People who can save the world

This past week I spoke at Google and also appeared on a YouTube show with 1.8 million followers — warning that this video will make you hungry.

I also made trips to Los Angeles, Boston, and New Hampshire. In Los Angeles I met many amazing people including a very well-dressed baby — the first baby I’ve kissed as a presidential candidate.

The Boston event was sold out with over 100 attendees and generated some tremendous press, like this NBC News Boston interview:

Entrepreneurs like Owen Johnson (Revival) and Sven Karlsson (Platelet Biogenesis) were there to say hello. Thank you to Ian So (Chicken & Rice Guys) for hosting and making the event possible.

On Tuesday, we traveled to Keene in Western New Hampshire where I met with the local entrepreneurship center and then the Young Democrats of New Hampshire. The Young Dems were an inspirational group. Maggie is the youngest city councilwoman in Keene history. Shaye moved there from New York to organize young people. Rachel started her own 15-person management consulting company. Sparky served in the Army as a translator in Afghanistan before moving back to New Hampshire and is now running for State Representative. Oni arranged a protest for net neutrality at the local Verizon headquarters. And Amelia was running the show.

Maggie commented on the fact that young people often left Western New Hampshire for greener pastures (not literally, as it’s very green there). But she was there trying to make the town better.

That, to me is the goal of this campaign. How can we actually make life in Keene better?

The Young Dems of New Hampshire are among the most dynamic and enterprising people in their state. By the numbers, Americans are moving, starting businesses, getting married, having children and participating in the workforce at historic lows. Meanwhile suicides, overdoses, depression, school loans, and financial insecurity are all at record highs, and 59% of Americans cannot afford a $500 bill.

We have in particular shafted young people and left them with a shambles of an economy, record indebtedness, unaffordable housing, few career paths forward, a crumbling infrastructure, and a warming planet.

The message of this campaign is one of the harshness of the reality that most Americans face day-to-day — a reality that is about to be made much worse by advancing technologies that will eliminate millions of jobs. But it is also about the actions we can take that will improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Standing in Keene with the Young Dems, I said to them, “You all have outsized importance. If you all decide to make the case for a different kind of economy, the entire country will hear you. And if we make it real here, other countries will follow suit. This group of people, in this room right now, has a unique chance to advance all of humanity.” I could sense them weighing these words and realizing their truth.

We all aren’t Democratic activists in New Hampshire, but it is true for each of us as well. If we make the case to our fellow Americans that we can build a new kind of economy that puts Humanity First, we can make it real. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Let’s show what we can do.