Dear friends,
Historically, members of the Democratic and Republican parties have differed on policy, and in the pre-Trump era, managed to reconcile and compromise to find solutions for the American people who sent all of them to Congress to represent their needs. For example:
- The Civil Rights Act (1964) guaranteed legal rights previously denied to African-Americans.
- The Great Society Act (1965) expanded Social Security, created Medicare and Medicaid, and supported African-Americans’ economic development in the post-Jim Crow era.
- Endangered Species Act (1973) overwhelmingly supported on both sides to protect our fragile ecosystems.
- Food Stamp Program (1977) to address poverty and hunger in America.
- Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) changed everything for differently-abled citizens.
- Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP, 1997) helped kids of parents who made too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford health insurance.
- No Child Left Behind (2001) for equitable public school educational opportunities, regardless of family income or race.
All that compromise came to an end when Donald Trump and his Republican Congressional enablers co-opted the Republican Party, turning it into a MAGA cult. Republicans trip over themselves to make sure their “Dear Leader” approves of their votes in Congress.
They pretend that Republicans are acting normally. They are not. They support corrupt Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and other dictators instead of working with our allies in other countries that have democracies.
Mass shooting after mass shooting, MAGAs choose the gun lobby and their donations over the lives of our children. They ban books to keep kids ignorant, mock LGBTQ+ kids to try to shame and repress them, support conspiracy theories such as encouraging people to drink bleach and take horse pills during the pandemic to appease “Dear Leader”, and the doozy, Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court has tried to make women second-class citizens, trying to relegate them to “incubators” forced to carry fetuses to term that may not be viable or might kill the mother.
The differences are clear. A normal version of the Republican Party no longer exists. It is now a “cult of personality” under Trump. We need to take away their ability to harm our country. Our votes and activism CAN make that happen. We are the activists who will save our democracy, because we must.
We must elect Democrats to take back the majority in the House and restore order and sanity to the clown car MAGA has made of our government. We need a true Senate majority and to keep Biden/Harris in the White House. If we don’t, we likely will quickly begin to lose our freedoms to a malevolent narcissist who sees himself as “Supreme Leader.” The price to fight against a dictator and to win back our freedoms will be much higher after that. It’s much less costly to keep our democracy than to win it back.
Share our social media kit The Difference is Clear and sound the alarm!
Greedflation
Swing State Project’s and Pew Research’s recent polls confirm that the top issue driving voter concern is the economy, especially the cost of living. An unprecedented 73% of respondents said they are willing to risk the future of our democracy with the delusion that, if re-elected, somehow Trump would snap his fingers and miraculously make gas and grocery prices cheaper. 53% of the 4,000 people in one poll said they are more concerned about how President Biden would handle inflation in a second term than they are about Trump’s extremist support for a national ban on abortion and restricting birth control.
Some consumers seem to believe that the U.S. president has direct control over the cost of goods and services. Unfortunately, the powerful MAGA disinformation channels have persuaded numerous people that this falsehood is fact!
The truth is that government regulation to ensure compliance with safety, antitrust and consumer protection laws has been severely weakened by corrupt Republicans who answer to lobbyists and their moneyed overlords. The federal government has little direct control over the prices of companies’ goods and has been hindered by Republicans from enforcing anti-monopoly laws to ensure competition among companies that would lead to lower consumer prices.
Significant government intervention is now rare. For example, the Justice Department has asserted that the Live Nation/Ticketmaster deal is an illegal monopoly over U.S. live concerts and sporting events. Due to market competition among concert promoters in France, a Taylor Swift concert ticket in France might cost the equivalent of $200. However, such a Live Nation concert ticket in Indiana could cost $2,000 or more. Some Americans are even booking air travel to Europe to attend Swift concerts and report being able to book flights for their family, secure a hotel room for a week, and buy concert tickets for less than it costs for concert tickets in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the Inflation Reduction Act obtained by President Biden and Congressional Democrats in 2022 includes $369 billion to provide energy security, fight climate change, and create clean domestic manufacturing jobs. It also lowers healthcare costs by extending Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) subsidies for 3 years, expanding vaccine coverage, and reforming prescription drug pricing. The Inflation Reduction Act also raises revenue by establishing a 15% corporate minimum tax on companies with at least $1 billion in profits. Through revenue and savings, the Inflation Reduction Act reduces the deficit by a net $305 billion dollars. By means of this historic achievement, President Biden has done more than almost any other president to cause inflation in the U.S. to trend lower.
Use this toolkit and your power as a social media influencer to help expose the real culprit in pushing consumer costs higher – Greedflation!
Watch the video in this email and listen to CEOs tell their stockholders that their “customers might gripe at first, but because they like our products, they will accept the price increases.”
“We the ‘many’ are more powerful than the ‘money’!”
⸺ Heather Booth, Civil Rights Icon
Project 2025 Petition
It’s become alarmingly evident that Project 2025 isn’t just another political strategy, but rather an appalling scheme that intends to alter the very foundation of our democracy. Dating back to 2001, the seeds of this radical concept were sown by Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who declared he wanted to reduce government to a size it could be “drowned in a bathtub.” Echoing these sentiments, Trump, as a private citizen, hinted at drastically shrinking government operations as early as 2000.
Now, a collaboration of 350 right-wing organizations, led by the Heritage Foundation, has birthed a colossal 900+ page blueprint. Their goal? To transfigure the U.S. federal government into a Christian nationalist, authoritarian structure, especially if a Republican triumphs in the 2024 presidential election – or any subsequent election.
This is an emergency. Sign the petition to demand Congress stop Project 2025!
In June, 2024, U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA-02) announced the formation of a new working group designed to stop Project 2025, a far-right roadmap for convicted felon Trump to seize “supreme” powers and radically undermine reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, racial justice, free speech, and other democratic institutions and freedoms. The Stop Project 2025 Task Force will serve as a central hub for pro-democracy members of Congress, activists, and affected communities to coordinate on counteracting this dangerous rightwing plan to try to undermine our civil rights and democratic freedoms.
After mobilizing a grassroots movement to build the Blue Wave in 2018, defeat Trump in 2020, and stop the supposedly inevitable red wave in 2022, Indivisible has launched Project 2024: Majority Over MAGA, a nationwide program to build a new Democratic trifecta, reelect President Biden, and mobilize a majority against the anti-democracy, anti-abortion politics of MAGA. This program is rooted in the strength of the thousands of activists and voters nationwide and a groundbreaking voter engagement strategy.
Named the “Mandate for Leadership,” Project 2025 doesn’t just suggest changes. It brazenly calls for firing everyone at all government agencies, to be replaced by legions of right-wing loyalists. These loyalists would be brought to Washington, D.C., their mission clear – to rework the federal government in service to Trumpism and White Christian nationalism.
What are the pillars of Project 2025 that would sound the death knell for democratic freedoms?
- Loyalty Over Service: It plans to label every federal employee as “at will,” allowing their employment to be terminated if they aren’t loyal enough to the administration. The Heritage Foundation is even rumored to be amassing a database of 20,000 MAGA loyalists for this purpose.
- Centralizing Power: The plan seeks to place the entire U.S. federal government under direct presidential oversight, essentially abolishing the independence of key agencies like the Justice Department, FCC, FTC, and others.
- Constitutional Manipulation: Taking cues, ironically, from Karl Marx’s interpretation of the unitary executive theory, Project 2025 falsely posits that the U.S. Constitution’s Article Two vests all executive power in the president. The ramifications? Potentially, a chaotic and criminal regime operating as an authoritarian dictatorship.
- Environmental Reversals: It intends to halt all climate mitigation measures, nullify the Inflation Reduction Act, cut off support for climate change initiatives, and urge allies to boost fossil fuel use – all while backing extensive Arctic drilling.
- Religious Suppression: The blueprint leans towards annihilating constitutionally protected religious freedoms, advocating for a homogenized Christian nationalist viewpoint, and methodically erasing legal protections safeguarding our right to choose our religious practices.
- Rollbacks on Rights: From persecuting those who distribute abortion pills by mail, revoking the Department of Defense’s diversity and equity initiatives, to outlawing gender-affirming care for minors and curtailing their access to smartphones, Project 2025’s objectives are dangerously regressive.
Given this dangerous threat, our course of action must be clear. It’s a watershed moment for all Americans. We either fortify our democracy, ensuring it remains an emblem of freedom and justice, or watch it morph into a shadow of its former self, governed by unchecked autocratic rule.
We urge you to dive deep into the nefarious details of Project 2025, raise awareness, leverage social media, and ensure that the public and decision-makers understand the gravity of what’s at stake. By banding together and voting wisely, we can guarantee that our democratic foundations remain unshaken. Sign this petition now, and let’s rally against Project 2025!
