Dear MoveOn member,
As a MoveOn member, you are part of a community helping to drive bold, high-impact campaigning. In this moment—in the face of an emboldened Trump administration and Republicans shamelessly attacking immigrant communities, the very values of our democracy, our bodily autonomy, and more—it's critical that we come together to speak out and fight back. And, it's important that we also take the time to lift up and appreciate our hard work and the impact we're making together.
In just the last few months, we hosted MoveOn's first-ever in-person presidential candidate forum, raised our voices in opposition to a disastrous war with Iran, held Donald Trump accountable for his abuses of power, fought to close immigrant concentration camps and keep families together, helped build momentum for bold action on climate change, and worked to secure reproductive freedom.
Tens of thousands of us mobilized to "Close the Camps."
Mothers, children, and families are immigrating to seek refuge and asylum in the United States. And the Trump administration is terrorizing them with its xenophobic policies and rhetoric. With partners in the immigration movement, MoveOn has been running an emergency campaign to close camps, keep families together, and push Congress to defund the agencies that cause fear and harm in immigrant communities.
- On Tuesday, July 2, as the news about inhumane conditions at Trump's immigrant concentration camps was breaking, MoveOn members led more than 175 #CloseTheCamps protests, with tens of thousands of participants gathering at local congressional offices. More than 800 letters were hand-delivered to members of Congress, ensuring they received our demands and feel the pressure to act. The actions generated significant national media coverage and had a tremendous presence on local TV, with a total of more than 1,600 TV hits. And they helped establish "Close the Camps" as a rallying cry that organizers and activists across the country continue to amplify.
- We produced hard-hitting video and social content to put Congress in the hot seat—demanding that members of Congress step up and rein in the Trump administration or face the outrage of their constituents. A video we produced in collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights was screened at the Human Rights Council in Geneva at an event focusing on the treatment of children being detained by federal immigration agencies.
- We brought the Statue of Liberty to Washington, D.C. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of the timeless promise our country has made to welcome those seeking refuge and a life in America. To serve as a reminder of this promise, MoveOn and a coalition of partners placed a replica of the statue in the nation's capital. For three days, our statue, built and designed by local artist César Maxit, stood in front of Union Station, in view of the Capitol, where people from all walks of life, including members of Congress, could see that America welcomes immigrants and refugees.
We stood up for reproductive freedom.
The right-wing crusade to shut down health centers and ban abortion in America is spreading like wildfire. MoveOn is part of a broad movement that's fighting back. In May, MoveOn, along with Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, NARAL, and others, organized hundreds of events to stop the bans and protect reproductive freedom. Tens of thousands of people, including many MoveOn members, took to the streets in 500 events nationwide to demonstrate grassroots opposition to the attacks on abortion rights. Along with marching in the streets, MoveOn members contributed more than $200,000 to the Yellowhammer Fund and more than $85,000 to the Gateway Women's Access Fund, which provide financial assistance to people who cannot afford the full cost of abortion care in Alabama and Missouri, respectively.
We campaigned hard to impeach Trump—and delivered the biggest petition in U.S. history in the process.
Trump and his administration have committed countless abuses of power—threatening the rights of communities across America and trampling on the Constitution, and angering millions of Americans in the process. MoveOn and allies have turned that outrage into action. In the largest online petition campaign in U.S. history, MoveOn and a coalition of progressive national advocacy partners delivered 10 million petition signatures to Congress urging the House of Representatives to start impeachment proceedings against Trump. That's more than the entire population of the cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston combined! We followed that up with a nationwide day of action on June 15 to push every member of Congress to act on behalf of constituents, country, and Constitution and begin impeachment now. And, as Robert Mueller prepares to testify before Congress this week, we are upping the pressure on Democrats to impeach Trump and stop his rampant abuses.
We fought to end the Washington war machine.
The war industry is back at it again. And the Trump administration—in order to lay the groundwork for another unnecessary and unjust war, this time with Iran—is using the same playbook that the George W. Bush administration used to launch the Iraq War. MoveOn has been producing content that recalls the severe costs of the Iraq War and draws clear the parallels between that disaster and the current warmongering playbook in Washington.
We also worked together to push Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority to decide when the U.S. fights a war—and were part of the successful effort to get Congress to vote to end to U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen, which is creating a humanitarian crisis. This legislation was vetoed by Trump—only his second veto—but moving this bill through both houses of Congress showed the strength of our movement. (Trump's other veto—against overturning his fake national emergency power grab—was also the result of an effort we helped muscle through Congress!)
While Trump and administration figures such as John Bolton angle to get us into another senseless war, the fact is that for far too long the basic needs of people in the U.S. have been swept under the rug, thanks to the prioritization of exorbitant Pentagon spending. The Pentagon's annual budget is a staggering $718 billion. Meanwhile, many in the U.S. lack access to basic health care, are drowning in student debt, or are living paycheck to paycheck. That's why MoveOn has called on the 2020 presidential candidates to pledge to cut at least $200 billion from the annual Pentagon budget and reinvest it in critical needs, such as education and averting catastrophic climate change.
We partnered with youth organizers fighting the climate crisis.
Efforts led by a younger generation, which knows its very future is at stake, have galvanized the dialogue around the climate crisis and environmental justice, pushing the issue closer to the center of our political conversation than it has been in years. MoveOn fiercely supports these efforts, and we are helping to ensure that climate change remains central to the political debate this year and through 2020.
Over the past several months, MoveOn members have joined this fight in a number of ways:
- MoveOn was an early supporter of the Green New Deal push in November, joining with the Sunrise Movement and supporting the work of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others to champion this ambitious vision.
- MoveOn is working with the US Youth Climate Strike in calling on all Democratic candidates to participate in a climate debate; tens of thousands of MoveOn members signed on to this demand and multiple candidates committed.
- MoveOn members have made tens of thousands of calls to Congress about the Green New Deal. MoveOn produced videos about this issue that have millions of views and distributed tens of thousands of stickers helping MoveOn members make visible their support for tackling the climate crisis.
We brought together presidential candidates to share big ideas.
In June, MoveOn Political Action brought together eight leading contenders in the Democratic primary to present bold ideas that could transform our country, tackle the biggest challenges we're facing, and improve people's lives. MoveOn's Big Ideas Forum was the first-in-our-history in-person candidate forum, and MoveOn members packed the room, participated in online watch parties across the country, and had their questions brought directly to the candidates on a national stage. The candidates pitched their big ideas to MoveOn members directly because they understand the power of the MoveOn community and the critical role MoveOn members will play in getting out the vote in 2020. Check out this video roundup of the event.
We're helping build momentum for bold and progressive leadership to inspire voters and defeat Trump in 2020.
While MoveOn Political Action is not endorsing any Democratic presidential candidate at this time, as there is not yet sufficient alignment among our membership, the latest MoveOn straw poll, conducted June 17-21—just before the first debates—showed that Senator Elizabeth Warren had the support of 38% of responding members nationwide, followed by Senator Bernie Sanders with 17%. Members said they want a candidate who "inspires the public with deep progressive values" and "makes the connections between racial, social, and economic injustice." As the 2020 election approaches, MoveOn members cited climate justice, health care, and reproductive freedom as the three most important issues to them. You can see the full results of the straw poll here.
We're preparing for the future.
Beginning in October, Rahna Epting, MoveOn's current chief of program, will take on the role of executive director of both MoveOn Civic Action and MoveOn Political Action.
Epting has been a leader in the progressive movement for 15 years, playing important roles in the organized labor, leadership development, youth organizing, and democracy reform spaces. She has held senior roles in a number of organizations, including the Service Employees International Union, Every Voice, Wellstone Action, and the Alliance for Youth Organizing.
For the past two years, Epting has worked at MoveOn, first leading strategic partnerships, then as our 2018 Resist & Win election program director, and currently as chief of program, overseeing our advocacy campaigning and elections, field, and Washington, D.C., work. In these roles, she has played a pivotal part in achieving significant advocacy and electoral wins.
As a Black and Iranian woman, Epting will be the first person of color to serve as MoveOn's executive director.
We're thrilled to have you by our side as we head into the next chapter in MoveOn's history. Thanks for all you do. We truly couldn't do this important work without you.
–Nick and the rest of the MoveOn team
Want to support MoveOn's 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 MoveOn needs your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
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This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on July 23rd, 2019. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
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