A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.
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Friend,

Welcome to our weekly “Trumptastrophe” email series, that will serve to
remind us all of the destructive policies, decisions, and actions we
encountered during the Trump presidency and the threats that he and others
in the MAGA movement still pose – and to keep those moments clear in our
memory as we fight to defeat Republican extremists during the upcoming
elections.

Quick programming note: this will be the last Trumptastrophe email for
2023 – we will resume the series in January, but you can review this and
all other Trumptastrophes by [ [link removed] ]visiting our blog (just in case you need
some evidence to settle any disputes at the holiday table or if you’d like
to share on social media). But until 2024, thank you for going with us on
this frightening, yet necessary journey to ground us in what we are all
fighting for in the year ahead.

This week’s recap brings into focus how Trump and his band of MAGA
loyalists sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election despite the
complete lack of evidence to support the “Big Lie” they continued to
spread. These extreme and anti-democratic efforts will no doubt be
intensified if Trump and his fellow right-wing fanatics ever retake the
White House in 2024:

By the middle of December 2020, Trump’s efforts to stay in power after
losing the presidential election were becoming increasingly desperate.

Dozens of court challenges filed by his lawyers and political allies had
been rejected by judges. Members of his own inner circle were telling him
that conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines were nonsense. Even
his lawyers [ [link removed] ]knew they had no evidence to back up their claims. And on
Friday, Dec. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court [ [link removed] ]rejected a lawsuit filed by the
state of Texas asking the justices to toss out the results in four
battleground states won by Joe Biden. The decision was the nail in the
coffin of Trump supporters’ hopes that the courts would intervene to hand
him the election.

But Trump and his power-at-all-costs allies were not done.

Just a few days before the Electoral College votes were cast in state
capitols, giving Biden a clear victory, a large group of right-wing
movement leaders signed an open letter [ [link removed] ]falsely declaring, “There is no
doubt President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential
election.” They urged legislators in six states to override voters and
name pro-Trump electors. When that didn’t happen, groups of Republican
leaders and MAGA activists falsely declared themselves their states’
legitimate electors.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters began giving clear [ [link removed] ]indications of the
violent thuggery to come on Jan. 6. At [ [link removed] ]a Dec. 12 rally organized by
Christian nationalists on the National Mall, [ [link removed] ]Oath Keepers founder
Stewart Rhodes threatened bloody civil war if Trump didn’t remain in
power.  At a [ [link removed] ]competing rally downtown, violence-prone groups like the
Proud Boys gathered with allies, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes led
the crowd in chants of “[ [link removed] ]Destroy the GOP!”

In the White House, tensions were rising between Trump and [ [link removed] ]staff who
wanted him to accept that he had lost. On December 18 came what Rep. Jamie
Raskin called the “[ [link removed] ]craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.” Former
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, conspiracy-spouting attorney
Sidney “Kraken” Powell, and right-wing businessman Patrick Byrne were
snuck into the White House for an unscheduled meeting with Trump. In a
meeting that [ [link removed] ]became superheated after White House attorneys joined,
the don’t-leave diehards [ [link removed] ]encouraged Trump to declare martial law,
seize election machines, and have the National Guard re-run the election.

After the hours-long meeting failed to give Trump what he wanted, he sent
his followers a call to arms, [ [link removed] ]tweeting, “Statistically impossible to
have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there,
will be wild!”

A few days later, on Dec. 21, eleven House Republicans met with Trump to
[ [link removed] ]plot efforts to block congressional certification of Biden’s victory;
six of them later sought pardons.

As the year came to a close, Trump sent [ [link removed] ]additional tweets on Dec. 27,
30, and Jan. 1 urging supporters to come to D.C. on the 6th. Trump, his
attorneys, [ [link removed] ]right-wing leaders, and loyalists in Congress schemed to
stop certification in Congress. Trump pressured Mike Pence to accept bogus
legal theories that he had the power to unilaterally refuse to accept
electors certified by swing states.

Trump relentlessly [ [link removed] ]bullied the Justice Department, while lawyer
Jeffrey Clark did the same from within, angling for Trump to make him
attorney general so he could force the DOJ to take Trump’s side.

In short, Trump [ [link removed] ]fomented the insurrection every step of the way. We
all know where his efforts led: a violent attempt to stop the peaceful
transfer of power, millions of Americans believing lies about election
fraud, and Trump continuously stoking his supporters’ grievances so they
will turn out to put him back in power.

Trump’s illegal attempts to overturn the election remind us how dangerous
he would be if he ever returns to power:

* Trump not only showed a willingness to lie, cheat, and steal an
election, he demanded that his supporters do the same. We can all be
grateful for officials in the White House and Justice Department who
placed their oaths to the Constitution above their personal loyalty to
Trump—and we should remember that Trump has vowed never to hire anyone
like that again.
* Officials who tried to help Trump overturn the election remain in his
inner circle, and are likely to be given powerful positions in a new
Trump term. For example, Jeffrey Clark, who tried to throw the weight
of the Justice Department behind Trump’s lies about voter fraud, is
still on Team Trump, working alongside other administration alumni at
Russ Vought’s Center for Renewing America.
* Trump continues to command nearly universal loyalty from Christian
nationalist leaders who helped [ [link removed] ]fuel the insurrection. As Right
Wing Watch has reported, “Scholars have [ [link removed] ]documented that Americans
who hold strongly Christian nationalist views are also [ [link removed] ]more
likely to support authoritarianism and to believe that [ [link removed] ]violence
may be justified in the pursuit of political goals. That explains why
Samuel Perry and Philip Gorski, authors of ‘The Flag and the Cross,’
describe Christian nationalism as ‘[ [link removed] ]a fundamental threat to
democracy.’”
* Trump’s pledge to rule as a dictator on Day 1 will face no resistance
from the MAGAfied right-wing political movement. More than 80
organizations have fallen in line with [ [link removed] ]Project 2025, a plan
hatched at the Heritage Foundation for Trump to purge thousands of
civil servants and replace them with MAGA true believers, do away with
safeguards protecting Justice Department law enforcement officials
from political pressure, and impose his unchecked will on every
executive branch and independent agency.

These are just some of the reasons we need YOU in this
fight. So, find your
favorite way to unwind after reading through this week’s recap, and then
make a plan for how you will fight back THIS week, this MONTH, this
election cycle.

[ [link removed] ]If you’d like to opt-out of this series but still continue receiving
our other email content, you can do so here >>

Thanks for all that you do to defeat Republican extremism.

– People For the American Way

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