Dear MoveOn member,
Last week, in the middle of Donald Trump's mind-bogglingly incompetent handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his approval rating hit 48%—his highest ever.1
This wasn't some bogus fly-by-night poll. It was the Washington Post-ABC News poll, one of only six polls rated A+ in the country, according to data expert Nate Silver.2 And it's part of a trend: Trump's polling averages have been shooting up across the board for weeks.3
It's infuriating but true: The coronavirus crisis is helping Trump politically.
Voters are rallying to their leader, while Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have almost completely disappeared from the news. But there's another problem: Voters don't know how badly Trump has botched the response to this crisis. They don't realize that his mistakes are the reason we have the most COVID-19 cases in the world.
We need to face facts: If things keep going this way, Trump is going to get re-elected. So we've decided to take emergency action. We're aiming to launch and sustain a massive digital ad campaign NOW AND THROUGH ELECTION SEASON, focused on voters who approve of Trump, to educate them about his part in creating this public health disaster.
Can you chip in $12 a month to help launch and sustain this critical ad campaign?
Yes, I'll chip in monthly to help stop Trump's rise in the polls and defeat him in November.
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Trump's poll numbers have risen steadily ever since the crisis broke, and his approval rating is now almost as high as Barack Obama's was at the same point in his presidency.4
How on Earth is that possible?! The reason is that in times of crisis, Americans want to rally around their president.
Remember George W. Bush and 9/11? Bush was warned about the attack in advance and did nothing. Then, he responded by attacking Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with it. It was a complete disaster, but people were scared. Bush took advantage and was re-elected.
That exact scenario could happen again.
There's another problem, though: People simply don't know how badly Trump has screwed this up. A majority of voters don't know that there still aren't enough tests for everyone with symptoms.5 Only a small number of voters know that Trump shut down the office of pandemic response or that he was warned during the presidential transition even before he was inaugurated that a pandemic like this one was only a matter of time.6
And Trump, a master media manipulator, is running daily press conferences filled with deceptions, self-congratulations, and misinformation—but these press conferences are being aired live, giving him direct access to make his sales pitch of lies and boasts to the American public (and then brag about the ratings, which are his real goal).
We need to make these facts common knowledge, and we're aiming to put up the kind of ad campaign it'll take to do that.
Now, some top Democrats are saying that Trump is so incompetent that all we have to do is stand aside and let him fall apart on his own.7
But we guarantee you: That will not work. It didn't work in 2016. It didn't work against Bush in 2004. And it won't work now.
The corporate media has proven time after time that it's totally incapable of holding Trump accountable. If our side doesn't aggressively prosecute the case, Trump will get re-elected. And worse yet, the pandemic response won't improve, and hundreds of thousands of people could die.
America can't survive four more years of this president. Which is why we're asking:
Can you chip in $12 a month to help launch and sustain the targeted ad campaign that is needed to make sure that voters know how badly Trump's botching the crisis response, stop his rise in the polls, and defeat him in November?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Chris, Amy, Allison, Isbah, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "The bad news for Trump, amid his coronavirus poll bump," The Washington Post, March 27, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119404?t=6&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
2. "FiveThirtyEight's Pollster Ratings," FiveThirtyEight, November 5, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/119383?t=8&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
3. "President Trump Job Approval," RealClearPolitics, accessed April 2, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119384?t=10&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
4. "How popular/unpopular is Donald Trump?" FiveThirtyEight, accessed April 2, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119397?t=12&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
5. "Top health official Fauci: People in US not easily getting coronavirus testing 'is a failing,'" The Hill, March 12, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119377?t=14&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
6. "Before Trump's inauguration, a warning: 'The worst influenza pandemic since 1918,'" Politico, March 16, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119373?t=16&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
7. "Ads attacking Trump's coronavirus response could backfire," Quartz, March 28, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119386?t=18&akid=260811%2E40999114%2EnBl4kA
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON
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