Nina Turner Quotes

No administration in recent times has been able to tackle the needs of our veterans. On that, I do want to see Donald Trump successful. But in terms of his travel ban and immigration policy, I don't want to see him successful.

For the workers and their families, being able to bring home a living wage helps their families and, by extension, helps our economy. Seventy percent of our economy is consumer-based. We know that when lower- and middle-class families have money and disposable income, they spend it. That puts money back into the economy. It's a win-win for everybody: Not just for the individual, not just production at a specific company (like Nissan), but for the greater good.

My role is to remind people that everyday people can make a difference. And if we get people out there doing things to make America a better place, we can bring change.

Being a progressive himself, Franklin Roosevelt was talking about the fact that we should provide jobs for everyone who wants one. People do have a right to live in decent housing. They do have a right to education. FDR was preaching this gospel in the '30s, and Dr. Martin Luther King did the same thing in the 1960s with the Poor People's March on Washington. Folks in this country have these rights and it's the job of this country to answer this call.

My hope for America and the activists is that they never, ever go back to sleep, and they keep fighting for social justice, equality, and decency.

Workers' wages are not keeping up with inflation. Their wages are not on pace with the amount of work that they do. We work harder and longer in America and still people's wages are not keeping up with that.

We really are going to have to answer the cries of everyday women and men who are calling out for elected leaders to do something different. They want to be treated fairly and they need a political party who represents them.

I think the political class, just overall, has underestimated the suffering in America.

We've had to overcome a lot in America to become a nation of progress. We still have a lot of progress to be made.

I would love to see more investment to help our veterans. Donald Trump is talking about investing in the military - I imagine he wants to invest on the war side, but what we really need is to take care of our veterans, and invest in the VA hospitals, provide better mental health treatment, and help them find housing. That is a stain on America for all of us - Republican and Democrat.

It's shameful that the elites basically have one-and-a-half political parties. Working class men and women have zero parties - or they have half a party. That's exactly what progressives are upset about.

I'm always amazed to hear my more conservative colleagues talking about how they care about life. They're pro-life, but when it comes down to safe work environments that allow for unions, being able to pay for child care, having family leave - they don't care about any of that. That's where I argue that they're not pro-life, they're pro-birth.

What happens to women happens to the entire nation. People work hard. But when you're working long hours, you don't get to spend time with your kids, you don't get a chance to take a vacation every now and then, you don't get a chance to make a big purchase (which helps the economy). There's something wrong with that. This isn't about wages, this about quality of life.

Child care can almost bankrupt a family, even a two-parent household in which both parents are working. That keeps a parent from being at ease and it really stifles the social and economic growth of a family. Women are hit hard across the board, but particularly in homes where the mother is the head of the household and the only wage-earner. It hurts her, and it hurts her children.

I love Vice President Biden, let's make this clear. But we do need somebody that is going to reconnect with the heart and soul of everyday Americans in this country. The Democrats failed on that. And we can place blame on everybody else that we want to. But the bottom line is you can both love this party and critique this party.

What happens to one directly happens to all indirectly.

Labor unions have a long history of benefitting all workers, even those who are not members of unions, because everyone's wages go up. If we don't increase membership - and membership in labor unions is going down because of the attacks against organized labor - it's something every single American, whether they're officially in a union or not, should be concerned about. It's a spiral. It's a weakening of the middle class and our economy can't sustain that.

It's important for women to understand that it's bad enough that we don't make dollar-for-dollar what men do, but when you distill that down to women of color, our Latinas and our African American women, it's even less than that 78 cents.

If workers are overworked, or companies hire temps at low wages, this fundamentally comes down to the quality of life for a person. It's bigger than wages. They should be able to spend time with their families. And if they're single, they should be able to have fun and not spend every day of their life working 12 to 15 hours a day and never get a chance to take care of their well-being. To me, that's part of living a good life.

There should be no surprise that forgotten America, no matter their ethnicity, because we see that Mr. Trump was able to get Hispanic voters, African American voters. Oh my God, the majority of, of, of the women voters that he was able to amass, even though he was painted as the other, my party, the Democratic party, did not listen to the voices of the forgotten America.

When you have mega-corporations that have record profits, but they don't want to share even a little bit of that with their workers, we are actually putting our communities at peril.

The overflow of big money in politics drowns out the voices of everyday people. That is part of the conundrum in America: The more money you have the more speech you have. That leaves everyday people out of the equation.

I'm very humbled by the fact that grassroots efforts are rising up all over the country, but particularly in my home state of Ohio. I barely have words. To know that so many people across the state, from the rural areas to the urban areas, see something in my leadership and really believe I am someone for the people means a lot to me. That's how I want people to see me and my public service.

The better a work environment is, the better it is for the employer - not just the employee.

We are going to have to do some real soul searching as a country and try to bring America together, because it is divided.

We have an obligation to each other to not only push our politicians, but to push companies to do right by their workers. They wouldn't even have successful companies without their workers. They are the glue that keeps things together. How, in the 21st century, we have mega-corporations that have lost sight of that boggles my mind.

Women should not need a permission slip from government to take care of their own reproductive health.

We can't make America great again without love, without hope, without justice, without peace and without an acknowledgement that the fear that was stoked not only by President-Elect Trump's campaign, but also a lot of fear was stoked by Democrats as well, but there are people who are really fearful.

Workers should have a right to sit across from management to collectively bargain about their work conditions, their wages, and the future direction of the company. To me, that's just a humane thing to do. It is unacceptable in the 21st century to have companies not want to do that with their employees and create a great work environment.

If a mother or a caregiver does not have a job that pays a living wage and they cannot afford child care, that is unacceptable.

In terms of President Trump, I really do hope that he does accomplish some of the things he said on the campaign trail. If he is willing to make investments in infrastructure, but not on the backs of the middle class and the working class, and put people back to work, that would be a good thing. If he's serious about making Obamacare better, and not pulling the rug out from 20 million Americans who benefit from it, that would be a good thing too.

In America, the 1 percent and the 10 percent are doing just fine, but the people who are bearing the brunt of this economy are the ones who suffer.

We cannot deny that people are suffering, and they are making that suffering known at the ballot box.

When you win, you can afford to be gracious, you can afford to have a little more mercy.

A lot of people are suffering in America.

I stand for all people even if it causes me political heartburn - and I'm going to do that no matter what my future holds.

We need groups like the Women's March reminding elected officials that they have a responsibility to create pathways of opportunity, and if - and when - they aren't doing that, everyday people are going to put a little "extra" on their ordinary and extraordinary things will happen. At this moment, the not-so-quiet voices rumbling across the country and the world are saying we absolutely and unequivocally deserve better.

The Rust Belt has suffered a lot because of trade deals.

Democrats have lost over 1,000 seats since 2009. It's very easy for people to get up in arms about Mr. Trump, but the fact of the matter is that the Democrats took their eye off the ball starting in 2009.

We need people to fight back. So many people are depressed, and they've become preoccupied with the negatives of this [Donald Trump] presidency. That can cripple people mentally.