Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders came to Phoenix this weekend and spoke to a crowd of 11,000 people. The gathering was not only the largest turnout to date for his campaign, but it was the largest turnout so far for the 2016 presidential campaign season.
Sanders is known for his wealth redistribution platform, and for saying things like "full equality is the birthright of America." Here are 10 other things he said that made the audience explode in applause and cheers:
10. “When my Republican colleagues talks about family values, they mean that a woman should not be able to have the right to control her own body; that women should not be able to purchase the contraceptives that they want; and that our gay brothers and sisters shouldn’t marry….Those are their family values, not our family values.”
9. “We want more people going to college than in any other country, not more people going to jail than in any other country.”
8. “If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”
7. “Jeb Bush believes we need to work a little harder. Sadly, he hasn’t heard that the American people work the longest hours of anywhere in the world. Our workers do not need to work longer hours; they need to get higher wages.”
6. “When one family, [the Kochs], spends more money than either political party [on the presidential campaigns], that’s not democracy; that’s oligarchy…I will overturn Citizens United and [reinstate] public funding of elections…I want young people to be able to run for office and not have to beg for money from rich people and corporations.”
5. “Climate change is real. Climate change is caused by human activity. Climate change is already causing problems in our country and around the world…We have a moral obligation to lead the world in transforming our energy system.”
4. “The United States is the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee healthcare as a human right, and together we will end that embarrassment…and pass a universal Medicare plan that’s single-payer. Health care is a right, not a privilege.”
3. “It’s not acceptable that we have seen young black men walk down the street and get killed or harassed by police officers. When a police officer breaks the law, that police officer must be held accountable.”
2. “It’s one thing for the billionaire class to be voting Republican, but there are plenty of people who are voting against the people fighting for their interests every day...‘Vote for me so I can cut your Social Security and give tax cuts to billionaires,’ [the Republicans] say. And they accomplish this by dividing us up by race, by country of origin, but sexual orientation. But our job is not to divide, our job is to bring people together.”
1. “Fredrick Douglass, the great abolitionist said that ‘freedom doesn’t come without struggle.’ We need to stand together and create an America and a government that works for all of us. We can do it when we say ‘enough is enough.’”
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