A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.
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People For Supporter,
Yesterday’s prime time hearing of the January 6 Select Committee was
riveting – exposing critical new information not only about how close we
were to a coup d’etat on that day of infamy, but also about the grave and
growing threat we’re up against right now and going into the elections
this fall.
Trump’s dereliction of duty was startling – and his inaction was a direct
part of the effort to stop the certification of the election results. The
disgraced former president was ready and willing to let his own vice
president be captured by the mob – and they came frighteningly close to
doing so. Congressional leaders of both parties feared for their lives,
and Trump simply refused to take any action to quell the violence.
Rachel Maddow and others noted in their post-hearing coverage that Trump
wasn’t refusing to call off the mob because he was overwhelmed; he was
essentially leading the operation he had called his supporters to
Washington to execute, and with every minute he refused to call off the
mob, he was in fact actively encouraging it. Trump was told repeatedly and
KNEW that he was the one person who could get the mob to stand down, but
he wanted the mob to be successful in stopping Congress’s certification.
If not for the determination of congressional leaders of both parties to
do their constitutional duty and certify the election results, it might
have worked.
And he still won’t let go of the Big Lie. We all saw the outtakes where he
simply could not bring himself to admit that he lost. Tragically, the Big
Lie has metastasized down to the state and local levels, and its
proponents are headed to general election ballots this fall all around the
country:
* Dan Cox, who the outgoing Republican governor has called a “Q-Anon
whackjob,” was chosen by Republican voters as their nominee for
Maryland’s gubernatorial race. Additionally in Maryland,
neo-Confederate and Christian nationalist Michael Peroutka, who
believes the only legitimate role for government is enforcing his view
of God’s law, secured the Republican nomination for Attorney General.
* Arizona Republicans voted for Mark Finchem, a member of the violent
extremist Oath Keepers group, to be their nominee for Secretary of
State; the Trump-endorsed Finchem was part of the mob just outside the
Capitol on January 6th.
* Trumpist candidates for Senate – such as Herschel Walker in Georgia,
JD Vance in Ohio and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania – have also touted the
Big Lie and won their primaries; if these candidates win in November,
all hopes of passing any progressive legislation in the next Congress
are likely to vanish.
* In Pennsylvania, election denier Doug Mastriano mobilized QAnon
conspiracy theorists, hard-core Christian nationalists, and die-hard
Trumpists on his way to winning the Republican nomination for
governor.
Here are four things you can do right now.
1. Take action to spread the word to community members and local elected
officials near you about the threat to our democracy – [ [link removed] ]our activist
toolkit is here.
2. Work with pro-democracy elected officials in your area to pass
resolutions putting local governments on record in support of honoring
the bedrock foundation of our democracy: respecting the will of the
voters. [ [link removed] ]Our local elected official toolkit is here.
3. [ [link removed] ]Sign up with Vote Forward for the Big Send project and send letters
to boost voter turnout this November.
4. [ [link removed] ]Write a letter to the editor and push journalists to do their job
this election season by getting candidates on the record either
supporting or refuting the Big Lie, and denouncing (or not) the mob
violence of January 6.
I’m not going to sugarcoat things – this is not going to be an
easy fight. But it’s one we all must engage in now, before it’s too late.
So I hope you’ll get involved, and I thank you in advance for your efforts
to preserve truth, justice and the American Way – for all.
Sincerely,
Ben Jealous, President
P.S. Even Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the two Republicans on the Jan 6
committee, noted last night that the attempted overthrow of our democracy
by Trump and his supporters didn't end on January 6. It continues to this
day, with [ [link removed] ]Trump still trying to convince state lawmakers to decertify
their states' 2020 election results. And, as our Right Wing Watch project
[ [link removed] ]noted last month, far-right movement leaders are laying out plans for
when they "take the reins of power" following the 2024 presidential
election -- which they fully expect to "win" once they're able to seize
control of elections in key states via this year's midterms.
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