He accused Trump of seeking to divide the country and warned against xenophobia.
“We are not going to attack our Latino brothers and sisters,” Sanders said.
Sanders also urged the crowd — many of them Democratic Party activists and party stalwarts — to confront the economic hardships that many Americans face, an issue he contended that many politicians of both parties have been unwilling to tackle.
“We have to acknowledge that many, many people in this country have been left behind … that many, many people in this country are in deep pain and they are hurting. We cannot address those issues unless we address that reality,” Sanders said. “And it is a reality.”
People traveled from around the region and lined up in the cold for hours to hear Sanders speak.
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The main speech was followed by a smaller event in which the senator played civics teacher for a group of Topeka high school students. Sanders posed questions to the students about the cost of college and quizzed their knowledge of civil rights.
"Stay involved. Ask hard questions of your teachers and your parents,” he said before exiting the auditorium stage.
Adreon Horn, a Topeka High junior, said that “having a person like this just in our school is astonishing.”
Kansas City Star
Sanders quickly sold out a hotel ballroom, so organizers moved his speech to historic Topeka High School as part of their annual Washington Days convention. Sanders struck a nerve with the thousands of Kansas Democrats watching when he spoke directly to what he said were Republican politicians actively making it harder to vote by passing laws that require identification at the polls and tightening voter rolls.
“That is cowardly,” Sanders said. “If you don’t have the guts and the ability to compete in open, fair and honest elections; if you don’t have the guts to defend your ideas; and if you think the only way you can win an election is by suppressing the vote, get out of politics and get another job.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders Fires Up Kansas Democrats
"It is not a radical idea to suggest that the United States should join every other major country on Earth and guarantee health care for all as a right," he said to rousing applause."And unlike the president and his new EPA administrator, we know that climate change is not a hoax."
But he drew one of the longest sustained ovations of the night when he attacked Trump on his views about foreign policy, immigration and LGBT rights.
"We as a nation have struggled and have had a very rocky road in fighting against racism, against sexism, against xenophobia and yes, homophobia. And yes, President Trump, we are not going back."
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Meanwhile, Kansas Democrats of all stripes appeared emboldened by Sanders' appearance in Topeka, one of his first major political rallies since the November 2016 elections, even as some said they still felt the sting from those elections.
Lawrence Journal-World
No state left behind. We fight Trump everywhere. And build the political revolution.