of ideas that I believe in. But I am here to tell you that even if you don’t agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration is mistaken and the Democrats aren’t serious enough about immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.

It should not be Democratic or Republican. It should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical.

It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray.

We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad.

I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire. We have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to adopt their tactics. Say whatever works. Make up stuff about the other.

I don’t agree with that. It’s not because I’m soft. It’s not because I’m interested in promoting an empty bipartisanship. I don’t agree with it because eroding our civic institutions and our civic trust and making people angrier and yelling at each other and making people cynical about government, that always works better for those who don’t believe in the power of collective action.


You don’t need an effective government or a robust press or reasoned debate to work when all you’re concerned about is maintaining power. In fact, the more cynical people are about government, the angrier and more dispirited they are about the prospects for change, the more likely the powerful are able to maintain their power.

But we believe that in order to move this country forward, to actually solve problems and make people’s lives better, we need a well-functioning government. We need our civic institutions to work. We need cooperation among people of different political persuasions. And to make that work, we have to restore our faith in democracy. We have to bring people together, not tear them apart. We need majorities in Congress and state legislatures who are serious about governing and want to bring about real change and improvements in people’s lives. And we won’t win people over by calling them names or dismissing entire chunks of the country as racist or sexist or homophobic.

When I say bring people together, I mean all of our people.

This whole notion that has sprung up recently about Democrats needing to choose between trying to appeal to white working class voters or voters of color and women and LGBT Americans, that’s nonsense. I don’t buy that. I got votes from every demographic. We won by reaching out to everybody and competing everywhere and by fighting for every vote. And that’s what we’ve got to do in this election and every election after that. And we can’t do that if we immediately disregard what others have to say from the start because they’re not like us, because they’re white or they’re black or they’re man or a woman or they’re gay or they’re straight.

If we think that somehow there’s no way they can understand how I’m feeling and therefore don’t have any standing to speak on certain matters because we’re only defined by certain characteristics, that doesn’t work if you want a healthy we can’t do that if we traffic in absolute when it comes to make democracy work, we have to be able to get inside the reality of people who are different, have different experiences, come from different backgrounds. We have to engage them even when it is frustrating. We have to listen to them, even when we don’t like what they have to say.

We have to hope that we can change their minds, and we have to remain open to them changing ours. And that doesn’t mean, by the way, abandoning our principles or caving to bad policy in the interests of maintaining some phony version of civility. That seems to be, by the way, the definition of civility offered by too many congressional Republicans right now. We will be polite so long as we get 100% of what we want and you don’t call us out on the various ways we’re sticking it to people. And we’ll click our tongues and issue vague statements of disappointment when the president does something outrageous, but we won’t actually do anything about it. That’s not civility. That’s abdicating your responsibilities. But again, I digress. Making democracy work means holding on to our principles,

having clarity about our principles, and then having the confidence to get in the arena and have a serious debate. It also means appreciating progress does not happen all at once but when you put your shoulder to the wheel, if you’re willing to fight for it, things do get better. And let me tell you something, particularly young people here.

Better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the white house. Better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country. Not perfect, better. The civil rights act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people. Do not let people tell you the fight’s not worth it because you won’t get everything that you want. The idea that, well, you know, there’s racism in America, so I’m not going to bother voting, no point, that makes no sense. You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for. That’s how our founders expected this system of self-government to work. Through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and evidence and proof, we could sort through our differences, and nobody would get exactly what they wanted, but it would be possible to find a basis for common ground. And that common ground exists.

Maybe it’s not fashionable to say that right now. It’s hard to see it with all the nonsense in Washington. It’s hard to hear it with all the noise. But common ground exists. I have seen it. I have lived it. I know there are white people who care deeply about black people being treated unfairly. I have talked to them and loved them, and I know there are black people who care deeply about the struggles of white rural I’m one of them. And I have a track record to prove it. I know there are evangelicals who are deeply committed to doing something about climate change. I’ve seen them do the work.

I know there are conservatives who think there’s nothing compassionate about separating immigrant children from their mothers. I know there are Republicans who believe government should only perform a few minimal functions but that one of those functions should be making sure nearly 3,000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane and its aftermath.

Common ground is out there. I see it every day. It’s just how people interact, how people treat each other. You see it on the ball field. You see it at work. You see it in places of worship. But to say that common ground exists doesn’t mean it will inevitably win out.

History shows the power of fear and the closer that we get to Election Day, the more those invested in the politics of fear and division will work -- will do anything to hang on to their recent gains. Fortunately, I am hopeful because out of this political darkness, I am seeing a great awakening of citizenship all across the country. I cannot tell you how encouraged I’ve been by watching so many people get involved for the first time or the first time in a long time. They’re marching and they’re organizing and they’re registering people to vote and they’re running for office themselves.

Look at this crop of Democratic candidates running for Congress and governor, running for the state legislature, running for district attorney, running for school board. It is a movement of citizens who happen to be younger and more diverse and more female than ever before, and that’s really useful. We need more women in charge. But we have first-time candidates. We have veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Record numbers of women. Americans who have previously maybe didn’t have an interest in politics as a career but laced up their shoes and rolled up their sleeves and grabbed a clipboard because they, too, believe this time’s different. This moment’s too important to sit out.

And if you listen to what these candidates are talking about in individual races across the country, you’ll find they’re not just running against something, they’re running for something. They’re running to expand opportunity and running to restore the honor to public service. And speaking as a Democrat, that’s when the Democratic party has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people. When we led with conviction and principle and bold new ideas. The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer.

You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You can’t opt out because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate. This is not a rock concert. This is not Coachella. We don’t need a messiah. All we need are decent, honest, hard-working people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. And they’ll step up and they’ll join our government, and they will make things better if they have support.

One election will not fix everything that needs to be fixed. But it will be a start. And you have to start it. What’s going to fix our democracy is you.

People ask me, what are you going to do for the election? No, the question is what are you going to do? You’re the antidote. Your participation and your spirit and your determination, not just in this election, but in every subsequent election and in the days between elections. Because in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch brothers and their lobbyists or too much compromise from Democrats or Russian hacking. The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism.


Cynicism led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on Election Day. To all the young people who are here today, there are now more eligible voters in your generation than in any other, which means your generation now has more power than anybody to change things. If you want it, you can make sure America gets out of its current funk. If you actually care about it, you have the power to make sure what we see is a brighter future. But to exercise that clout, to exercise that power, you have to show up. In the last midterm elections in 2014, fewer than one in five young people voted.

One in five. Not two in five or three. One in five. Is it any wonder this Congress doesn’t reflect your values and your priorities? Are you surprised by that? This whole project of self-government only works if everybody’s doing their part. Don’t tell me your vote doesn’t matter. I’ve won states in the presidential election because of 5, 10, 20 votes per precinct. And if you thought elections don’t matter, I hope these last two years have corrected that impression.

So if you don’t like what’s going on right now, and you shouldn’t, do not complain, don’t hashtag, don’t get anxious, don’t retreat, don’t binge on whatever it is you’re bingeing on, don’t lose yourself in ironic detachment, don’t put your head in the sand, don’t boo. Vote. Vote. If you are really concerned about how the criminal justice system treats African-Americans, the best way to protest is to vote. Not just for senators and representatives but for mayors and sheriffs and state legislators.

Do what they just did in Philadelphia and Boston and elect states attorneys and district attorneys who are looking at issues in a new light, who realize that the vast majority of law enforcement do the right thing in a really hard job, and we just need to make sure all of them do. If you’re tired of politicians who offer nothing but thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting, you’ve got to do what the parkland kids are doing. Some of them aren’t even eligible to vote yet. They’re out there working to change minds and registering people. And they’re not giving up until we have a Congress that sees your lives as more important than a campaign check from the you’ve got to vote.

If you support the #metoo movement, you’re outraged by stories of sexual harassment and assault, inspired by the women who have shared them, you’ve got to do more than retweet a hashtag. You’ve got to vote. Part of the reason women are more vulnerable in the workplace is because not enough women are bosses in the workplace. Which is why we need to strengthen and enforce laws that protect women in the workplace, not just from harassment, but from discrimination in hiring and promotion and not getting paid the same amount for doing the same work. That requires laws, laws get passed by legislators.

You’ve got to vote. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make it easier to afford college and harder to shoot up a school. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make sure a family keeps its health insurance. You could save somebody’s life. When you vote, you’ve got the

power to make sure white nationalists don’t feel emboldened to March with their hoods off or their hoods on in Charlottesville in the middle of the day. 30 minutes. 30 minutes of your time. Is democracy worth that?

We have been through much darker times than these. And somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves. And if you do that, if you get involved and you get engaged and you knock on some doors and you talk with your friends and you argue with your family members and you change some minds and you vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. Not perfection, not every bit of cruelty and sadness and poverty and disease suddenly stricken from the Earth. There will still be problems, but with each new candidate that surprises you with a victory that you supported, a spark of hope happens.

With each new law that helps a kid read or helps a homeless family find shelter or helps a veteran get the support he or she has earned, each time that happens hope happens. With each new step we take in the direction of fairness and justice and equality and opportunity, hope spreads. And that can be the legacy of your generation.

You can be the generation that at a critical moment stood up and reminded us just how precious this experiment in democracy really is, just how powerful it can be when we fight for it, when we believe in it. I believe in you. I believe you will help lead us in the right direction, and I will be right there with you every step of the way. Thank you, Illinois. God bless you. God bless this country we love.

Thank you.