Dear MoveOn member,
On Monday it was revealed that Elon Musk plans to give a pro-Trump Super PAC $45 million a month for the rest of the election cycle to help buy Trump's way back into the White House.1
The same Elon Musk who has repeatedly promoted antisemitism and has allowed hate speech to run rampant on Twitter.2 The same Elon Musk who has joined the chorus of forced-birth extremists spreading disinformation about birth control online.3 And the same Elon Musk who just this week announced that he would move the headquarters of SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) out of California to protest a new law passed in the state to help protect trans students.4
Of course he supports Donald Trump.
And while Trump may have locked up the bigoted billionaire vote in this election, we know the truth: Trump's policies are wildly unpopular, and if we can educate voters about them and persuade them to vote in November, he will lose in a landslide.
MoveOn has built the most strategic and innovative election program in our 25-year history, laser-focused on turning out the precise voters we need to win, but unlike Donald Trump, we don't have corrupt billionaires filling our coffers—we have you, John.
Campaigning looks different today than it did even four years ago. Trust in the media has plummeted, and more and more voters—particularly young voters—are foregoing national outlets and relying on social media to get their news.5 The problem is that right-wing misinformation is rampant on social media, and Trump and MAGA are dominant on platforms like TikTok.
We're going to change that.
MoveOn is investing heavily in targeted social media ads that have been rigorously tested and proven to be effective at persuading surge voters—young voters and voters who became more active in politics after 2016—in key battleground states and districts. We are working with MoveOn members and volunteers to record personal, heartfelt video ads that counter the lies being spread on the right and are proven to effectively break through and resonate with voters.
We ran a similar program during the 2018 midterm elections that succeeded in turning out tens of thousands of voters who otherwise would have stayed home—and in a race that is likely to be decided on the margins again this year, that could very well be the difference between winning and losing.
And we are recruiting a cadre of social media influences who have built-in audiences of surge voters to counteract Republican disinformation by spreading the word to their followers on platforms like TikTok about MAGA's authoritarian Project 2025 takeover plan, abortion rights, climate, and so much more.
We believe that messages like these from real people will be far more effective at turning out voters than spending millions of dollars on one generic TV ad that is blasted out indiscriminately and may influence only a tiny fraction of those who watch it.
MoveOn's team spent months researching and testing to ensure that every single piece of our election program was as strategic and impactful as possible, and we are confident that this work can propel us to victory.
Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and MAGA extremists may believe that they have the power to win and implement their dark, authoritarian vision for America.
But they have never been, and never will be, more powerful than the people.
And when we come together, we will win.
Thanks for all you do.
–Alexis, Mohammad, Amy, Kelsey, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Elon Musk plans to give $45 million a month to pro-Trump super PAC, WSJ reports," CNBC, July 16, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194514?t=5&akid=398397%2E40999114%2E_-cO8v
2. "White House criticises Elon Musk over 'hideous' antisemitic lie," BBC, November 17, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/194515?t=7&akid=398397%2E40999114%2E_-cO8v
3. "Why Elon Musk and so many others are talking about birth control right now," USA Today, March 8, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194516?t=9&akid=398397%2E40999114%2E_-cO8v
4. "Elon Musk says SpaceX and X headquarters moving to Texas, blames California trans student privacy law," CNBC, July 17, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/194517?t=11&akid=398397%2E40999114%2E_-cO8v
5. "Trust in Media," Pew Research Center, October 27, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/194518?t=13&akid=398397%2E40999114%2E_-cO8v
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.
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