‘All Tricks And No Treats’: Barack Obama At Rally For Spanberger (Transcript)

Republican policies have made life better for you, the people of Virginia. I mean, they’ve devoted enormous energy in trying to entrench themselves in power, and punishing their enemies, and enriching their friends, and silencing their critics. They’ve put on a big show of deporting people and targeting transgender folks. They never miss a chance to scapegoat minorities and DEI for every problem under the sun. You got a flat tire? DEI. Wife mad at you? DEI.

What they have not devoted energy to is helping you. They have not put forward serious proposals to lower housing costs or make groceries more affordable. They haven’t improved our schools. They haven’t made health care more accessible. They haven’t shortened your commute or prepared young people for the future where AI might take their job.

And all the nonsense we see on the news every day, the over-the-top rhetoric, the fabricated conspiracies, the weird videos of a U.S. president with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on protesting citizens, all of that is designed to distract you from the fact that your situation has not gotten better. They do it so you won’t notice that while they’re helping the wealthiest, most powerful people in the country consolidate more wealth and more power, your bills are still going up. And you’re waiting longer at airports because there aren’t enough air traffic controllers. And the program helping your kid with special needs was just gutted.

A Better Direction for Virginia

So that is what’s happening. And the good news is there’s something you can do about it. Right here. Right now. Because you’ve got a candidate for governor who’s got a track record of getting stuff done. Somebody who sees you and has been with you and knows your struggles and will fight for you every single day. Virginia, it’s time to point America in a better direction by electing Abigail Spanberger as your next governor.

“Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby! Abby!”

Now listen, Abigail doesn’t go around bragging about herself all the time, talk about “how I’m great.” But she’s great! As a former federal law enforcement officer, as a CIA case officer working on counterterrorism, she knows what it takes to keep communities safe. As the mom of three kids in Virginia public schools, you know she cares about helping every child and helping every teacher succeed. As a member of Congress, she was a workhorse, not a show horse, fighting to lower prescription drug costs, giving veterans the support they deserve.

Spanberger’s Vision for Governance

Abigail does not just say the right thing as your governor, she will do the right thing. She understands the government can make a difference in people’s lives by educating our kids for the jobs of the future, keeping our air and water clean, protecting consumers from fraud and dangerous products, providing a safety net for seniors and folks with disabilities, investing in the infrastructure and scientific research that drives economic growth.

But Abby also knows that good intentions aren’t enough. She understands that we can’t afford to waste taxpayer dollars on programs that don’t work. And she understands that instead of just trying to tear government down, it’s her job to make it work better.

So Abigail has real, practical plans to grow the economy, and strengthen Virginia’s schools, and lower the cost of everything from housing, to health care, to energy. And she is willing to reach across the aisle to make it happen. She has shown that she can do it. Abigail is ranked as the most bipartisan member of Congress from the Commonwealth.

She’s had bills signed into law by both President Trump and President Biden. That is not easy to do. And Abigail doesn’t just believe in working with everybody. She also believes, and this is really important, in listening to everybody, whether they voted for her or not. Because she knows that if we want to make progress on the things that we care about, we have to be able to disagree without calling each other nasty names or demonizing each other.

So at a time when our politics feels broken, we need, desperately, leaders like Abigail, public servants who are in it for the right reasons, and are focused on the future, and who will always stay connected to the people they were elected to serve.

Contrasting Leadership Visions

Now, her opponent? Not so much. When someone asked her, and I’m just following this from a distance, when someone asked her, apparently, about all the federal workers fired by this administration, given how important that is to Virginia, apparently, Abigail’s opponent said she wanted to talk about “real issues.” Didn’t understand why these job cuts are, quote, “a huge thing.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but seeing your neighbors and your friends, your customers, maybe some of your family members, suddenly out of work, even though they’ve dedicated their lives to serving people, having trouble making their mortgage, maybe it’s just me, seems like a pretty big thing to me, pretty huge. And I’d want a governor to be paying attention to it.

Now, Abigail’s opponent does seem to care a lot about what Trump and his cronies are doing. And she’s praised the Republican tax law that would raise the cost of health care and housing and energy here in Virginia. She’s supported bills that would strip funding from Virginia public schools. She says she’s morally opposed to protecting reproductive rights, says she will do everything in her power to cut off access to abortion.

Virginia, you don’t need a governor who puts party and ideology ahead of the people she was elected to serve. You deserve a governor who will think for herself and work for you, a governor who will create jobs and not cut them, and who will lower costs instead of raising them, and who will bring people together instead of dividing them, and who will do what’s right for the people of Virginia, no matter what anybody in Washington thinks. You deserve a governor like Abigail Spanberger.

What This Election Is Really About

Because at the end of the day, what this election’s about, what politics in a democracy is always about, is values. What do we care about? What do we believe? What do we prioritize? What are our core convictions?

You know, a lot of people have asked me lately whether I’m surprised by the direction the country’s taken. And even though I am the hope and change guy, I try to be honest with them. So I say, yes, there are things I am worried about.

Concerns About Democracy

I am worried about how quickly basic democratic rules and norms have been weakened. I’m worried about how willing Republicans in Congress have been to surrender their role as members of a co-equal branch of government, refusing to buck the president even when they know he’s out of line, even when a lot of them will privately admit that power is being abused in ways that will hurt their constituents and hurt the country.

I worry about a Supreme Court that, so far at least, has shown no willingness to check this administration’s excesses, even when those actions break legal precedent and seem to defy the bedrock principle that no one is above the law.

I worry about the growing concentration of economic power in this country, with just a handful of mega-billionaires and companies controlling what we see and what we hear. And I worry about how much that economic power distorts the political process.

I worry about how readily not just business leaders, but others with influence in law firms and universities have been willing to bend the knee to this president’s autocratic impulses to avoid retribution or protect profits, or simply to avoid controversy. And I worry sometimes how we’ve come to accept this as normal.

America’s Competing Stories

But what I also tell people when they ask me about this, what I also try to remind them, is that America has always had competing stories about who we are and what this nation stands for. The first story says, “we the people,” just means some of us. That in order to qualify, you have to be the right color, or come from the right family, or worship in the right way, or have enough money.

It says that even though we got rid of a king, there’s still a caste system in America, a pecking order of who makes decisions and who obeys, who gets opportunity and who is obliged to serve. And it’s a story that’s policed by fear and force, that tries to convince people that for their group to win, another group has to lose. That if somebody doesn’t look like you or think like you or practice religion exactly the same way you do, they must be a threat to your way of life, and they need to be put in their place.

And that’s how Donald Trump thinks about America. Make America great again by putting the people like him back in charge, even if they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

The Oldest Story in the Book

But here’s the thing. That story is not new. That’s the oldest story in the book. It’s not even uniquely American. For most of human history, that’s the way societies worked. There was somebody on top and somebody on the bottom. There were lords and there were peasants.

And for a long time, that story of caste and privilege and concentrated power, that was the law of the land here in America. If you looked like me, you were likely treated as property. If you were a woman or a white man who did not own property, you could not vote. For a long time, if you were an Irish or Italian immigrant, we’re not hiring. If you’re Jewish or Asian, don’t bother applying to our school. If you were Native American, you weren’t even treated as an American, even though you were here.

America’s Revolutionary Spirit

But from the very start, there was another story, born of this nation’s true revolutionary spirit, a story that says “we, the people” means what it says, that all of us are included, that we are not subjects, we are citizens, defined not by race or religion or gender or sexual orientation, but by our commitment to a common creed and a willingness to accept not just the privileges, but the responsibilities that come with that citizenship.

That’s what made the American experiment unique. That’s what made us special. And through generations of struggle and sacrifice, through the faith of abolitionists and the struggle of suffragists, through a civil war and civil rights protests, through union organizing drives and government reforms and investment in public education, we moved closer to those founding ideals. And in the process, we inspired the world.

The America I Believe In

And that’s the story I believe in, Virginia. I believe in an America in which we all deserve equal protection under the law and nobody is above the law. I believe in an America where every child has a chance at a good education, and anybody who’s willing to work and find a job or start a business and make a decent living, an America where opportunity isn’t just reserved for those who were born into privilege or happen to have the right connections. I believe in an America where we don’t fear each other, but look out for each other.

And if we want that story to continue, if we believe in that better story, we need leaders who believe in it too. We need leaders who will tell the truth and who will take responsibility and tackle hard problems and bring people together instead of tearing them apart. We need leaders who won’t serve bosses in Washington or big corporate donors, but instead will serve the people who put them there. Virginia, we need leaders like Abigail Spanberger.

Change Comes From the Bottom Up

But here’s the thing, good as Abigail is, you can’t do it alone, because the truth is all of us are being tested right now. Trump and the Republicans, they want you to think it’s part of their story that things only happen from the top down, that a few people in power make decisions and the rest of us have to live with the consequences. But real change has always come from the bottom up, from ordinary folks who look around and say we can do better and then join together to make change happen.

So it’s up to us as citizens to stand up for the values we hold dear. If we want a country that believes in free speech and the rule of law, then we have to fight for it, even when it’s hard or inconvenient. If we are opposed to violence against people we disagree with or who look a certain way, then we have to speak out when those values are violated.

Modeling the Values We Believe In

If we believe in honesty and hard work and treating other people the way we want to be treated, then we have to model it in our own lives, in our workplaces, in our schools, our neighborhoods, our places of worship. And if we want a government that is responsive and honest, it works for the many and not just the few, then we have to get out there and vote for it.

When I think back to a year ago, I remember talking to some people, even some folks who were friends of mine, who would say, “You know what, this election doesn’t matter all that much. That whoever the next president ended up being, it wasn’t going to matter to them.” If nothing else, the last nine months should have cured us of that idea. Because the stakes are now clear.

Elections Have Consequences

We don’t need to speculate about the dangers to our democracy. We don’t need to wonder about whether vulnerable people are going to be hurt, or ask ourselves how much more coarse and mean our culture can become. We’ve witnessed it. Elections do matter. And they matter for you.

People in power may be counting on your citizens. They want you to think there’s nothing you can do, nothing to stop them. Because they know once that thought worms into your head, they’ve won. If there’s one thing history has taught us, it is the most important office in democracy is not president or even governor, it’s the office of citizen. We all have more power than we think. We just have to use it.

A Call to Action

So if you believe in that better story of America, do not sit this one out. Vote for leaders like Abigail who believe it too. Leaders who care about your freedom, and will fight for your rights, and who will go to work every day to try to make your life just a little bit better. And then get your friends and family members, your neighbors and co-workers to vote too.

Because if we do that, not only will we elect Abigail Spanberger your next governor, you won’t just put Virginia on the path to a brighter future. You will set a glorious example for the nation.

Thank you Norfolk. God bless you. God bless these United States of America.

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