“It’s going to be the most epic case of moral whiplash the world has ever seen. And it’s going to inspire the people around the world.”

They are not official members or designated surrogates of the campaign, but a potent and dynamic trio are among those showing up on the trail for Sen. Bernie Sanders these days, determined to tell all who will listen just how profound an opportunity voters in the United States now have before them: the chance to elect an unapologetic progressive and visionary to the most powerful elected office in the country at a time when people and the planet need a champion they can trust unlike any time in living memory.

Ahead of Monday’s official commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr., actor and activist John Cusack, journalist and public intellectual Naomi Klein, and writer and artist Molly Crabapple were among those who joined Sen. Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail in New Hampshire over the weekend to meet with voters and explain to rally-goers why their preferred candidate—coupled with the grassroots movement he now leads—represents something extremely rare in U.S. politics.

At a pair of rallies on Saturday—one in Exeter and another in Manchester—Cusack argued that Sanders stands in the great prophetic tradition of civil rights icons like MLK Jr., Fanny Lou Hammer, and Ella Baker as well as other warriors for social justice throughout U.S. history such as Eugene Debs, Phil and Daniel Berrigan, and Dorothy Day.

A writer and longtime activist in addition to his career as an actor, Cusack co-authored the book, along with Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, “Things that Can and Cannot Be Said,” and is also a founding board member of the Freedom  of the Press Foundation which advocates for journalist freedoms and free speech.

Cusack told the crowd in Manchester that what the Sanders campaign has undertaken is not isolated from the great social and labor movements of the past, but rather the continuation of an ongoing struggle against capitalist greed, militarism, racism, sexism, and the pervasive inequities that only a great many people joined together in community and solidarity can overcome.

When he came on the national political scene in the 1980’s, said Cusack, Sanders “said all the things that cannot be said—and he was absolutely fearless. This was a man with a deep and powerful connection to the truth—a person with remarkable courage—who proclaimed the absolute need for justice equality and dignity for all people.”

During his career since, Cusack continued, Sanders has told the nation “what we needed to hear, not what we wanted to hear.” And Cusack argues Sanders’ honesty is proof that he respects the American people.

“When a person respects you, they tell you the fuckin’ truth,” Cusack told the crowd in Exeter, though he immediately apologized for the language and jokingly wondered if the campaign—for which he is a volunteer—might fire him.

Like MLK Jr., Cusack argued in his speech, Sanders has taken positions—often lonely positions—unpopular in his day but prophetic for their time. Like Dr. King, Sanders “voiced the forbidden connections between capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism—yes, even global warming—the era of endless wars that he saw coming, and the war economies that [President Dwight] Eisenhower warned about.”

“When Bernie Sanders is in the White House, he is going to fight for us. And how do we know that? Because he has always fought for us.” —Molly Crabapple, artist and writer

For Cusack, it is the “deep and powerful connection to the truth” of Sanders that sets him apart.

“He spoke for the absolute need for justice and equality and dignity for all people,” said Cusack, and did so in a way that was “unrelentingly powerful in its moral clarity.”

Sanders has “offered a principled and visionary critique of American empire,” he added, and “publicly, loudly, and boldly rejected the hideous lie that uncheck greed and predatory capitalism—in all its cruelty—was good.”

For his consistency and steadfastness over the years, Cusack said it is clear that Sanders is “one of the true inheritors of the mantle of the great American voices for justice in America.”

“For 40 years we’ve endured class warfare from above,” Cusack said. “And for 40 years Bernie Sanders was there fighting back. And for four decades, Bernie was right—again and again and again.”

“We’ve never ever in our lifetimes had a true champion of social, economic, and climate justice this close to the White House,” Cusack added. Calling Sanders “a profile of courage, clarity, and consistency for 40 years,” he told the crowd it is crucial to understand that the senator’s critique of the “neoliberal period” the nation has been living through since Ronald Reagan has been spot on, and that unfortunately his “prophetic warnings have come to pass.”

But has “the world caught up to Bernie Sanders’ moral vision?” Cusack asked. “Well, that’s up to us.”

Commentators on social media noted just how unusual it is for surrogates to deliver such far-ranging critiques on behalf of their preferred candidate.

In remarks at an event in Conway, New Hampshire on Sunday afternoon, writer and artist Molly Crabapple—who has, in fact, drawn what the Green New Deal could and should look like—said, “I believe we have to be able to see the future we are fighting for.”

After denouncing Trump as a “reality TV show huckster”—someone who “stokes vile bigotry while he and his rich friends rob America blind”—Crabapple asked: “Do you know what beats the politics of hate? The politics of solidarity.”