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poor peoples campaign
William Barber Says Presidential Debates 'Failing' the Poor
"We should really be talking about how to abolish the majority of poverty, because we know what would happen if we did have serious living minimum wage and healthcare," Barber said.
Oct 03, 2024
William Barber, a bishop and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, said in an interview published Thursday that U.S. presidential debates, and the race more broadly, was "failing" the poor, whose needs and concerns he said aren't being addressed.
About 38 million people in the U.S. live in poverty, roughly 11.5% of the population, as determined by the federal government. PPC says that one-third of the electorate, or 85 million people, are poor or low-income.
"We're talking about poverty that is not an anomaly among one group of people. But in fact, is across the country, in every community, in every city," Barber told USA Today. "We should really be talking about how to abolish the majority of poverty, because we know what would happen if we did have serious living minimum wage and healthcare."
Both @KamalaHarris & @realDonaldTrump say they want to represent working people. Why not accept @RevDrBarber’s challenge to debate the causes of America’s exceptional poverty & the policies that could end it. https://t.co/TIjUvOof0O
— Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (@wilsonhartgrove) October 3, 2024
PPC was inspired by a 1968 movement of the same name organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and led by allies after his assassination. They set up a 3,000-person protest camp on Washington Mall in the spring of that year, staying for six weeks.
Barber, a Black pastor and political organizer from North Carolina, was among those who led the relaunch in 2018—Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival—which started with demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and at statehouses across the country.
Barber, who recently wrote a book about white poverty, has said that there's a "deafening silence" on the part of the media with regard to economic justice in the U.S.
Barber told USA Today that the debate moderators, as well as the presidential and vice presidential candidates, have failed to address it. He said Tuesday's vice presidential debate should have featured a question on a living minimum wage.
"To not have that as a major question and drill it down and make these candidates answer the question is a failing, we believe of the debate system," Barber said.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25, set in 2009. Barber has frequently expressed outrage that Congress hasn't acted to raise it in the last 15 years.
In 2021, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) moved to raise the minimum wage to $15, via an amendment to the Covid-19 stimulus package, but all 50 Republican senators and eight members of the Democratic caucus voted it down.
Barber noted that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, raised the need to expand the child tax credit and for affordable housing in the debate, but said the moderators should have explicitly asked about the needs of poor people.
"I think there's a great failure of the press, of those who planned the debate, and even the politicians themselves, for not putting millions of people at the center of the political debate," Barber said.
Barber in fact recommended a reform to the debate format in which nonpartisan experts lay out facts on an issue before candidates speak—and people who are affected by an issue, rather than professional moderators, ask the questions.
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'The Bible Exposes Grifters': Trump Rebuked as Christian Nationalist 'Con Man'
"All those legal fees are apparently really making Donald Trump's pockets hurt because his latest commercial venture, after selling sneakers and cologne, is as a Bible salesman," said one critic.
Mar 28, 2024
Critics of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday derided the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for hawking $60 patriotic-themed Bibles, with one prominent progressive cleric warning that the so-called Good Book "exposes grifters who try to exploit it."
The
God Bless the USA Bible—which is actually a rebranded 9/11 commemorative Bible first offered for sale in 2021 by country musician Lee Greenwood of "God Bless the USA" fame—has been slammed by devout Christians for having an American flag emblazoned on its cover and for containing nationalist documents including the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Pledge of Allegiance.
"You all should get a copy of God Bless the USA Bible," Trump said in a 3-minute video promoting the book—which is not connected with his campaign. "You have to have it for your heart, for your soul."
"Replacing the real Bible with Trump Bibles is a too-perfect symbol of what has happened to evangelical Christianity."
Critics from across the political spectrum slammed what Slate senior writer Amanda Marcotte called Trump's "newest grift to squeeze money out of his cult followers."
"The not-at-all subtle message of the video is that Trump doesn't believe any of this faith-in-God crap, but he definitely believes in using Christian identity as a weapon to make money and dominate his foe," Marcotte wrote.
Bishop William Barber, the founding director of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and a co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign,
said on social media that "the prophet Ezekiel named it in his day: Greedy politicians make an unholy alliance with false religion that says God is on their side when God has said no such thing!"
Conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes on Wednesday
blasted Trump for "commodifying the Bible during Holy Week," while former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming said that "instead of selling Bibles, you should probably buy one. And read it, including Exodus 20:14."
The volume's release comes during Christian Holy Week, and as Trump struggles to pay a $175 million bond after a New York judge found that he and his company committed massive fraud.
"Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country," Trump said in the promotional video. "It's one of the biggest problems we have, and it's why our country is going haywire. We've lost religion in our country."
"All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book," he added. "We must make America pray again."
Some observers noted how Trump used Christianity and the Bible as a prop during his White House tenure, including the time in 2020 when he ordered the violent dispersal of racial justice protesters in the wake of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police so he could pose for a photo-op outside a Washington, D.C. church.
Despite facing 91 federal and state criminal charges, Trump is all but certain to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Christian nationalists have been busily preparing for a second Trump term, in part by drafting Project 2025, which one watchdog described as a "far-right playbook for American authoritarianism."
While his words and deeds may be antithetical to Christian doctrine, Trump is wildly popular among Evangelical Christians.
"Replacing the real Bible with Trump Bibles is a too-perfect symbol of what has happened to evangelical Christianity," Marcotte wrote. "The mistake is in believing Trump's followers are confused or ashamed about their devotion to a godless creep who laughs at true believers. In Trump's hands, the Bible is not a text for prayer and reflection, it's just a weapon. It's much easier to beat people down with a book if it's closed."
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Poor People's Campaign to Lawmakers: If You Want Our Votes, Work to End 'Death by Poverty'
"We are putting politicians in every state on notice," said Rev. Dr. William Barber.
Mar 05, 2024
Leaders of the Poor People's Campaign delivered its policy agenda to lawmakers at statehouses across the United States on Monday and warned that if elected representatives don't act, they won't get the votes of low-wage workers who were integral to the defeat of former President Donald Trump four years ago.
Monday's actions, which included visits with state lawmakers from both major parties, were part of a broader 42-week mobilization of poor voters that the Poor People's Campaign announced last month.
"Do not listen to those who say poor and low-wage voters are apathetic about politics or marginal to election outcomes," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, said during a rally in North Carolina over the weekend.
"Poor and low-wage voters have the power to change electoral outcomes up and down the ballot in November," said Barber, pointing to the slim 2020 margins in key battleground states such as Michigan and Arizona. "We are putting politicians in every state on notice: If you want our votes, you must legislate to end the crisis of death by poverty in America."
The agenda that organizers presented to state lawmakers on Monday calls for immediate action to abolish "poverty as the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S.," end "voter suppression in all its forms," raise minimum wages to a living wage, guarantee healthcare and affordable housing for all, bolster worker protections, and more.
"We are seeing from state houses all over the nation that we will not be silenced or ignored anymore," Von Allen Goodman, tri-chair of the Massachusetts Poor People's Campaign, said during a rally in Boston on Saturday.
"When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare, then there's a problem with the soul of our nation."
The Poor People's Campaign estimates that there are around 85 million poor and low-wage eligible voters across the U.S.—roughly 30% of the country's electorate. In 2020, according to a study released by the campaign and its allies, 168 million Americans who voted had an annual household income of less than $50,000.
Research published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that a decade or more of uninterrupted poverty is linked to 295,000 deaths per year in the U.S.—roughly 800 deaths per day. That made long-term poverty the country's fourth-leading cause of death in 2019, behind heart disease, cancer, and smoking.
"In our campaign across the country, poor and low-wage allies have decided that we are not accepting the silence from the media and political establishment that ignores 800 daily deaths of poor and low-wealth people," said Barber. "Poverty by America is an abolishable and unnecessary reality that can be eradicated by enacting policies that address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism."
"When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare," he added, "then there's a problem with the soul of our nation."
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