Dear MoveOn member,
MoveOn has just launched the first in a series of digital and television ads targeting key voters in battleground states that tell the real story of Donald Trump's abject failure in responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
In February, as Trump was wasting critical days by refusing to follow recommendations from intelligence and public health officials throughout his administration, he told his supporters at a rally not to worry about COVID-19, because "It looks like by April ... when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away."
As of today, over 1 million Americans have become sick and over 58,000 have lost their lives—the majority in the month of April.1
Trump's total failure to prepare for and respond to the pandemic started in January, and his claims have only become more unhinged since, culminating in the terrifying suggestion last week that patients be injected with household disinfectants to kill the virus.2
Compounding these incomprehensible claims have been Trump and his administration's utter lack of leadership to get Americans tested and to provide personal protective equipment and lifesaving machines like ventilators to frontline workers, forcing states into a bidding war; Trump's support of fringe movements to reopen the country far before it is safe to do so; and the administration's focus on protecting corporate bottom lines instead of the people most impacted by the crisis.
And yet, an analysis of Trump's press conferences since March 9 showed that Trump has praised his own response more than 600 times, and now his cronies at the Republican National Committee have dumped $1 million into an ad campaign praising his handling of the crisis.3,4
We cannot let Trump and his billionaire backers control the narrative and spread even more disinformation to voters. Which is why we are running our ads in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida. Specifically, MoveOn's analytics team is working to target our truthful messages to "high-potential voters"—new voters and voters of color who are often ignored by candidates but who have the power to tip the election if we can inspire them to cast a ballot.
In the same analysis that found Trump's more than 600 instances of self-congratulation, reporters discovered that conversely, he had expressed empathy or called for national unity only 160 times.5
While tens of thousands of Americans were dying, hundreds of thousands were becoming ill, and tens of millions were losing their jobs, Trump was most concerned with patting himself on the back and protecting his billionaire friends.
We cannot allow voters to forget that when they go to the polls this November in what will be the most consequential election of our lifetimes.
Thanks for all you do.
–Olga, Chris, Mary, Gabi, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "United States Coronavirus Cases," Worldometer, accessed April 28, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/119627?t=10&akid=262876%2E40999114%2EEHB6h4
2. "Trump's Disinfectant Remark Raises a Question About the 'Very Stable Genius,'" The New York Times, April 26, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/120740?t=12&akid=262876%2E40999114%2EEHB6h4
3. "260,000 Words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus," The New York Times, April 26, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/120741?t=14&akid=262876%2E40999114%2EEHB6h4
4. "RNC launches digital ads praising Trump on coronavirus," Politico, April 10, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/120742?t=16&akid=262876%2E40999114%2EEHB6h4
5. "260,000 Words, Full of Self-Praise, From Trump on the Virus," The New York Times, April 26, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/120741?t=18&akid=262876%2E40999114%2EEHB6h4
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?
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