Ilhan Omar's Speech at Netroots Nation 2022 -- August 21, 2021

Speech originally given on Saturday, August 20, 2022 at 17th Annual Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was uploaded onto Rep. Omar's 'Ilhan Omar for Congress' YouTube channel. Netroots in a non-profit organization providing trainings, conferences, and outreach for progressive causes.
Ilhan Omar: Thank you. It is so great to be back at Netroots National and to be in community with you all. I was backstage listening to some of the incredible speakers you've all had talk about how alive our movement is and all of the work that we've been able to accomplish; our movement is at a watershed moment. Over the past several years, we've seen the biggest resurgence of progressive organizing and movement building in our lifetimes. Across the country young people are reviving the labor movement and nudging history wins in union organizing that has not been seen since the 1930s.
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: Whether it is Amazon workers, Starbucks workers, Google workers, or Trader Joes -- we have taken on some of the biggest, wealthiest, multi-national corporations in the world -- and we are winning. Petitions to file a union is up to 57 percent over a year ago, and I'm proud that workers in my office led a movement to unionize the staff of the United State Congress -- and we are just getting started.
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: But, friends, it is not just unions. If someone told me when i was eight years old, huddled in a refugee camp, that I would one day serve the people of Minnesota as the first African-born, the first hijabi, the first woman of color to be elected from Minnesota -- and one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, I would not have believed the words coming out of your mouth. But in spite of millions of dollars in super-PAC spending against us, in four consecutive elections we have won.
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: It is because of you, the progressive movement, that is why I'm standing here today: it's because of you the progressive movement that we have the most Black, the most Latinos, and the most female members of congress in our nation's history. It is because of you, the progressive movement, that here in Pittsburgh we are about to have a Black mayor, a Black lieutenant governor, and a proud, unbought, unboxed, fierce, progressive Black congresswoman named Summer Lee in --
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: -- Congress. Who would have thought a couple of months ago that we were on the cusp of passing the most progressive piece of climate legislation in our nation's history? That's right, this summer alone we have passed laws to reign in gun violence, to get veterans needed health care, and a bill to cut carbon emissions by close to 40 percent.
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: I was going to end that sentence with: 'you did that,' but it sounds like you all don't know that it is because of you that we have been made to accomplish all of these things.
Audience: [Applause]
Ilhan Omar: Because the reality is, none of these things would be possible without a massive, local, organized progressive movement driving the narrative and pushing for change. Because I know this when you show up, it gives us the power to organize the base and to work to push for change on the inside -- even when the challenges seem insurmountable. We have organized over the last two years, right after George Floyd was murdered at the hands of the police department in my District. Now a lot of people say nothing has changed, that people are afraid there is no meaningful reform to public safety -- but as we speak today a Department of Public Safety is being crafted in Minneapolis and that would not have happened without a movement in Minnesota and around the world pushing for it -- but, I want to be clear about something else: we cannot take any of that for granted. Now,it is when you start to get comfortable that your opponents strike --and i know this very well. We have to be alert, we have to protect, our victories as vigorously as we fight for them because we cannot build on those wins if they are rolled back. Labor rights, abortion rights, criminal justice reform, even the very survival of our democracy is being threatened. At this moment we are up against forces that are willing to suppress the vote, overturn election results, and literally commit treason against our country to get their way. We are up against corporate donors, landlords, and war profiteers spending millions of dollars to take out progressive members of Congress. So i wonder why are they desperate? They're desperate because they know they are losing. They know people do not want more endless wars. They know people do not want to be shackled with student debt. They know people don't want to live in an uninhabitable planet. So, they lie. In fact, big oil was literally funding ads against the Inflation Reduction Act pretending to be environmentalists. The only way to protect our wins is with a massive, historic voter turnout; we cannot go after the same tiny slices of swing voters we go after election after election, using the same poll-tested talking points we use every election. We cannot assume that the politics of transaction will turn out the votes when Americans are longing for the politics of transformation. No, we need to turn out a record number of voters to send a clear signal to the electorate that the progressive movement is here to stay. In 2016 6.7 million people who voted for President Barack Obama in 2012 voted for a third party candidate or simply stayed home. That is more than the total number of Obama voters who voted for Trump combined. These non-voters are more likely to be working class, they are more likely to be immigrants, and they are more likely to be people of color. In fact, more than half of them have an income of less than thirty thousand dollars a year. These are the people the Democratic Party should stand for. We cannot rely on the Liz Cheneys or Joe Manchins of the world to save us -- we need to elevate people who have fluency in the day-to-day struggles of the people they seek to represent. For every moderate suburban republican there are line cooks, home workers, dishwashers, cashiers, farm workers who would vote a straight democratic ticket if they were given a reason to. Because one thing we have learned is this progressives win when turnout is high and when we we lose when turnout is low. So, this election we cannot let fear defeat us. Let us focus on those who don't have a voice, and who will support our boldest, most endearing ideas. As a party, let's elevate the people who are closest to the pain. Let's give working folks a reason to turn out to vote for us. That's who our party should be form that's who our party should be talking to, and that's who we should be counting on to help us save our democracy in November. So thank you all for turning up. Thank you for organizing. Thank you for your optimism and thank you to Netroots for getting us here, together. I love you, let's work together to save this democracy. Let's go fight -- win.