Kate De Jong

Buttigieg: It is not too much to ask that, in this country and in this state, one job ought to be enough, which means wages and benefits that make that possible. It’s not too much to ask that you ought to be able to afford to raise a family in this country—to put your kid in child care if you want, or stay home and take care of them yourselves if you want, or do some combination of that if you want—and still have it add up at the end of the month. It is not too much to ask that the wealthiest country in the world have the best health care in the world and that it have the best-funded public schools in the world. And it is not too much to ask that the largest corporations and wealthiest people in this country pay at least as much of their income and wealth in taxes as a schoolteacher, a bus driver, or a firefighter. It is not too much to ask for a different kind of politics, where you look at your leaders in action and actually feel your blood pressure come down a little bit instead of going through the roof. That is a reasonable thing to expect of our leaders. It is not too much to ask. We can do this. Most of us already want this. So the obvious question is: Why hasn’t it happened? And that’s where we’ve got to talk about the system that we’re living with, which, by the way, as a politician, they kind of tell you not to do. Consultants say, “Look, no one’s going to get too fired up about the details of our democratic system when they’re just trying to keep their heads above water in this economy,” which I get, and to some extent I agree. But the reason that so many things are wrong with our economic picture is that so many things are wrong with our political system. And we’ve gotten so used to it, we can forget that there was a time when our political system was the pride of this nation. Wars have been fought for our system, starting with the first one—the one that launched 250 years ago with the Declaration of Independence, the one that gave this nation its being. The Founders risked their lives for a better political system. So don’t tell me it can’t stir people’s hearts. Don’t tell me that it’s not worth fighting for. Especially because until we do something to change our political system, we will continue to suffer from an economic system that lets us down: monopolies squeezing families and farmers on both ends; consumers and workers caught up in a system that can’t serve them; small businesses swamped by the big guys. Right now, what’s at stake is nothing less than the American dream. It is endangered.