Take Back America: 'This Is Our Time'

The conservative era that defined our politics for the last quarter century is at its end. The struggle for what comes next has now begun. That will be a fierce contest. This is our time—but only if we make it so.

Let me restate this. The right has failed. Their policies are bankrupt. Their political project has collapsed. They still dominate the Republican Party, but are well on their way to turning it into a minority, regional party of white exclusion.

-snip-

This is the time to unfurl our sails and ride with the current which is headed our way. This is not the time for timidity, for tacking to the elusive center, for trimming our sails or lowering our heads. This is a time to claim the future, to challenge the failures of the right, to chart a new direction.

Americans are ready. We have the opportunity. You have the power. We must feel, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, the fierce urgency of now.

We have done this against great odds before. Our forefathers built a new nation in revolt against the British crown. We fought a civil war to rid ourselves of slavery.

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, populist and progressive movements challenged the great corporations and the barons of wealth – and passed antitrust, the minimum wage, the 40-hour week, workplace safety, national parks, the income tax and more – to guarantee that prosperity would be broadly shared.

And our own generation fought to let others sit at that table – civil rights, women’s rights environmental movements – the civilizing movements of our time that transformed this nation.

Now we must act again. To reclaim our country. To shape our future. To make the new global economy work for the many and not the few. Together we have the power. It is our time—time to take back America.

Continued...