This post first appeared at Bill​Moy​ers​.com.

We will regularly hold hearings around the country to listen to what you have to say, especially in the regions where so much economic hardship and personal loss have resulted in millions of voters sending up a cry for change, no matter the messenger.

Imag­ine that a day or two before Don­ald Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion, Hillary Clin­ton, as the can­di­date who received the great­est num­ber of votes — and after a peri­od of per­son­al reflec­tion and eval­u­a­tion — address­es the nation.

My Fel­low Americans:

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 20th, Don­ald Trump will be inau­gu­rat­ed as the 45th pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. As man­dat­ed by our Con­sti­tu­tion, he received a major­i­ty of the votes in the Elec­toral Col­lege and thus for the next four years will be giv­en the pow­ers and respon­si­bil­i­ties of our nation’s chief executive.

But I believe that I, too, have a man­date, one giv­en to me by the 65 mil­lion of you who sup­port­ed me over Don­ald Trump in the pop­u­lar vote, some 2.6 mil­lion votes more than he received.

If we are to con­tin­ue as a democ­ra­cy, for the next four years and beyond, those voic­es can­not stay silent.

I urge every one of you who vot­ed for me to help express that man­date and make sure our voic­es are heard. As each of them comes up for re-elec­tion, we will field can­di­dates to run against Don­ald Trump and his friends in Con­gress and the state­hous­es, and we will run against them hard. But until then, let us pre­pare by join­ing togeth­er as a move­ment and cre­at­ing the con­stituen­cy of what will be, in effect, a shad­ow gov­ern­ment — one that will serve to track and respond to every sin­gle bad action under­tak­en by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and its mono­lith­ic Congress.

This shad­ow gov­ern­ment will forth­right­ly express its oppo­si­tion to such actions and not only call them out as the dam­ag­ing pol­i­cy they are, but also offer con­struc­tive alter­na­tives that we believe will serve and advance the prop­er agen­da for our nation. No pro­pos­al or exec­u­tive action will go unan­swered. We’ll even voice sup­port if it’s war­rant­ed — but I fear so far there is lit­tle evi­dence that will be the case.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, this fol­lows the British tra­di­tion of a shad­ow gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed by the par­ty in oppo­si­tion that mon­i­tors the rul­ing par­ty and cre­ates greater trans­paren­cy, encour­ag­ing an hon­est dia­logue based on facts and a thor­ough knowl­edge of his­to­ry and pol­i­cy. Our shad­ow gov­ern­ment will reflect the expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of a core group of men and women who under­stand how pol­i­cy is made in Wash­ing­ton, but it will also call on the wis­dom and expe­ri­ence of elect­ed may­ors, state leg­is­la­tors, pub­lic ser­vants, activists and orga­niz­ers who know the needs of our munic­i­pal­i­ties, coun­ties and states across the country.

I pro­pose that for every Cab­i­net offi­cer named by Don­ald Trump and con­firmed by the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, we in the oppo­si­tion will have a shad­ow cab­i­net mem­ber who will mon­i­tor the work of that depart­ment and com­ment as needed.

Con­sid­er one exam­ple: Pres­i­dent-elect Trump has named Tom Price, a U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Geor­gia, to be sec­re­tary of health and human ser­vices. He wants to repeal the Afford­able Care Act, which now offers health cov­er­age to more than 20 mil­lion Amer­i­cans who have nev­er had it before. Whomev­er we select as our shad­ow sec­re­tary of health and human ser­vices will speak out against repeal — but should Sec­re­tary Price rec­og­nize real­i­ty once he is con­firmed and offer changes or alter­na­tives that make sense and do the most good for the peo­ple, the shad­ow sec­re­tary will voice support.

What’s more, our oppo­si­tion will be vocal against any attempt to pri­va­tize Medicare, which some lead­ers of Don­ald Trump’s par­ty have announced as a major and imme­di­ate goal. As a gen­er­al prin­ci­ple, the shad­ow sec­re­tary would urge that the Unit­ed States move clos­er to a sin­gle-pay­er sys­tem, a Medicare-for-all health care like those in so many oth­er coun­tries that would be more equi­table, save lives and cre­ate a health­i­er, more pros­per­ous soci­ety. Does this run con­tra­dic­to­ry to what I sup­port­ed dur­ing my cam­paign? Yes, it does. I was on the wrong side of the issue. Most of us are famil­iar with St. Augustine’s obser­va­tion that it is human to err; few are aware that he went on to say: ​“It is dev­il­ish to remain will­ful­ly in error.”

Our shad­ow sec­re­tary of state and sec­re­tary of defense will sup­port America’s inter­ests abroad, remain true to our long-term rela­tion­ships with NATO mem­bers and oth­er allies, and con­stant­ly work toward peace. While pro­tect­ing our­selves from ter­ror, we will con­tin­ue to be a nation of immi­grants that wel­comes those who come to us in gen­uine pur­suit of lib­er­ty and a fresh start.

Nor will the dog whis­tles of hatred and prej­u­dice that haunt­ed the cam­paign and the weeks after go unchal­lenged. Our shad­ow depart­ment of jus­tice will con­tin­ue the fight for civ­il rights and vot­ing rights that the incom­ing admin­is­tra­tion threat­ens to sus­pend. We will not let dis­crim­i­na­tion destroy our country.

We will have a shad­ow sec­re­tary of the trea­sury, a shad­ow sec­re­tary of health and human ser­vices, sec­re­tary of edu­ca­tion and sec­re­tary of vet­er­ans’ affairs. Each and every Cab­i­net-lev­el post will have its equiv­a­lent, as will the heads of many of the top reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies, includ­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion and the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Commission.

A shad­ow ver­sion of the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion will speak out against attempts to return Wall Street to the reck­less days of spec­u­la­tion and behav­ior that led up to the ter­ri­ble finan­cial crash of 2007-08 and the reces­sion that fol­lowed. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma inher­it­ed both and worked hard to lead the recov­ery. Thanks to the poli­cies of the last sev­er­al years, Pres­i­dent-elect Trump will inher­it a thriv­ing econ­o­my very dif­fer­ent from the one the Repub­li­cans left behind in 2004 — and very dif­fer­ent from the one he described dur­ing his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. But I have said to my own friends on Wall Street, whom I came to know as con­stituents and donors when I served two terms in the Sen­ate, that I now firm­ly believe that ​“busi­ness as usu­al” will no longer do. A Unit­ed States of Gold­man Sachs and JPMor­gan Chase is unten­able if pros­per­i­ty is to reach Main Street instead of hit­ting a dead end on Wall Street.

The Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship trade deal is DOA. As can­di­dates, Don­ald Trump and I agreed on that. Our shad­ow U.S. trade rep­re­sen­ta­tive will favor inter­na­tion­al agree­ments that con­tin­ue the flow of goods and ser­vices among nations but pre­serve jobs while gen­er­at­ing new ones and pro­tect­ing our inter­ests. Fur­ther, we will mon­i­tor trans­ac­tions like the recent Trump-Pence deal with Car­ri­er, which keeps sev­er­al hun­dred jobs in Indi­ana while still los­ing hun­dreds of oth­ers to Mex­i­co in exchange for the kind of tax breaks that Don­ald Trump denounced dur­ing his cam­paign. We’ll tell the truth behind the pro­pa­gan­da and the optics, and work instead toward a healthy, thriv­ing atmos­phere for eco­nom­ic growth.

A shad­ow Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion will oppose media con­sol­i­da­tion and resist attempts by a Trump-era FCC to over­turn the net neu­tral­i­ty rul­ings that pro­tect a free and open inter­net. And a shad­ow Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency will make sure that any attempts to pol­lute clean air and water, to pay off indus­try with dereg­u­la­tion, will be unable to hide in the shad­ows away from the pub­lic eye.

You get the idea. In doing all of this, we hope to bol­ster the sys­tem of checks and bal­ances essen­tial to our repub­lic — a sys­tem that already is being bat­tered by an onslaught of irra­tional, author­i­tar­i­an impuls­es. In the face of the fake news epi­dem­ic that infects social media, we’ll make freely avail­able to the press and the pub­lic facts and data essen­tial to the func­tion­ing of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment in which all view­points are fair­ly heard.

We will call out the con­tin­u­ing scourge of mon­ey in pol­i­tics. Every one of us in pol­i­tics knows that even as we seek the votes of every­day Amer­i­cans dur­ing our cam­paigns, once elect­ed it is the big donors who get our ear. I am espe­cial­ly dis­turbed that Pres­i­dent-elect Trump has named as his White House coun­sel Don­ald McGahn, a man who has evis­cer­at­ed cam­paign finance reform in our nation. We also note that many of his Cab­i­net choic­es, includ­ing Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury-des­ig­nate Steve Mnuchin and Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion-des­ig­nate Bet­sy DeVos have donat­ed or bun­dled mil­lions for Don­ald Trump and the Repub­li­can Par­ty. As the Cen­ter for Respon­sive Pol­i­tics has not­ed, Ms. De Vos and her fam­i­ly have giv­en ​“at least $20.2 mil­lion to Repub­li­can can­di­dates, par­ty com­mit­tees, PACs and super PACs” — some of it to sen­a­tors, includ­ing Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, who will vote on her confirmation.

Our shad­ow gov­ern­ment will sup­port the rever­sal of Cit­i­zens Unit­ed and oth­er court deci­sions that have flood­ed pol­i­tics with rich people’s mon­ey. Dur­ing the recent cam­paign, I called over and again for revers­ing Cit­i­zens Unit­ed, and I real­ize now that my own fundrais­ing among the wealthy com­pro­mised my posi­tion. Again, I was on the wrong side. Sen. Bernie Sanders was on the right side. He showed all of us that you can mount an effec­tive nation­al cam­paign with small dona­tions from mil­lions of Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. That’s the way we must go. Our shad­ow gov­ern­ment will be ded­i­cat­ed to end­ing the buy­ing of Amer­i­ca by the superrich.

The Wash­ing­ton swamp that Don­ald Trump has pledged to emp­ty obvi­ous­ly will not be ​“drained,” giv­en his myr­i­ad con­flicts of inter­est, the ​“kitchen cab­i­net” of cor­po­rate CEOs he has cho­sen to advise him, and his sup­port of the same old revolv­ing door between cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca and gov­ern­ment. Our shad­ow gov­ern­ment will call out those who spin through that door — includ­ing mem­bers of Con­gress from both par­ties, who pass through it at dizzy­ing speeds to join lob­by and legal firms that use their influ­ence to line their pock­ets and swell the prof­its of the cor­po­ra­tions that hire them.

It’s time to end the crony cap­i­tal­ism that back­slaps and pays off its pals as it kicks the work­ing class to the curb. No more bribes in the form of tax cuts for big busi­ness. No more back­door deals — or threats — that briefly gen­er­ate jobs or only tem­porar­i­ly keep them in America.

Again, I know that some of you are say­ing that Hillary Clin­ton has been guilty of many of these things, too. And again I say, to a great degree, yes, it’s true. You know the words of the great Amer­i­can poet Walt Whit­man: ​“Do I con­tra­dict myself? Very well, then I con­tra­dict myself.” But I want to go deep­er than that, and say that when you lose a cam­paign for the pres­i­den­cy, despite receiv­ing mil­lions more votes than your oppo­nent, you ask your­self: ​“Where did I go wrong? How was I tone deaf? Why couldn’t I reach the peo­ple who doubt­ed me and con­vince them I was on their side?” I see clear­ly now that I sim­ply didn’t under­stand or appre­ci­ate the full extent of people’s frus­tra­tion with how lop­sided our polit­i­cal sys­tem is in favor of priv­i­lege, or how the inequal­i­ty in our econ­o­my has dev­as­tat­ed their own lives and their children’s futures. It is the great­est mis­take of my polit­i­cal career.

I’d like to think I have learned from this last cam­paign how and why my par­ty and our nation have gone wrong. It’s the painful les­son of my long career in pub­lic ser­vice, and I now take to heart the words of his­to­ri­an Mark Mazow­er, who has said: ​“The polit­i­cal class has a very impov­er­ished his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry and as a result it has a very lim­it­ed imag­i­na­tion. It is by and large made up of peo­ple who do not see them­selves in pol­i­tics in order to effect sweep­ing change and so they tend to oper­ate very incre­men­tal­ly and very tech­no­crat­i­cal­ly. They’re very sus­pi­cious of vision and as a result what fills their brains is par­ty cal­cu­la­tion – which of course always occu­pies politi­cians but in the past coex­ist­ed with big­ger things.”

This must end. Our shad­ow gov­ern­ment will be devot­ed to the vision of big­ger things and a bet­ter Amer­i­ca for all. All of you will be able check our progress. And we will reg­u­lar­ly hold hear­ings around the coun­try to lis­ten to what you have to say, espe­cial­ly in the regions where so much eco­nom­ic hard­ship and per­son­al loss have result­ed in mil­lions of vot­ers send­ing up a cry for change, no mat­ter the messenger.

In the imme­di­ate days to come, we will ham­mer out the details on how best to choose and orga­nize this watch­dog gov­ern­ment. I hope you will join with me and offer your thoughts as we iden­ti­fy those who care­ful­ly will watch the Don­ald Trump pres­i­den­cy and report to you his mis­steps, excess­es — and when called for, his successes.

Our eyes are upon you, Don­ald Trump. As we work to pro­tect and bet­ter our coun­try, you will hear from us, loud and clear. We will not be com­pla­cent and we will not allow the tram­pling of our repub­lic to go unchallenged.

Thank you. May God bless — and save — America.