Giving Tuesday is tomorrow! Every year on Giving Tuesday, a growing number of people across the country and all around the world give to the causes near and dear to their hearts ... to organizations that do work that reflects their values. It's a major campaign for us -- absolutely vital to making our 2021 budget and starting 2022 strong. Please check out this message from People For founder Norman Lear and consider making your 3X-matched Giving Tuesday gift a day early. Dear People For Supporter, In the early 1980s, televangelists – let's call them the Religious Right version 1.0 – started filling the airwaves with bigoted rhetoric that challenged the faith and patriotism of anyone whose politics were not aligned with theirs. This was not the American Way. So I joined with the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, Father Theodore Hesburgh, and a host of civic, business and religious leaders to launch People For. We knew we needed to stand against the forces of division, hate, and intolerance that these far-right leaders were injecting into the political and cultural life of our nation. What we started over 40 years ago is now one of the leading progressive organizations defending true American values, and our community of supporters keeps getting bigger and stronger. But we need your support to counter the Far Right – an even more radical and dangerous version 2.0 of the same harmful forces we founded People For to fight. I shudder to think about America without People For the American Way, given the current threats to our democracy and our rights. Our mission is more important than ever and we were tailor-made for this moment. The Far Right is planning to base its 2022 election efforts on a playbook we at People For have seen – and defeated – before. Once again, they’re turning their attention to America’s schools as their preferred battleground, right down to book banning and, as recently reported about some local elected officials in Virginia, even book burning. So much is on the line in the year ahead and the direction of our country depends on our ability to expose, disrupt, and counter the Far Right’s efforts to divide us with lies and hate. Now more than ever I am proud of and thankful for People For. And I am grateful to you, for making its work possible. Sincerely, Norman Lear
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