Blog de Dunlap: This is a perfect reminder that “radical” plans CAN happen

Danielle, the first bill I introduced when I got to the Senate in 2013 was to make student loans more affordable so that Americans would not continue to get crushed by debt.

And shortly after I launched my campaign for president, one of the first plans I released was to cancel student debt and ensure free technical schools, community colleges, and public universities.

Across the country, in selfie line after selfie line, I heard stories from so many people — with tears in their eyes — explaining how much debt they were in, and how much this plan would mean for them.

Another thing I kept hearing, though, over and over and over, was "Great idea, but that will never happen."

Well, this week, 813,000 borrowers received an email from President Biden with the words "Congratulations — your student loan has been forgiven."

This is a perfect reminder that "radical" plans CAN happen, when we fight for them. We got organized and got a broad-based student debt cancellation plan to the president's desk. Even though the Supreme Court substituted politics for the rule of law by striking it down, we're still persisting, and President Biden has still been able to cancel around $127 billion in student debt so far for nearly 3.6 million borrowers. I'm staying in the fight to lift this crushing burden from more people's shoulders.

We can keep proving the naysayers wrong. We can keep showing what it looks like to make our government work for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected. It doesn't all happen overnight, but it gets done because we fought side by side as a grassroots movement.

Danielle, we can continue making big, structural change like this. We can make a wealth tax, universal child care, Supreme Court reform, and so much more possible. We just need to build our momentum, organize, and keep fighting side by side. So before our November fundraising deadline, can you pitch in $100 or anything you can to hit our goal and power our movement forward?

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Danielle, once you start talking about helping working people instead of powerful special interests or ultra-wealthy corporations, plenty of critics will be quick to tell you what you can't do and what's not possible.

But these ideas are popular. In a democracy, that matters. And the more change we make, the more momentum we build — by showing we can use the power of government to transform people's lives.

We need to keep laying out bold plans, and here's the absolutely critical part: We need to be willing to fight for them.

I'm going to keep fighting with everything I've got — but nobody gets this done on their own.

That's why I'm asking if you can pitch in to keep growing our movement and support our re-election campaign. If it makes sense for you right now, please make a donation before our end-of-month deadline tomorrow.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth