John Podesta, chair and counselor of the liberal Center for American Progress, said Thursday that Republicans are “covetous of money and jealous of power” and that they are “still working tirelessly to get their power back.”
At the Campus Progress National Conference, he spoke to students ranging in age from 18 to over 30 about the current state of politics.
“Their only conviction about prosperity and about government was, all for ourselves and nothing for the rest,” Podesta told the students. “They had power, and they were using it to drive the country apart and to make it more unequal.”
“We won a historic election in 2008, but we’re still suffering from their old mistakes, and they are still working tirelessly to get their power back. If we let them, they will use it to make the world safe for people who already have everything,” he said.
Podesta explained that when he was growing up, inequality of wealth “would have been considered, quite frankly, a moral failure, not a miracle of the marketplace.”
He spoke more about the importance of mobilizing youth and campuses nationwide for Obama in even greater numbers than the 2008 election and said that support of young people is the only way to fight against the money the GOP “amassed at the expense of the middle class; the modern day robber barons and their super PACs are spending billions of dollars on this election.”
Podesta previously served as chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, before becoming chair of the Washington-based progressive think tank, Center for American Progress. He also helped lead the transition team as President Barack Obama took office.