This closing was so damn good.
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America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind: more chaos, more division and policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path, and I ask for your vote.
And here is my pledge to you. I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress. I pledge to listen to experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make, and to people who disagree with me. Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table.
I pledge to you to approach my work with the joy and optimism that comes from making a difference in people’s lives, and I pledge to be a president for all Americans. And to always put country above party and self.
I love our country with all my heart, and I believe in its promise, because I’ve lived it. I grew up as a child of the civil rights movement. My parents would take me to marches in a stroller where crowds of people of all races, faiths and walks of life came together to fight for the ideals of freedom and opportunity. I’ve lived the promise of America. I saw how hard our mother worked to give her daughters the same chances this country gave her. Growing up, I was blessed to have family by blood and family by love, who instilled in me the values of community, compassion and faith that have always defined our nation at its best. I’ve lived the promise of America. I’ve spent my life fighting for the people who have been hurt and counted out, but never stopped believing that in our country, anything is possible. I’ve lived the promise of America, and I see the promise of America in all of you, in all of you, I see it. I see it in the young people who are voting for the first time, who are determined to live free from gun violence and to protect our planet and to shape the world they inherit. I see it in the women who refuse to accept a future without reproductive freedom, and the men who support them [too].
I see it in Republicans who have never voted for a Democrat before, but have put the Constitution of the United States over party. I’ve seen it in Americans, different in many respects, but united in our pursuit of freedom, our belief in fairness and decency and our faith in a better future America, I know the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. I know it, and that’s why I am in this race to fight for the people, just like I always have.
Nearly 250 years ago, America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant. Across the generations, Americans have preserved that freedom, expanded it, and in so doing, proved to the world that a government of by and for the people is strong and can endure. And those who came before us, the patriots at Normandy and Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall, on farmland and factory floors. They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms.They didn’t do that only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant.
These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised, a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us, and fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities. So America, let us reach for that future. Let us fight for this beautiful country we love, and in seven days, we have the power, each of you has the power to turn the page and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. I thank you all. God bless you, God bless the United States of America.
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