I grew up in a union family. My father was a proud member of Local 103, the cable workers’ union, employed by the telephone company. I saw firsthand what a stable paycheck, good benefits, and union solidarity meant for a working-class family.

I know what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. I’ve seen it, felt it, and lived it.

For eleven years, I managed an ophthalmic clinic in a rural community. Seniors from retirement communities, veterans from a nearby VA facility, folks from tiny towns; they all relied on us for eye care. As the clinic manager and optician, I was often the last person they saw before heading home. Elderly patients, especially veterans, waiting for rides, would open up to me about their lives, their worries, and their fears.

They told me stories of struggling with Medicare Advantage plans, plans designed not to provide clarity and care, but to deceive and exploit vulnerable people for profit. I saw seniors victimized by scams, fearful of every phone call, every unexpected bill. I watched proud veterans, who sacrificed everything for our country, battle a healthcare system that treated them as burdens rather than heroes.

After that, I spent nearly eight years as CFO at a childcare center on a community college campus. Every morning, at the front desk, my wife and I talked with parents navigating impossible choices, between childcare, healthcare, housing, and food. Young families, working hard but barely holding on, burdened by a system designed to funnel wealth upwards.

Bernie Sanders is right.

The system is broken, rigged by special interests and corporate billionaires who don’t care about working families or seniors or struggling parents.

They thrive by dividing us, distracting us, making us believe our neighbor is our enemy. They step on a hundred working families to make a millionaire, a million workers to make a billionaire. And now we face the grotesque prospect of the world’s first trillionaire, a person who will have stepped on all of us to hoard unimaginable wealth.

Bernie’s solutions aren’t radical; they’re necessary. We must get money out of politics, dismantle PACs, and restore democracy so that elected leaders represent people, not corporate interests. We must guarantee Medicare for All, ending the exploitation of our seniors and ensuring healthcare as a fundamental human right. We must strengthen Social Security so our elderly can retire with dignity and security, not fear and uncertainty.

It’s time to start listening (really listening) to our leaders.

Pay attention to who’s urging you to hate your fellow citizens, who profits from your anger, who distracts you with manufactured divisions. That’s our enemy. Bernie Sanders, and leaders like him, remind us of our shared humanity, our shared struggles, and our shared potential.

Is this the future we choose, a future where billions struggle so one person can claim a trillion?

Is that really the legacy we want to leave for our children and grandchildren? Or are we finally ready to unite, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors, and demand a system that serves all of us?

The choice is ours. Bernie’s fight is our fight. It’s past time we woke up and joined it.

EDW•