Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Progress Iowa

December 19, 2017

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you. Thank you so much everybody. This is a very life-affirming evening we’re having. And, I just want to say at the beginning, I love Progress Iowa.

[Applause]

Because everyone in this room means business, everyone in this room cares, everyone is here to make a difference. And by the way, I do not hear any fear, any trepidation, any depression. I hear people ready to fight and ready to win.

[Applause]

So it is a very good time to be alive and it’s a good time to be a progressive. And things are about to change and we are here together at the beginning of what will be a new era.

Let me thank everyone at Progress Iowa. I want to thank Matt. Matt’s doing amazing work organizing this. Let’s give him a round of applause and thank him.

[Applause]

Melissa, Morgan, Mark, wonderful board moving it forward all the time. Thank you.

[Applause]

I want to thank someone who really captured it – when Tammy talked about waking the sleeping bear, Tammy, it was something very beautiful to say thank you to our opponents for waking us all up and turning us into change agents. What an incredible acclamation of faith and Tammy your leadership is making a huge difference. Let’s thank her.

[Applause]

And to Tammy’s wonderful colleague – good friend of mine – Mary Jane Cobb, thank you for all you do.

[Applause]

Thank you to all the wonderful progressive elected officials here and to Mark and to Janet for their leadership.

I love listening to leaders who are at the forefront of these legislative battles but they’re filled with energy, they’re filled with hope. Let’s thank them for all they do.

[Applause]

Mark, I did not know you could wear a sweater like that to an event like this –

[Laughter]

You are opening up space for sweater-wearers everywhere.

[Applause]

So, I want to be clear from the beginning – why does Progress Iowa matter so much? Because you give hope, because you give hope. Because you’re reaching those 70,000 people and you’re turning them into activists on the issues that matter.

To everyday Iowans, you’re creating an army, an army of good that’s changing the state at the foundations and this is exactly what makes the difference. So, a lot of people ask me, and including some of our friends in the media, why Progress Iowa? And I said because this is the king of organization that can actually change things before there’s even an election. This is the kind of organization that reaches people at the grassroots.

[Applause]

So, let me talk to you about a couple things this evening. But first I want to talk about, just very quickly, a little bit of personal perspective. And talking about the grassroots, I have my own personal grassroots connection to Iowa. It’s pretty far back in time but very personally important to me.

So, my grandmother – this is an amazing twist of the life story – but in 1888, my grandmother Nina Warren was born in Blanchard, Iowa in Page County. I am not making it up.

[Applause]

And it’s a powerful story because it speaks to the kind of thing that gets passed along in every family and you’ll see how it came along in different parts of my family.

She was born to a father who loved his farm. He was a Civil War veteran, fought for the Union. Loved his farm but decided that his daughters needed an education they could only get if they went to the city.

So, they left and she got the education her father hope for her to get and she went on, flourished in her life, and there was one example in my own family of the power of education to transform and to – even back many, many decades ago – to liberate people including women who often weren’t given their due in that time but education was the key.

And then you fast forward to my mother who was a child of immigrants and believed she could reach higher heights and got an opportunity to go to a college out-of-town away from New York. And my grandfather, who came from a small town in Southern Italy, he wanted his daughter to have the very best and he blessed – her going to the school she thought was right for her.

And then fast forward to my wife, Chirlane – came from a working class family, was told in high school that a high-quality college was not for her, unfortunately, because some of the people in her school didn’t think an African-American woman could go to one of the very best colleges. She thought otherwise and she worked her way to Wellesley College.

[Applause]

And then my children, Chiara and Dante, who gained so much from our New York City public schools, but who first experienced all that could be in pre-K. And I didn’t know it at the time but for me a seed was being planted. I saw my children in pre-K. I saw them growing. I saw them blossoming and I started to realize that every child deserves that and that is something that makes a huge difference.

[Applause]

And I tell you that story of generation after generation to tell you that for all of us the changes we hope for in our city, in our town, in our state, in our country they should come not only our hearts, they should come from our own personal experience and we should communicate to the people we talk to from what we have seen with our own eyes what we have experienced.

So, my kids got that pre-K opportunity and I started saying to myself, you know, if it makes such a difference, if it’s the beginning, it’s the strong start, if it’s the great equalizer why shouldn’t it be for everyone?

Could we do that? And when I ran for mayor of this city, I said very clearly, we have to do something we’ve never done before in New York City. We need to give pre-K to every single child – every child.

[Applause]

Now, guess what? The conventional wisdom said it could not be done. There were doubting Thomases. There were skeptics. It was too much. It was too fast. When I took office there were about 20,000 kids getting full-day pre-K. We said in two years we would reach all the children.

Today in New York City, 70,000 kids went to pre-K.

[Applause]

We added an entire additional grade to our school system and it’s having an incredible effect and it’s for everyone. My friends, it’s for everyone. And when we as progressives, we as Democrats do something that shows our entire society can move forward together, people start to believe in us because they can feel it in their lives.

And another thing we should remember is when we show what we can achieve, we should be audacious enough to go to the next step. And so I announced earlier this year, based on the success of pre-K, we’re going to make sure that all those hard-working families, all those parents struggling to make ends meet, all those kids who deserve the best start will now have universal access to early childhood education at the age of three.

[Applause]

These are changes we are making and they were supposed to be impossible but now they’re happening and I’ll tell you I saw this time and time again, our city faced, as this state faces, a crisis when it came to mental health challenges – a crisis because so many people were afflicted, so many families were struggling, and they didn’t know where to turn. And they faced a stigma that held them back, and we were not, as a city and as a society, dealing with the problem.

And so, my wife, Chirlane, said, why don’t we bring it all out in the open? Why don’t we say the City is committed to ensuring that everyone gets the mental health care they need, that there’s a single point of access, that we will de-stigmatize it, that we will make it part of the conversation every single day. She created an initiative called ThriveNYC and crisscrossed the City literally through the force of her will, getting people to talk about the thing they didn’t want to talk about.

And a lot of times people have come up to thank her but when they came up to her they’d speak in a hushed tone, they’d whisper their thanks, which pointed out we had more work to do.

I mentioned to some of our colleagues here this evening, we decided it was important to take this message everywhere including to our houses of worship and we decided that we could reach every type of New Yorker of every faith and a few months back we had what we called a Weekend of Faith.

And simultaneously in the course of one weekend, 2,000 houses of worship from the pulpit talked about mental health, talked about how it was okay to come forward if you had a challenge and how people deserved the help that they needed.

And we started to break down the stigma right there and open up the doors to those who needed help.

[Applause]

I’ll give you one more example. Our city, like so many places in this nation, we had a wound we had to heal. There was a rift between our police and our community and we knew they needed to heal and we knew we needed to bring them together and we knew we would be stronger and better if we could overcome it.

And it took real work, and, again, the cynics and the critics said if we tried – if we tried to heal the wound, if we tried to respect the rights of all members of the community that somehow we would go backwards. We had, for years, a very broken policy of stop-question-and-frisk that was alienating our communities of color, and particularly our young men of color were singled out.

We couldn’t move forward. We couldn’t heal lest we addressed it. And I knew that if we, head on, said we are going to find a way to be safe but to be fair at the same time, I knew if we brought police and community together it would actually make us safer. It would not only make us better and more peaceful and more harmonious, it would make us safer.

And I’m proud to tell you that today New York City is the safest big city in America. 

[Applause]

Now, if you hear these examples of change – everything I just told you happened in four years or less. If you hear these examples of change and you say well wait a minute that’s a long way away, that’s a different world, that’s a different place let me remind you of something that might give you a little bit of heart – I just got re-elected and I was the first Democrat re-elected Mayor of New York City since 1985.

[Applause]

For 20 years preceding me, there were Republican mayors and the things I’m telling you about would have been impossible. And during those 20 years there were many times when we felt the same frustrations that I heard talked about just a short time ago here. And I can’t tell you that we always thought that change was right around the corner. I can’t tell you we always thought it would be easy. But I knew change was coming. I knew we had to give people a reason to believe. I knew we had to reach people in their neighborhoods and we had to show them what was possible.

So, like what you face, we had a long road in my city. But here’s the reality and I think this year is showing us so sharply so plainly, it’s a simple concept change can happen anywhere, anywhere and it most certainly can happen here in Iowa.

[Applause]

You know, if ever you want an example of a true progressive, just look to Tom Harkin

[Applause]

Tom Harkin defined not just for Iowa but for the whole country what a consistent and strong progressive could be. A man of the people connected to the people. He showed us something that has been there for a long time. You heard the history before, the deep and strong progressive tradition of this state. We used to call it prairie populism. Well, guess what? It’s still there, it’s still there because it’s in people to believe in fairness. There’s a reason that Tom Harkin struck that chord for so long until just a few years ago. And it’s a chord we all have to strike again. And you know that Iowans are deeply committed people. They are committed to their state, to their cities, to their towns, to their neighborhoods.

And they watch what is going on and they understand. And if you don’t believe me, maybe just maybe you saw a poll in the De Moines Register a few days ago. Perhaps you saw it. The people of this state have taken stock of Donald Trump and his presidency and have rejected it out of hand.

[Applause]

60 percent my friends, 60 percent saying they disapprove and they want to see a different way. Now, if your Congressman Young or Congressman Blum or Governor Reynolds – I just wish I was a fly on the wall watching when they opened up the paper that day.

[Laughter]

I don’t mean to gloat or anything, but I would have liked to have seen the expression on their faces, because, they can count, and 60 percent of the people of their state say that their president and their party is taking us in the wrong direction, then it’s time for a change, isn’t it?

[Applause]

So we have a moment. We have a clearly defined moment but we have to meet the moment. We have to go to the people. I want to tell you when I heard the idea that there are 100 seats being contested and there will be 100 candidates, that’s exactly how you go to the people.

[Applause]

Leave no stone unturned. Leave no seat uncontested. Go to the people. And listen as Democrats we need to cherish this moment. Because it’s the perfect moment to through off some of the burdens that have held us back. Some people last year thought we were an elite party. That’s not our Democratic party is it? We are not the party of elites. We are not the party of big donors. We are the party of working people.

[Applause]

And now we get to show it in the candidates we choose for every office in every part of this state and every other state and we show it by going to the people. We open wide the door of our party and we go and we go and knock on the door of every voter. We talk to the people right on their doorstep, in their workplace, where they shop, wherever they are, where they are ready to have the conversation – the party that believes so deeply that we are proud to bring our message to each and every person. Because when you do that you communicate that you are not an elite party, you’re not a party that is out of touch. You are a party of the majority if you are willing to have the conversation with anyone.

By the way you can change minds that way. And we’ve been told right now that 60 percent of the people in this state have their minds wide open. They are waiting to have the conversation with you. They are ready. They only need you to meet them.

Now, I believe deeply that the people, the voters, are a lot smarter than the pundits give them credit for. I think we see a lot of evidence of this that they are discerning. And they pay a lot of attention. If we come forward and meet them they will listen. Not everyone, but the vast majority will listen. And here’s where I don’t want to see any of us – and I’m saying it to people in New York and Iowa and everywhere, I don’t want us hung up by who people voted for last time. All I care about is who they are going to vote for next time.

[Applause]

But we got to show them something real. We’ve got to show them a vision that will change their lives. Now look, I come from one city, to one example, but I can tell you that one of the reasons that I have the privilege of being the first Democrat re-elected since 1985 is because people could actually identify what Democratic leadership meant for their lives, what progressive government meant for them. Because they come up to me in the streets and the subways and they say thank you for pre-K, it’s changes my life. And they say thank you for fighting for a higher minimum wage, or thank you for the paid sick leave law that allowed people to not have to choose between a day’s pay and getting well. They know when something is real to them. They come up and they say I have a child who needed mental health support and now I know where to turn and my child is getting help.

Those are Democratic values. Those are progressive values. Those are the things that identify who we are versus our opponents. Our opponents have spent a lot of time in this state taking those things away from Iowans. We need to let them know who will give them back the things they need.

[Applause]

So people are ready for change and here’s another reason to have faith in the people. Over the last months in this country, with all the advantages of the bully-pulpit, of the white house and all of the miraculous imagery that you can create when you say the word tax cut. The President of the United States, the Republican leadership in congress have been for months and months trying to convince people that they tax bill would help them.

And look a lot of us have been around political life for a long time and we’ve seen tax cuts hailed out before people. And we understand the siren call of tax cuts. But something different happened this time. And I say this poignantly because the vote is happening this very day and this will be remembered as a bad day in American history and a day that we are going to have to fight to overcome.

But something else will be remembered. The people were sold a bill of goods over and over and over and they did not buy it. Almost two thirds of the American people see this tax bill for what it is – a giveaway to the wealthy and the corporations. They see it. And you can look across all of the polling and it’s shockingly consistent.

They are not taking the bait and they are watching and as we go into 2018, in this state and all over the country. It’s not just what you are seeing in the register poll – their frustration, their anger at an inappropriate president, it’s that they realized that that president lied to them. He said he was all about working people. He said, oh, I’m not from the elite – I’m going to help you out, take a chance on me. And guess what? Not only did he create the perfect cabinet of millionaires and billionaires – I didn’t know there were that many millionaires and billionaires available to serve in the cabinet, he found them all, put them in one cabinet. He also created a tax bill simply to serve his own kind.

And people see it. And people see it and they reject it. And as they think ahead they are going to know they were bamboozled last year. And that’s going to put wind in our sails. But here’s what I want to tell you as we think ahead. We cannot be timid. We cannot take half-steps, we cannot speak in vague terms. There’s a phrase that should define what all of us as progressives and Democrats do in 2018. It’s a powerful and simple idea – fortune favors the bold. We have to be uncompromising. We have to be strong. We’re the party of working people. We believe in the labor movement. We have to say it as plainly as that.

[Applause]

We believe that those who have done very, very well, often with all sorts of government policies helping them to do very, very well should pay their fair share in taxes.

[Applause]

We believe that public education is the fountain of democracy and fairness in America.

[Applause]

So if that’s who we are people will feel it and they will hear it. And you don’t need, you don’t need to fall into the trap that unformal too many Democrats fell into in Washington DC, too many people inside the beltway decided that you could only run a good campaign if you had a lot of money. And if you needed the money you had to favor the donors and you had to homogenize your message and take away all the rough edges and get them out of there and not do anything that might offend certain people. Guess what we ended up doing as a party? We were desiccated.

Our meaning was lost. Sure, the donors gave money, and sure the party came up with something that seemed maybe, kind-of like a message. And we lost.

We were so desirous of the money that we created a vision and a message we could not win with. That’s what happened for years and years. I don’t want the money if the money is going to stand between us and the people.

[Applause]

What wins elections is people – volunteers, activists, people.

[Applause]

What wins elections is ideas. And by the way, there’s this new thing they created called the internet.

[Laughter]

If you’ve got a good idea, if your idea resonates with people, it costs nothing to start to get it out to them.

[Applause]

So, the progressive movement is now at a powerful, powerful point of opportunity. And I want you to hear this because I don’t want people to think that maybe someday a change will come. I want you to understand the change is already happening. The progressive movement is growing all over this country. It’s been growing for years at the local level. We saw what happened in 2015 and 2016 all over this country.

And now we see it growing even more deeply. We saw January 21st the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States of America.

[Applause]

We are at the beginning of a progressive era. And I know that may sound strange with what’s happening in Washington right now, but what happens in Washington is all the way at the end of the line that starts at the grassroots. The grassroots are already changing. The grassroots are ripe for what we believe in. We have to have the courage to understand that the change is already coming. We have to be ready to meet it with all of our energy. And we cannot ever feel that we can’t be ourselves.

Because I’ll tell you something very simple – a progressive, Democratic candidate with a clear, strong economic message, with a populist approach, who will go to the grassroots – that is the Republicans worst nightmare. And that’s what we need more of in this state and every state. And when we do it right – anything is possible.

And you may say, well, wait a minute, Bill, what do you mean anything is possible? Surely you understand there are many states where it’s very, very difficult to win.

Yes, there are many states where it’s difficult to win. As I said, my city, my state, we went through that journey also. But I’m going to argue to you we’re in a once in a generation moment. I’m going to argue to you that people were already starting to move, and then the election of Donald Trump supercharged them, created an energy and a focus like we’ve never seen before. I’m going to argue that it’s reaching every corner of the country. And you might say – well that’s sound a little idealistic.

Well, let me talk about what happened a few weeks ago. Let’s start in Iowa. We saw this year in Iowa in the special elections – we saw Democrats start to make ground where they weren’t supposed to be able to make ground. We saw people in even some of the most conservative places in this state start to vote Democrat because they wanted to send a message. And they’re ready for more.

And then look around the country – look what happened in New Jersey. New Jersey flips from red to blue and gains seats in the legislature. Was it just New Jersey? No, in Georgia, Democrats gained seats in the legislature. In New Hampshire, Democrats gained seats in the legislature. Did you know in Oklahoma the Democrats gained seats in the legislature?

[Applause]

In Washington State, the legislature flipped. The senate flipped from red to blue. It’s already happening, my friends.

Oh – did I mention Virginia?

[Applause]

Okay, we have tonight in this country the greatest proof we ever needed about the value of each and every vote. The House of Delegates of Virginia, one of the oldest legislatures in this whole country, the pundits said, the conventional wisdom said there was nothing to talk about in 2017. It would firmly remain in Republican control. Maybe Democrats could work around the margins.

Remember that?

It was not on anyone’s radar that that legislature could change. There was a seat today in Newport News, Virginia, and the recount was finally decided. That seat was awarded to the Democratic party.

[Applause]

That seat has now created a 50-50 tie in the House of Delegates of Virginia.

[Applause]

And there’s a Democratic governor and a Democratic lieutenant governor.

So now the world’s turning in Virginia. But the most important thing to know about the story? What happened in Newport News – I am not making this up – the recount was completed today. The Democrat won by one vote.

[Applause]

So since you will be on the doors – thank you, Mark, we will have people on the doors – when anybody says ‘my vote doesn’t matter,’ tell them how an entire legislature was flipped by one vote, one Virginian.

[Applause]

And I did save the best for last because some things are supposed to be literally, physically impossible. But once the Republican Party became the part of Roy Moore and Steven Bannon, things started to change. I remind you – you know you heard all those pundits say ‘oh, the Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief because Roy Moore didn’t win, didn’t go to Washington, they don’t have that problem.’

Here’s their problem – they nominated Roy Moore as their candidate for Senate.

[Applause]

Do you think the people of this country are dumb? No. They understand that the president and the Senate majority leader and the RNC supported someone who is a child molester. At this moment in history, in 2017, as if it was somehow invisible. No people saw it. People realized it. But that’s not the whole story of Alabama.

The story of Alabama is Democrats and progressives organizing like never before. Yes, they had a sharp contrast to work with. Yes, there were people who had voted Republican before who said ‘I can’t take this. I am going to vote Democrat because I will not be party to this.’ Yes, it was an exceptional situation, but you know what else happened? Because Doug Jones is someone who’s actually stood for something? Because people in the state could identify him as someone who had done something real that had affected people’s lives? The man who prosecuted the bombers of that church in Birmingham who got away with their crimes for decades until Doug Jones prosecuted them?

People in Alabama felt something.

[Applause]

People in Alabama saw an agent of justice. They saw someone who moved them and then they started to move. And the turnout levels among African-Americans in Alabama surpassed the turnout levels for President Obama – because people felt something. And people were organized. And people went door to door, and they told people it mattered, and they believed it mattered. And they did something that was supposed to be impossible.

But one day in January, there will be a Democratic Senator taking the oath of office from Alabama.

[Applause]

So brothers and sister, this is the actual conclusion.

[Laughter]

I think we’ve gotten all the evidence we need from the year 2017 to prepare us for the year 2018. I think we’ve seen change happen in places where no one could possibly have predicted it. And now we have to show the change will happen everywhere.

I have great faith in Progress Iowa. I have great faith in every one of you. I want to wish you a wonderful holiday season, a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukah, a happy Kwanza, a happy New Year. And in that New Year will be a year of victory in Iowa.

God bless you all.