Over three years ago I wrote an essay about how environmental calamities that have hit the places where I grew up — Flint, Michigan, Parkersburg, West Virginia and Southern West Virginia — were not mere accidents. They occurred because those with wealth and power consider the lives of poor people in poor places like that to be cheap by design.

I ended the essay by noting that such has always been the case and that, in all likelihood, it always will be the case. It will happen again and again because politicians simply don’t care about the people who live there and the general public, for the most part, cannot be bothered to care. 

This morning I woke up to see this: 

I’ve lived long enough and I know enough history to know that our system is frightfully efficient at crushing both hope and the hopeful. I know that powerful forces will align in an effort to thwart anyone who dares push back against the power and the priorities of the wealthy. I know that a handful of progressive politicians and activists are, at present, no match for both the machinery of corporate America and the apathy of most Americans.

But seeing a politician actually say things like this out loud is unbelievably inspiring. Every bit as inspiring as it is shocking.