For Immediate Release
November 7, 2020
Contact: Duc Luu, dluu@publicadvocates.org, 857-373-9118
Statement by Public Advocates President and CEO Guillermo Mayer
A record number of people in the United States have voted to remove President Donald Trump from power. Our nation and local communities can finally begin the urgent task of rebuilding and recovering from a four-year political nightmare that has undermined our democracy, inflamed racial hatred and social division, placed millions of households in economic peril, and left hundreds of thousands of people dead from Covid-19.
With the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to become a U.S. Vice-President, now is the time for us to seize this historic opportunity to achieve systemic change and prevent a return to the broken status quo. Our first steps must be to ensure that the Biden/Harris administration delivers on its campaign promises to unify the country behind a national effort to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control, care for the sick and the dying, and provide critical economic relief to the millions of people who have lost their jobs and their homes. Urgent priority must be given to communities of color, which have shouldered a disproportionate share of the deaths, job losses and evictions while serving as the backbone of our essential workforce.
Our recovery must be centered in a just economic framework rather than replicating the exploitative economy that created these gross disparities in the first place. We will establish a robust social safety net for all, quality and sustainable jobs, and the elimination of racial wealth gaps and austerity budgeting, for example, by increasing taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich as the President-elect has proposed. Finally, a Biden/Harris administration must open a path for healing the racial divisions sowed by Trump and his enablers. It must pursue progressive policies to dismantle structural racism, starting with policing, while simultaneously confronting the rise of white supremacists and other hate groups.
This vision for change starts with us, and its success depends on our solidarity and vigorous participation in the years to come. Together, we will reverse Trump’s disastrous legacy and build new foundations for a truly democratic and multiracial United States. Let the relief, joy, and optimism we feel today fuel our collective work ahead.
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Public Advocates is a nonprofit civil rights law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and discrimination. For nearly fifty years it has strengthened community voices in public policy and achieved tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, transportation, and climate justice
