Alex Lawson: Today I am endorsing Bernie Sanders for president. I want to tell a story about why ...

[Donkees]

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In 2010, I was employee number one in a brand-new organization created to protect Social Security from benefit cuts. At that time there was a bipartisan commission set up specifically to cut Social Security benefits as part of the so-called grand bargain.
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The corporate media were banging the drum calling for cuts to earned benefits, and Washington, DC was listening. It was a lonely time to be fighting against benefit cuts.
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But from the first day there was one person we could always count on to stand with us, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
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It didn’t matter that the conventional wisdom was that benefit cuts were inevitable and the only people standing against them were “radicals.”
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Bernie knew that the American people outside of DC and the Wall Street slice of New York were united in their opposition to cuts, because they are facing a retirement income crisis.
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Bernie understood that expanding Social Security was a solution; cutting these vital benefits would deepen the crisis. And Bernie gladly became the people’s voice in DC on this issue and so many more.
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Together, we not only defeated five fast track attacks on Social Security, we changed the entire story around Social Security. No longer were we taking about how big the cuts were going to be; now we talk about how big the benefit increases are going to be.
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As the voice for the same fight for economic justice, Bernie has changed the landscape on Medicare, drug prices, veterans’ benefits and so much more.
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The true mark of a leader is the ability to stand strong in those lonely fights, against the forces of money power, the corporate media, the establishment politicians, the front group think tanks and everything else.
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Even more impressive is to be a lonely voice taking on all of those interests and winning. Bernie knows that the road to economic justice is to lift up the people’s voice, championing what is right and fair.