PFAW Member,
The ways in which the Trump administration has failed our country by destroying our capability to respond to this public health crisis, spreading lies and dangerous disinformation, and continuing to botch the ongoing federal response on every level have been well documented and continue to multiply. But Trump’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic is not only proving to be one of the deadliest failures of leadership in U.S. history, it’s exposing, clear as day, the self-serving priorities of Trump and his political allies to retain power … it’s all about THEIR interests – political and financial – and NOT the interests of the American people.
Here are just a few recent examples but the list is way too long for any one email:
Trump and his allies are exploiting the crisis to erect new voter suppression tactics and are fighting every effort to help voters cast ballots. The most egregious example is what just happened in Wisconsin, where state Republicans – with the help of the right-wing majorities on both the Wisconsin and the U.S. Supreme Courts – just refused to push back an election or extend absentee voting, forcing voters to choose between breaking the state’s “stay at home” order and risking their health (and even lives) or be denied their right to vote.
Trump had just a week earlier commented that if basic election protection measures and funding to safeguard the vote were passed into law, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” essentially admitting that suppressing voter turnout is the only way Republicans are able to win. It’s no accident that this was Wisconsin, the state that may decide the presidential election this November.-
Trump just removed the head of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, established as an oversight body for the trillions of dollars in funds to be distributed per Congress’s coronavirus relief legislation. A few weeks ago, dismissing independent mechanisms for oversight and accountability related to relief funds, Trump said, “I’ll be the oversight.”
Speaking of evading oversight, Trump also took the opportunity amid our current national crisis to continue settling vendettas from his impeachment by firing the intelligence community’s inspector general.
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According to an email from the White House this week, Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka is now the administration’s “job czar,” and the White House is trying to credit her with securing $1.6 billion from U.S. banks in relief funds for small businesses, in an obvious attempt to snatch more credit and prestige for the Trump family in an election year.
In another attempt to consolidate power and protect his personal interests, Trump has given broad authority over the federal government’s response to his totally unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose ineptitude and ridiculous whims have frustrated scientists and other experts and have slowed the government’s response in key areas, during a fast-moving crisis in which wasting time has lethal consequences.
Trump continues to give preferential treatment to states with governors that flatter him and that he sees as important to his reelection.
And. The. List. Goes. On. (And on, and on, and on.)
We need to keep fighting for oversight and accountability – fighting like our democracy depends on it, because it does.
It’s also VITAL that future relief legislation from Congress include adequate resources and reforms to protect the right to vote in the 2020 election, since, even though it’s too early to tell exactly how, we know that November’s general election is almost sure to be disrupted in any way they can get away with.
We need to make sure that future relief bills also address the inequity that has made certain communities disproportionately vulnerable – in terms of both health and economics – in a crisis like this. For one example, we’re already seeing that Black communities are dying from coronavirus at higher rates and it’s clear that the reasons are systemic and long predate this crisis.
We need to keep exposing the shockingly immoral, corrupt, and dangerous actions of Trump Republicans at every level and the extreme right-wing judges who help enable them.
And, more than anything, we need to WIN in November and replace Trump Republicans up and down the ballot with strong progressive leaders who take seriously their commitment to defending the Constitution, American values, and Americans’ rights.
People For the American Way is adapting to the new landscape with new tools and methods to make sure we can have the biggest impact possible as a leader in all of these fights.
THANK YOU so much for standing with us, side by side, in these trying times. It’s your support that makes this work possible and it’s work that has never been more urgent or desperately needed.
We’ll get through this together. And, together, we’ll save our democracy, make it even stronger, and restore the American Way.
Stay safe,
Michael Keegan, President
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Do not reply directly to this e-mail. Please use [email protected]. Trouble viewing the email? THANK YOU for your support of People For the American Way! This email was sent to [email protected]. Reaching you over email is the best way we have to let you know about the ways you can take action to fight the Right Wing and defend our constitutional rights and values. If you have any thoughts, comments, or criticisms, or if there's a better email address at which to reach you, please let us know>> If you'd like to unsubscribe from our list, you can do that here>> Radical Right extremists are trying to turn back the clock on a century of advances in civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the social safety net and more… With Donald Trump in the White House, they’re waging an all-out assault on the fundamental pillars of our country – democracy, checks and balances, a fair and independent judicial branch, and core values like fairness, equality, and justice for all. PFAW is fighting back every day with: ✔ Grassroots organizing But we can’t do this vital work without the robust grassroots financial support of our members and activists.
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