Dear John,

I’ve been directly involved in government shutdowns, including one when I was secretary of labor.

But this shutdown — the one that began yesterday morning — is radically different.

Republicans want Democrats to rubber-stamp the nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, which will cause insurance premiums to skyrocket and strip health care from 15 million Americans. Not one Democrat voted for the Big Ugly Bill, and they shouldn’t go along with it now.

But there’s a deeper issue at stake, one that goes to the very heart of our constitutional system of government. As a practical matter, Trump has been illegally shutting down the government since the moment he was sworn in.

Trump effectively shut down U.S. AID, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. He gave the heave-ho to hundreds of thousands of federal employees, crippling the Department of Education, Centers for Disease Control, Environmental Protection Agency, and Food and Drug Administration.

Now, he’s preparing a new round of mass layoffs, and the Republicans say that Democrats are to blame for all of this.

Hogwash.

Inequality Media Civic Action is mobilizing all of our resources across social media to call out Trump’s lies and make sure people know who’s to blame, and it’s working. Our posts and videos are reaching over 22 million people a week, and scientific testing shows that people who see our videos are moving in our direction by as much as SIXTEEN points.

This is a make-or-break moment. Will you make a donation to help educate the public and ensure that the American people understand why Democrats are fighting to defend our democracy and stop Trump’s brutal health care cuts?

Thank you,

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action