We're in a urgent time.
We've seen basic norms and
and principles that have
served us well for decades
increasingly violated.
Not to mention policies that have
further skewed towards the wealthy and
powerful.
I'm here at the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
talking to young people about why
this election matters.
And obviously a lot of them are reading the headlines and
trying to figure out what in the heck
has happened to our government.
But what I've told them is they shouldn't be
discouraged; they gotta step up and vote.
You know, young people historically vote
at much lower levels, especially during
midterm elections, meaning elections
where a presidential race isn't at issue.
And in 2014, which was the last midterm
election, only one in five young people
who were eligible to vote voted.
One in five,
which means that you get a Congress
that is not representative of the
interests of the majority of the people
in this country.
It means that you're not
gonna get somebody who's worried about
how college students are paying their bills.
You're not gonna get somebody who is concerned about climate change.
You're not gonna get somebody who wants to try to
get lobbyists and huge
billionaire shadow PAC contributions out of politics.
You're not gonna get
somebody who is paying attention to
something like criminal justice reform
or the #MeToo movement.
And part of what is
so important for me to be able to
communicate to young people like this,
many who may be voting for the first time,
is that our government is not just
the President of the United States.
We don't have a monarchy here
where one person issues edicts and then
suddenly everything changes.
Things happen because you have not just a
president, but a Congress and a state
legislature and governors and a whole
host of elected officials who are
constantly determining whether or not
our criminal justice system is treating
everybody fairly, or whether or not
workplace discrimination laws and equal
pay laws for women are being enforced,
and is determining whether or not
we're protecting that lake or that stream from pollution.
That power is dispersed across levels of government
and a lot of times young people are only interested
when it's a presidential race.
This is one of those moments where we have to
make sure they understand that it's a
lot more than just the presidency.
And if you're concerned about what we've been
seeing out of the White House over the
last couple of years — and I think we're
seeing some unprecedented behavior
that violates norms that in the past have
been observed by both Democrats and
Republicans — the only check on that
behavior is going to be having a
Congress and other elected officials
across the country who stand up for
American values and American ideals.
Things like rule of law and freedom of
the press and not trying to intimidate
enemies by threatening them, you know,
with the criminal justice system and
being transparent and disclosing
potential conflicts of interest.
Basic stuff that
doesn't even get to policy yet but
really is central to our democracy being
able to work.