John Washington III Asks Politicians Who Claim to Work for the People: Where Is the Fight?

Presidential candidate John Washington III challenged politicians who campaign on working for the people, asking a question he repeated throughout a written statement on Tuesday: “How can you claim to work for the people when you never fight for the people?”

John Washington III wrote that every election season brings the same lines - “I'm working for the people,” “I'm fighting for the people,” “I'm here to represent the people” - and then asked, “But my question is, where is the fight?” When police officers abuse their authority or engage in corruption, he asked, where are the politicians who claim to represent the people, and why are they not fighting to hold corrupt officers accountable or standing up for the citizens who put them in office?

John Washington III then turned to property taxes. Politicians always talk about lowering property taxes, he wrote, but never seriously discuss ending property taxes on the homes people own and live in. He asked why a family should spend 20 or 30 years paying off a home and then keep paying property taxes on that same home for the rest of their lives. “When do the people actually get to own what they worked their entire lives to pay for?” he wrote.

John Washington III also asked how a politician can campaign on lowering property taxes, get elected, and then vote for tax increases - “How is that fighting for the people? How is that representing the people?” - and how many citizens even know what is being voted on when those decisions are made. “Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? Where is the representation?” he wrote.

“You cannot stand in front of cameras during election season claiming you're fighting for the people, then get into office and ignore the very issues affecting their everyday lives,” John Washington III wrote. “If you work for the people, then why aren't you fighting for the people?”