Today I attended the Pride Portland parade and festival. It was one of the most satisfying and enriching days of my life. I met and spoke with many wonderful folks and I hope that some will join us in reforming Maine’s government. On my way to the parade I stopped to talk with a gentleman sitting on the sidewalk, leaning up next to a building with a bunch of used needles on the sidewalk a few feet away. After the festival, I stopped to talk with two gentlemen sitting a bench in Deering Oaks Park. Both were obviously having a hard life. One man had come from Cambodia as a little boy to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide by dictator Pol Pot. The other came from Tanzania some fifteen years ago. They liked my “Immigrants Make America Great” button. I told them I would send a car to pick them up and bring them to visit me at the State House after I am elected.
I am trying to build a grassroots campaign from the ground up by talking with people and trying to get them to believe that they have the power to make real change if we work together. It will only happen if we do work together.
The parade was incredible. It was great to see thousands of smiling faces and so many fearless people proud to express who they are. The LGBTQ+ community has a right to be proud for standing up for what they believe. This can take a tremendous amount of courage. This is the kind of courage it takes to change the state, the nation and the world. This is the kind of courage that needs to unite to make our government and society what they should be. It should be a government of, by and for the people, not of, by and for the political parties and the monied special interests, as it truly is. It should be a society in which all are equally treated and respected.
Change will not come from within the system. It will only come from those outside the system who are often marginalized, mistreated or ignored by the system. I hope that the seeds of hope that I tried to plant today germinate and grow to become the grassroots network we collectively need to begin that change.
