Former President Obama got a standing ovation at John Lewis’s funeral when he called out Republicans for trying to stop people from voting.
Obama said:
We may no longer have to guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive I.D. Laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots, so people don’t get sick.
I know this is a celebration of John’s life. There are some who might say we shouldn’t dwell on such things. But that’s why I’m talking about it. John Lewis devoted his time on this Earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what’s best in America that we’re seeing circulate right now. He knew that every single one of us has a god-given power.
And that the fate of this democracy depends on how we use it, that democracy isn’t automatic. It has to be nurtured. It has to be tended to. We have to work at it. It’s hard. And so he knew that it depends on whether we summon a measure, just a measure of John’s moral courage to question what’s right and what’s wrong. And call things as they are. He said that as long as he had a breath in his body, he would do everything he could to preserve this democracy, and as long as we have breath in our bodies, we have to continue his cause.
Video:
Obama unloads on Trump's efforts to slow down the Postal Service and prevent people from voting at John Lewis's funeral. pic.twitter.com/OBxhXrrtrI
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) July 30, 2020
Barack Obama said what needed to be said. As Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to discourage voting, including floating delaying the election, those who believe in democracy must fight and never yield to those forces who want to the nation less equal, less democratic, and less free.
There was no better than at John Lewis’s funeral for former President Obama to deliver this message to the nation.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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