Sisters and Brothers -
In the midst of these crazy, unprecedented and dangerous times, I wanted to let you know what I and other progressives have been up to recently. And it’s a lot.
On Thursday, Analilia Mejía won a landslide victory to become the Congresswoman from the 11th District of New Jersey. What is important about her victory is not just that Analilia is a strong progressive, a grassroots organizer and someone who played a major role in my 2020 presidential campaign, but that the district she won was not considered to be particularly progressive. In other words, what Analilia’s victory showed is that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality the progressive vision is gaining more and more traction in all areas of our society. Let me thank Analilia for her great campaign and thank many of you for the support you gave her.
On Wednesday, I and other progressives in the Senate took a major step forward in reversing one of the ugliest and most dangerous aspects of American foreign policy. As you may know, I have, for several years, been trying to stop our government from sending military aid to Israel. A nation that — under the leadership of right-wing extremist Benjamin Netanyahu — has committed genocide in Gaza, has started an illegal and horrific war in Iran and has been bombing civilian neighborhoods in Lebanon should not be supported by U.S. tax dollars.
When we began this effort, the first resolution that I offered to stop U.S. military aid to Israel only received 11 votes in the Senate. The next resolution received 18 votes, followed by a resolution that won 27 votes. On Wednesday, a resolution that I offered received 40 votes – over 80% of the Democratic caucus, an all time high. We received no Republican support. While we still have a long way to go, we are making progress in this important area. The simple truth is that when working people are struggling to put food on the table and pay for housing and health care, they do not want billions of their hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on killing innocent men, women and children in the Middle East. We must end U.S. military aid to Israel.
We are also making progress in another area of extraordinary consequence. Artificial intelligence and robotics are the most transformational technologies in the history of humanity. These technologies, pushed by the wealthiest people in the world, could result in the loss of tens of millions of blue and white collar jobs, could completely eviscerate our privacy and negatively impact the education and mental health of our kids. Further, there are very knowledgeable scientists who worry that, if AI becomes smarter than human beings, it could operate independently of human control with, potentially catastrophic results.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I have introduced legislation calling for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers — the infrastructure of AI — until guidelines and regulations are established that protect workers and every American from the dangers of AI and robotics. This idea is gaining momentum. All across the country, local communities are voting down the construction of data centers and many cities and states are considering moratoriums. Just a few days ago the state legislature in Maine became the first state in the nation to pass a moratorium to prevent the construction of data centers. Bottom line: the American people increasingly understand that these revolutionary technologies have got to improve life for all of us, not just make the richest people in the world even richer.
And, by the way, in case you haven’t noticed, our resistance is succeeding on many other fronts as well. At a time when Trump‘s poll numbers are plummeting, there is a very real likelihood that Democrats will gain control of the House in the 2026 elections and a growing possibility that Democrats may win the Senate — making it much more difficult for Trump to enact his agenda. Further, our progressive movement is growing. A number of strong progressives running for the Senate and House have excellent chances of winning. In the next few months I look forward to campaigning with some of these candidates in Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Maine and elsewhere.
Let me conclude by saying this. It is very easy to feel despair and helplessness in the midst of Trump’s pathological lying, his wars, his authoritarianism, his narcissism and his contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. But that is exactly what we do not have the luxury of doing. For the sake of our kids and future generations we must fight back.
Thanks for all you do. Keep the faith. Let’s go forward together.
In Solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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