While it is still speculative at this point, it seems almost certain that Gov. Jay Inslee will be running for president. He is campaigning on an environmentalist platform, a platform that I feel is disconnected from the needs of the majority of Americans.
Under President Donald Trump, marginalized people have had to spend these past two years under threat of the eradication of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Trump has publicly courted white supremacists, as well as taken actions targeting marginalized people with his ban on transgender people joining the military and the actions of his administration on the Mexican border, for example.
Climate change is, by all means, a pressing issue. And environmental activism speaks to people in a very powerful way (like it has with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of a Green New Deal). But that activism falls on deaf ears when it does not meet the needs of those whose lives and rights are already under threat.
If the Democrats want to win in 2020, they absolutely must nominate someone who can properly speak to the very real, very immediate needs of marginalized people, who make up an ever-greater portion of the American electorate.
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Jack Donahue, Bellingham