I've had a chance to meet some of my civil rights heroes and, more recently, members of the young generation around [Barack] Obama, people in their teens and twenties who were determined to make history and who were too idealistic to think that what they were trying to do might be impossible. They proved that visionary pragmatism can win over the majority. That comes from a particular place in your heart that generation Y is offering America. They just can't afford to be naive now, in terms of the ferocity of the opposition.
Van JonesWell, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?
Van JonesIt's a tremendous challenge now: to make sure the green economy is big enough that there is enough labor demand that people who've been thrown out of work can be re-employed AND people who are new to the workforce can be employed. And that is going to be very difficult.
Van JonesIt is the Muslim community that has the best chance of stopping and checking and pushing back on people who are trying to politicize their own faith. So this attack on Islam is an attack on a great faith. It undermines the people who are trying to rescue this faith from these horrible people. It endangers every human being on earth because it accelerates the radicalization of some and emboldens the worst elements of that faith. So this fight is a fight I think that we have to take on.
Van JonesThe problem is that we didn't fight the way we should've fought. We made it be about [Donald Trump] and [Hillary Clinton] as opposed to making it be about us. If we had said this was a fight, not about "I'm with Her" but "I'm with Us" then maybe we would've had a different attitude toward her.
Van Jones