New Progressive Campaign to "Vote Trump Out" in Swing States
By RootsAction, Reader Supported News
05 August 20
The national activist group RootsAction.org announced today that it is
launching a grassroots campaign aimed at "swing voters on the left" to
persuade supporters of Bernie Sanders and other progressives in swing states
to "Vote Trump Out - and Then Challenge Biden."
The Vote Trump Out swing-states initiative will include a highly-targeted
social-media program and other digital outreach, utilizing messages from
national and state progressive luminaries - people who are widely respected
on the left in ways that establishment Democrats are not. The campaign will
urge progressives in the dozen battleground states to vote for Joe Biden
rather than sit out the election or cast a third-party protest vote.
The RootsAction campaign has assembled a group of national endorsers who are
likely to be persuasive to progressives on the fence about voting for Biden.
They include: Ady Barkan, Medea Benjamin, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky,
Marjorie Cohn, RoseAnn DeMoro, Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Bill
Fletcher Jr., Jim Hightower, Rep. Ro Khanna, Jamie Margolin, Bill McKibben,
Annabel Park, Linda Sarsour, Winnie Wong and James Zogby.
The #VoteTrumpOut campaign will assert that - while President Trump is
unfailingly immune to progressive persuasion or protest - the fight for a
full progressive agenda (ranging from major climate initiatives and
anti-racism to universal healthcare, free public college and taxing the
wealthy) would have the potential to win some victories with Biden in the
White House.
The campaign's mission statement declares: "We are not going to minimize our
disagreements with Joe Biden. But we're also clear-eyed about where things
stand: supporting the Democratic nominee in swing states is the only way to
defeat Trump."
Renowned linguist, author and political activist Noam Chomsky contributed
this comment to the initiative: "I live in the swing state of Arizona, and
I'd vote for a lamp post to get Trump out." Chomsky is featured in a
campaign-launch video on the Vote Trump Out website.
"Our organization fought fiercely in the primaries for Bernie and against
Biden," said RootsAction.org cofounders Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon. "But
the general election is far less about Biden than it is about Trump - the
most dangerous president in modern U.S. history, who opposes virtually every
policy and principle that progressives are fighting for."
Founded in 2011 as an independent progressive force, RootsAction.org now has
1.2 million active supporters online in the United States.