"I want to avoid sounding like I'm criticizing because I don't have all the facts in front of me yet. And I am trying to be a unifier."
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Keith Ellison quotes (page 2 of 5)
97 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I love the donors and we thank them, but it has to be that the guys in the barber shop, the lady at the diner, the folks who are worried about whether that plant is going to close, they've got to be our focus. They've got to be a laser-beam focus on everything we do, and everything we do should animate and empower them at the grassroots level for working people across this country. That's how we come back."
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"I'm an optimistic guy.It's just as much the case that people will come to me and ask my opinion about how to properly include the Muslim community, as it is that people will come with some hateful stuff too. When people come to me about my religion, it's not always a thing of "we don't want people like you here," which happens sometimes. But mostly it's people who would like to know more. I get a chance to help people understand the religion better."
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"The conversation should've been about middle class people. The conversation should've been about how to raise the minimum wage and strengthen Social Security. But then we started talking about this whole email stuff again. And now the outcome is that, you know, Donald Trump has somebody who he's looking at to put on his Cabinet who's a lobbyist to privatize Social Security."
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"The most important criteria for a DNC chair is going to be vision."
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"I know that everybody who supported Bernie Sanders supported him because they believe that college debt is too high. They believe that the minimum wage needs to be increased. They believe that we have to take on climate action."
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"Over the course of the last quarter century I've learned a lot. And the main thing I've learned is that we're better together and that our society needs inclusion - right? - not exclusion."
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"To strengthen the grassroots at the party - at the party unit, at the county level, at the precinct level, and then to help motivate and facilitate the local grassroots to get out there and turn out the vote and boost turn out. And then to help govern in places where we do hold city councils and state legislatures."
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"Environmental spending creates jobs in engineering, manufacturing, construction, materials, operations and maintenance."
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"You know, the elites always want to shame the poor - right? - and everyone else. I mean, the fact is, this economy is based on 70 percent of the people driving consumer demand. If people do not purchase goods and services, this economy will grind to recession. And that is why, if you are going to do a tax cut, it ought to really be aimed at low-income and middle-income people."
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"What I hear people talking about are things that anybody of any color or any religion or any sexual orientation can get with. They cannot earn a decent living if they`re working class folks. They`re worried about retirement if they`re in their 40s and 50s. They`re worried about sending their kids to college. If we focus on what really matters, we can get there."
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"The fact is, is that Americans don't hate their Muslim neighbors. They don't hate their Latino neighbors. We have got to build human solidarity in this country, because human solidarity is what's going to allow us to come together to protect our democracy and to protect our economy. So reject the hate. Turn it away. Don't buy it. And reach out to a neighbor. Trump is trying to sow division so that he can distract us from what he's doing to us."
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"You take for example the environmental movement is a big deal in my district. You know, you might say, yeah, more African Americans are suffering from asthma and air pollution-related illnesses, but there`s a lot of white folks, a lot of white kids with inhalers. So, you just got to talk to the reality of everyone, not exclude anyone. And make sure that people know that you care about them too. I think if you do that, we can get there."
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"We have to have a shared prosperity. We have to make that our job number one. People want a better economic playing field for working Americans. And they're voting for it. Our job is to make sure that people know that the Democratic party is the party that is going to deliver that for them. And that means strengthening the grassroots. That means strengthening the local precinct county level and making sure that we're all channeled on massive turnout for that program."
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"Donald Trump was tainted every kind of way you could imagine. I mean, no way in the world that Donald Trump is a champion of working people. He has hurt workers in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Florida, multiple bankruptcies, never showed his taxes. I don't know any good thing this guy's ever done. And yet, because he was able to throw hate and poison on Hillary Clinton, he was able to somehow prevail at least until the Electoral College. I think he was skilled at just sort of, like, keeping the attention on anyone but himself. He is the most outrageous person ever to win a presidential election."
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"I'd say the most important criteria is vision. What is your vision for the party? Do you have a vision to strengthen the grassroots and help them turn out people in their local communities? That's the real thing. The real question is not about one person. It's not about an individual. It's about millions of people working all over this country to reach out in their local communities. And the DNC chair has to help them do that and have a vision for that and have the energy for that."
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"There're a lot of places that I can serve. And I'm going to serve. I'm going to be fighting to rebuild the Democratic party no matter what. I'm going to be fighting to make sure the Democratic party is known among working people that we are their champion no matter what. So I'm looking for a place to serve."
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"I'm looking for a place to be of use and benefit. And every single Democrat in this country better be thinking the exact same way. How can we help the average American worker, you know, right out there, worrying about whether that plant's going to close? Fighting for them, standing up for them. That's what the story is."
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"I like Paul Ryan, and to a certain extent, I feel bad for him. But this is a moment of moral choice. And if he says that Hillary Clinton is worse than a openly racist, Muslim-hating misogynist who wants to build a wall to exclude Mexicans, who thinks that a judge, an American judge because of his Mexican lineage cannot be fair to him, if you`re saying that Hillary Clinton is worse than all that, then I just think that that just is ridiculous, it`s absurd, and it really starts to damage the speaker`s credibility."
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"I think that Paul Ryan could be a great leader for our country. But I think that he is in a moral choice moment, and so far, he`s choosing wrong Donald Trump."
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