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 serves 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.

This week’s Trumptastrophe brings into focus Trump’s choice for Secretary
of State, Mike Pompeo, who exploited his position to lead a crusade to
promote Christian nationalist ideology, and the likelihood that someone
just as bad – if not worse – would likely fill that role if Trump were to
be reelected:

On March 13, 2018, Trump announced that then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo
would be his next Secretary of State. Pompeo eventually became known as
the “[ [link removed] ]most Trumpy” of Cabinet members, and [ [link removed] ]possibly the [ [link removed] ]worst
secretary of state in history. As the Trump administration came to a
close, Douglas Alexander of Harvard Kennedy School’s Future of Democracy
Project told the Los Angeles Times that Pompeo “seemed more of a democracy
denier than a democracy promoter, more rooted in domestic politics than
foreign policy.”

Pompeo’s rise paralleled the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism
of the right wing in general and MAGA movement in particular. As a member
of Congress, he had demonstrated [ [link removed] ]hostility to religious pluralism,
aligning himself with a pastor who delivered a prayer in the state
legislature criticizing America for having “worshipped other Gods and
called it multiculturalism.” He had a long [ [link removed] ]relationship with hard-right
anti-Muslim activists. Pompeo also used his position to [ [link removed] ]open doors for
[ [link removed] ]Ralph Drollinger and his Capitol Ministries to [ [link removed] ]set up operations in
foreign capitals designed to “disciple” public officials into Drollinger’s
right-wing biblical worldview.

Pompeo [ [link removed] ]affirmed his anti-LGBTQ positions during his confirmation
hearing, a foreshadowing of the ways he used his office to resist the
advance of legal protections for LGBTQ people around the globe. Right Wing
Watch [ [link removed] ]reported at the time on the Trump administration’s
[ [link removed] ]relentless efforts to build new anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ equality
coalitions, [ [link removed] ]partnering with authoritarian leaders including some of
the world’s most repressive regimes. That work built up to the October
2020 [ [link removed] ]launch of the so-called “Geneva Consensus,” which cloaks
restrictions on women’s rights and reproductive choice in the language of
women’s health. Foreign Policy magazine [ [link removed] ]concluded that the Trump
administration’s legacy was “a global alliance against women’s rights.”

Pompeo also created a Commission on Unalienable Rights to [ [link removed] ]advance the
vision of anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ strategist Robert George. Pompeo
declared that [ [link removed] ]religious liberty and property rights were the
“[ [link removed] ]foremost” rights, and >[ [link removed] ]said the commission would return U.S.
human rights policy to the “[ [link removed] ]Judeo-Christian tradition on which this
country was founded.” Human rights advocates were appalled by the
commission’s work, with the Council for Global Equality saying that a
draft report “hands dictators a roadmap to justify abuses based on their
culture, religion and national traditions.” One global human rights
advocate called the commission a “[ [link removed] ]gift” to “autocrats across the
world.”

Trump’s choice of Mike Pompeo to be his secretary of state is a warning
about how terrible a new Trump cabinet is likely to be:

* Disregard for Democracy: Pompeo publicly [ [link removed] ]defended Trump’s attempt
to hang onto power after losing the 2020 election, telling a reporter
it was “ridiculous” to ask whether Trump’s efforts undermined U.S.
standing to advocate for free and fair elections oversees. Pompeo also
[ [link removed] ]impeded preparations for a transition. Willingness to embrace
Trump’s damaging lies about the 2020 election is likely to be a
requirement for any administration official.
* Contempt for Government Employees: Morale at the State Department
plummeted under Pompeo, and career staff [ [link removed] ]left in droves, leaving
key positions vacant as the Trump administration came to a close.
Pompeo stood by when Trump’s team unfairly savaged U.S. Ambassador to
Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat. Trump has vowed to
obliterate the “deep state,” and his ally Vivek Ramaswamy vowed at
CPAC that “we” would fire 75 percent of federal bureaucrats.
* Lack of Ethics: Pompeo also demonstrated that he shared Trump’s
attitude that ethics rules were for other people. Pompeo and his wife
hosted, at [ [link removed] ]taxpayer expense, “elaborate, unpublicized” dinners
that other State Department officials believed were “essentially using
federal resources to cultivate a donor and supporter base for Pompeo’s
political ambitions,” as NBC [ [link removed] ]reported. Days before the 2020
Republican National Convention, Pompeo changed department rules—only
for himself—so that he could deliver a speech endorsing Trump, which
the Office of Special Counsel [ [link removed] ]determined was a violation of law.
The State Department Office of Inspector General [ [link removed] ]concluded after
Trump left office that [ [link removed] ]Pompeo and his wife had [ [link removed] ]inappropriately
used employees more than 100 times to do their personal business,
including taking care of their dog and addressing their personal
Christmas cards. Pompeo [ [link removed] ]resisted efforts to hold him accountable,
disrupting investigations and firing the department’s Inspector
General, an internal watchdog position. He also [ [link removed] ]stonewalled
congressional investigators.
* Hostility to Media: Pompeo followed his boss’s lead when it came to
the press. He [ [link removed] ]lashed out against veteran NPR journalist Mary
Louise Kelly when he didn’t like the questions she asked, and smeared
her by questioning her honesty and knowledge of geography. Trump and
his team are vowing to “go after” media outlets whose coverage they
don’t like.
* Defending Dictators: Pompeo backed the Saudi government after its
assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi,
[ [link removed] ]portraying Khashoggi as a terrorist sympathizer and “activist”
rather than a journalist. The recent Conservative Political Action
Conference was a love-fest for right-wing authoritarian politicians
and a call to give Trump the power he craves.

Trump has made it clear that in a new administration he will surround
himself only with people who are absolutely loyal to him and committed to
the MAGA movement—people like anti-immigrant extremist Stephen Miller. The
Heritage Foundation and its [ [link removed] ]Project 2025 are pre-vetting thousands of
MAGA-minded activists to flood the federal government and overwhelm
institutional and legal checks and balances, giving Trump near-dictatorial
powers to advance the right wing’s destructive agenda.

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.

For members who are interested in sharing the weekly Trumptastrophe
series, you can [ [link removed] ]find all previous editions on our website! This post
will be published by Thursday so you can share with your friends and
family and remind them of the importance of ensuring that Trump is
defeated again this November.

[ [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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