Thread by @RevDrBarber

I disagree that what happened with Democrats in the public debate over infrastructure and Build Back Better has been damaging to their image. 1/11

They could have not fussed, compromised in the backroom, and just cut people out. But progressives didn’t, the President didn’t. They fought for what they believed in and knew poor and low-wealth Americans—over 140 million people—need. 2/11

What they are debating is not $10 trillion, 1 trillion per year for 10 years like the @EconomicPolicy Institute recommended. It’s less than the $6 trillion @SenSanders proposed. It’s less than the $3.5 trillion the President came down to. It’s now just $1.7 trillion. 3/11

But what makes it significant and transformative is the vast reach of policy to touch the needs of children, families, health care, family leave, climate change, & child tax credit. 4/11

This is significant, even if it’s not the full substance of what we know we need, b/c never again can any politician say we can’t. And since even what’s in the bill only came about b/c we fought, it says fighting for justice works, and we must fight more & we will win more. 5/11

The public fighting exposed Manchin. And showed that there are still Congresspeople who will fight for what’s right. America needed to see this. 6/11

And what it says afresh—and is a necessary narrative shift toward—is that we can’t just do public policy for the so-called “middle class” and “upper class.” We must center millions of poor & low-wealth and low-wage people. 7/11

A transformative step is not the whole journey, but it is necessary in order to make the journey.

But let me and others give America a moral warning: she better keep stepping and not just incrementally. 8/11

We will fight with every nonviolent tool to win this step with BBB, then we will fight to do even more, because the future of not just a presidency but a democracy and the lives of poor and low-wealth people depend on it. 9/11

There is no lack of money and resources. No lack of ideas and plans. Only the lack of deep moral conscience and organized political power among the 140 million poor and low-wealth people for change, and we will change this #ForwardTogether & Not One Step Back. 10/11

Remember if we were not strong and powerful, they would not fight us so hard. #PoorPeoplesCampaign #MoralMovement 11/11