Bernie Sanders credited America's liberals with taking "fringe ideas, radical ideas, extremist ideas" and turning them into "mainstream American ideas."
Sanders spoke Wednesday at the Communication Workers of America's "We the People 2018 Summit" in Washington, D.C.
The former candidate for president thanked the union for its work "transforming" the country and called on the rank-and-file to "stand up and fight back" against the White House.
“We are obviously in a pivotal and unprecedented moment in American history," Sanders told the crowd. "And the fights that we are waging on not just for ourselves, more importantly they offer our kids, our grandchildren, and the future of this planet. (Applause) And if anybody in this room, and I know it’s not the case here, but anybody in this country who thinks that now is the time to throw your hands up and give up, you are dead wrong; now is the time more than ever to stand up, fight back."
Here's a transcript:
“We are obviously in a pivotal and unprecedented moment in American history. And the fights that we are waging on not just for ourselves, more importantly they offer our kids, our grandchildren, and the future of this planet. (Applause) And if anybody in this room, and I know it’s not the case here, but anybody in this country who thinks that now is the time to throw your hands up and give up, you are dead wrong; now is the time more than ever to stand up, fight back. (Cheering and Applause) And I want to thank all of the groups here because whether you know it or not you have helped transform this country in so many ways. A few years ago, just a few years ago, and I want you to think about it, many of the ideas that we talked about were thought to be fringe ideas, radical ideas, extremist ideas. Well, you know what? Because of your efforts those ideas are now mainstream American ideas.” (Cheering and Applause)