Ex-Biden Adviser: ‘I Don’t Really Talk to People Who Voted for Donald Trump’
EXCERPT:
JOHNSON: "Some of my journalist friends and I get into this disagreement. I don’t really talk to people who voted for Donald Trump. Like, that's not — I don’t need to talk to them, because if we look at the last election, 90 million eligible voters did not vote. That’s a whole lot of people that we can reach to understand that they actually have power to change the system. In the book, I talk about the labor movement and how unions are incredibly powerful. That is a way that we can overthrow these companies that are run by these billionaires who are out of touch, the people power, and that’s the thing that I’m focused on right now. It’s the people power. We've conceded our power to these people that we’ve elected, not realizing that I pay taxes, that means I pay your salary and you work for me. If people power wasn’t so imperative, why did all these elected officials shut down those town halls because they don’t wanna hear from their constituents? Because those loud voices are disruptive. And so, look, the Democrats got a lot to reckon with. It's the reason why I work for myself, so I can actually challenge them from the outside, because I think it is extremely — it’s not just that it’s too late, but it is harmful to communities who are dying because of what is happening, that’s harmful to communities who have been fighting against these systems, and yet at the same time, they are the ones that folks constantly look to to create the solutions. And so until the Democratic Party — just as much as we understand that, you know, Republicans subscribe to white supremacy, in the Democratic Party there are folks that need to understand that their positions of privilege, that they need to get up out of their seats. A real leader understands when they are in the way of progress, and I think until we really reckon with that, we’re going to continue to see this fighting and we will continue to lose in ways that, quite frankly, are killing so many of our communities."
