There’s more desire to talk about the Democratic Party being a working-class party than at any point over the last decade or more. There’s more conversation about oligarchy. But how does a recognition that this oligarchy, this billionaire class, runs our politics and economic system then change how we conceive of the DNC?

When I looked at the field of DNC candidates, listening to people talk about how we have to be a working-class party, how we have to take on the corruption of the elites, I was like, “Great, but what are you going to do?” There was so little ambition on that score, and I found myself frustrated. I have some specific ideas of what we could do, and instead of just shouting into the wind, I’ll get into this race and offer them.

Let’s start with this: if you’re a member of the Democratic Party, you are on the email list of the Democratic National Committee. What is membership? Right now, all it means is you’re an online contributor. You send us a check every now and again, and that’s it. There’s nothing asked of you. Being a member of the Democratic Party needs to mean something very different in an oligarchic age in which the powerful ruling elite run this country.

What is our power? Our power has to be people. We have to be a people’s party. If you want to remake the brand to engage working-class people who feel like the party doesn’t stick its necks out for them, then we have to change the way we operate.

When the Teamsters go on strike against Amazon, we are going to send information out to our universe. We’re going to recruit people to stand in solidarity with them. When there are communities across the United States trying to cancel medical debt in this country, do we recognize it? Do we say anything? Do we support them? Yes, we should. If you’re fighting unjust utility rate hikes from greedy utility monopolies, we could organize members to go to the town council meeting, the next open commission hearing that they’ve got, and raise our voices.

We’ve gotten so anemic in our willingness to use the bully pulpits we have. The Bernie campaigns were trying to change the consciousness of America — particularly in a broken media environment in which, if Amazon workers are trying to build a union at a warehouse in, say, North Carolina, how much attention are they going to get right now? Because of the way our media is constructed, there is no incentive for a lot of the major outlets to give them time and attention for it. The DNC should fill the gap.

We are not getting enough working-class candidates. Can we get to minimum levels of funding for down-ballot candidates in a general election? Can we guarantee services to all candidates such that we would encourage working-class people to run?

This is a moment of cultural decay in America that is affiliated with the growth of wealth and income inequality. When you have this great wealth and income inequality, a sense of powerlessness and fatigue and exhaustion grows. There’s a sense that you can’t do anything to fight the powers that be. I know where that feeling is coming from, trust me.

What I would say to the working-class people who feel that way is that the only way you take on great power and wealth is through structures and institutions that fight for people.

Unions are structured institutions that say, “Your power is going to be greater and amplified if we do this together.” If you try to fight Facebook on your own, or United Health Group on your own, good luck to you.

But we also have to face people’s decline of trust. They don’t believe that an institution like the Democratic Party could ever be led with any degree of integrity of fighting in service of others beyond themselves.

This is at the core of why I’m running, because I feel like I am comfortable and ready to step up against corporate power. This is our brand, this is our conviction, this is our orientation, and we have a job to do in which we build up our Democratic Party around a working-class ethos. When you see that we have more grassroots donations, when you see that more people are signing up and being in community with us, you’re going to come along for this ride.

Working-class people are looking at our political system and asking, “Who’s calling the shots? Who’s running this place?” Too often, it isn’t people with conviction and integrity. It’s people with money and influence who are guiding large institutions for their own selfish motives.

At the end of the day, the Democratic National Committee’s job is to win elections. We’re licking our wounds from having lost in significant ways and lost working-class people across all dimensions, young, old, every race, gender — everything. If not now, when do you want to reassess? The Democratic Party is not meeting the bar. If you want to build an institution structure that is purposely designed to win elections, then I’m asking you to challenge the way you have previously thought about it.

To your point, this election is only 450 people, this constellation of people who have run for these elections and/or been appointed by President Joe Biden to seats on the Democratic National Committee. I think there’s a shot that we have with a small group of people to say, “If we want to win elections, we have to retool this brand in a significantly bold way so that people pay attention to us again.”

That’s the case I want to make. It’s a different vision. I think we can win elections, but it would call for breaking the box on what you currently think the Democratic National Committee is supposed to do. If you like the status quo, there are plenty of options, from Martin O’Malley to Ben Wikler to Ken Martin. But if you want to send a message that we’re actually reassessing our brand and trying to send a message that things are going to change, I’m the only significant candidate who beats the bar there.

We have to own that there’s a higher bar set for us out there in the world. People feel like the Democratic Party has a proud lineage of fighting for the common person. And when they don’t see the party doing that, they are going to get angrier than they would at the Republicans, who are just out for themselves and their benefactors.

It requires honesty and a true orientation toward working-class fights. When we do that, we win.

When people don’t see the Democratic Party sticking its neck out and embracing the friction that is required in a rigged economy, they are not wrong or crazy to say, “Well, maybe Donald Trump is a more shake-it-up kind of person who’s upset at the rigged nature of government and rigged nature of the political system.”

I’m doing it the old-fashioned way: I’m calling, texting, emailing every single person one by one by one. Some people have asked, are you starting a PAC? A PAC allows you to raise money for the race. Who knows who those people you raise money from are. But then you spend that money to do a few things. You send mailers out to them. You buy them trinkets and signage and branded water bottles or whatever. You might hire some staff.

Then you also might fly in some of your votes, because sadly, it’s a situation where there are 450 delegates. Some of them may not have the means to get to DC for the final vote on February 1. So you may have to even fund that.

It’s crazy, right? It is quite a system. I did not form a PAC. I did not raise money. I could not in good conscience ask people to give money for that purpose.

I know what I’m up against. But I’m doing everything I can to lean into the strengths that I have. I think a lot of people do get that it would be great for the Democratic Party to say, “We have licked our wounds. We have come back. We are doing things very differently than we have in the past. Give us another look.” And I think I fit that bill better than anybody else.