Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday, after being trounced in state after state on Super Tuesday, Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential race. With no opponents left, Donald Trump is now officially the presumptive nominee.
John, if you were waiting until the general election began to get involved or if you were hoping that Trump would somehow be stopped during the primaries, it's not going to happen. The general election has begun, and Trump will be on the ballot in November.
There is no other option: We must do everything we can to stop him. MoveOn is running an innovative, data-driven $32 million program to do just that, but we can do it only with your help. Please, if you are able, take this opportunity to get off the sidelines and start a $5 monthly donation to MoveOn today to power and sustain our campaign to defeat Trump and defend democracy.
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Fascism is not a word we throw around lightly, but it is the reality we are facing if Trump wins a second term.
It doesn't just mean right-wing extremism; instead, fascism is a well-defined set of ideas that center on providing a dictatorial leader with enormous power while also ...
Rejecting democracy and the rule of law.
By refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election, Trump has already made it clear that he does not believe in our democracy.1 He has also promised to change government rules in ways that would allow him to unilaterally fire thousands of government workers he deems "disloyal" and install those who will do his bidding, the law be damned.2
Defining one racial or religious group as superior to all others.
He has fully embraced white Christian nationalism, a political movement that seeks to turn the United States into an extremist Christian theocracy; has said that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country"; and even echoed Adolf Hitler by referring to his political opponents as "vermin."3,4
Fomenting public rage by creating scapegoats and spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about them.
Trump has worked to convince his supporters not to trust the mainstream media, priming them to reject the truth and accept a twisted version of reality that he weaves for his own benefit. He has repeatedly denied science and last week declared that he would withhold federal funding from schools that require childhood vaccinations.5 And, of course, he encouraged the deadly violence during the January 6 insurrection.6
Relying on brute strength and violence to accomplish their goals.
During the uprisings following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Trump reportedly believed that the protests made him look weak and asked his Joint Chiefs of Staff to have the military "just shoot [the protestors] in the legs or something."7 In a second term, he has also promised to invoke the Insurrection Act to give him the authority to mass-arrest peaceful protestors and has vowed to send the U.S. Army into large Democratically controlled cities to do his bidding.
Most frighteningly, when asked about the war in Gaza last week, Trump said ominously that "you've got to finish the problem," indicating he would support increasing attacks on Palestinians in the region.8
Reinforcing a patriarchal power structure by stripping rights away from women, gender-nonconforming, trans, and nonbinary people.
Donald Trump has repeatedly bragged about being responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade by packing the Supreme Court with corrupt MAGA loyalists, and if elected, he will sign a federal abortion ban into law.9 He has also pledged to ban gender-affirming care for minors nationwide and supports the MAGA book bans that are attempting to silence LGBTQ+ voices and enforce a strict gender binary on children.10
There is no other word to describe all of these policies than fascism. Which is why we have to do whatever we can to stop Trump from carrying out his plans to dismantle our democracy by denying him a second term.
MoveOn spent months doing research and working with our data scientists to develop an ambitious electoral strategy to target the exact voters that we need to turn out in order to win—11 million of them, to be exact. We call them "surge voters," or voters who first became active after the 2016 election but have not voted consistently since then. According to The New York Times, these voters have been behind nearly every win for Democrats in the last two election cycles, which is why we have laser-focused on them for 2024.
Unlike some other organizations, we are not indiscriminately spending money to blast out ads and hope that a tiny fraction of viewers are persuaded to vote. No, we are spending money only on evidence-based tactics that we know will have the highest impact, which allows us to run a far more effective campaign on a tighter budget.
But that budget still comes from members like you, which is why we have to ask: Can you help stop America's march toward fascism by making a monthly $5 gift to MoveOn's 2024 election campaign?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Together, we can stop Donald Trump, protect our democracy, and build a world where everyone can thrive.
Thanks for all you do.
–Mohammad, Alexis, Kathy, Chris, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Trump's drumbeat of lies about the 2020 election keeps getting louder. Here are the facts," AP News, August 27, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/188055?t=6&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
2. "Trump wants to fire thousands of government workers. Liberals are preparing to fight back if he wins," AP News, February 16, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/188056?t=8&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
3. "The overlap of Trumpism and Christian nationalism," The Washington Post, February 29, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/188057?t=10&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
4. "Why Trump's authoritarian language about 'vermin' matters," NPR, November 17, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/187569?t=12&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
5. "Trump vows to cut federal funds for schools with vaccine mandates," MSNBC, March 5, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/188058?t=14&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
6. "Read Trump's Jan. 6 Speech, A Key Part Of Impeachment Trial," NPR, February 10, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/166680?t=16&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
7. "Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters," NPR, May 9, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/188059?t=18&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
8. "Trump breaks silence on Israel's military campaign in Gaza: 'Finish the problem,'" NBC News, March 5, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/188060?t=20&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
9. "Donald Trump, Who Regularly Takes Credit for Killing Roe v. Wade, Suggests He's Open to a National Abortion Ban," Vanity Fair, March 1, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/188061?t=22&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
10. "Trump unveils sweeping attack on trans rights," Axios, January 31, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/188062?t=24&akid=377104%2E40999114%2EvD4PCT
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MAGA movement's book bans have forced teachers and librarians across the country to remove books from their shelves and censor what young people can learn. MoveOn is fighting back, including by filling a "Banned Bookmobile" with books that the far right has banned and driving it to key cities and towns to raise the visibility of book bans, hand out banned books for free, and bring people together to stop censorship. To keep up the fight against book bans and the MAGA politicians who support them, we need your help.
Will you start a monthly gift to power and sustain MoveOn's critical work?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
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