| Dear Katy, Trump did this. Pittsburgh. Louisville. Mail bombs. Charlottesville. Erasing transgender people. Demonizing immigrants. Banning Muslims. Emboldening the NRA. This week, we mourn with the Jewish community in Pittsburgh. We reaffirm our commitment to stand with and defend every community that Trump threatens. We strengthen our resolve to build an inclusive democracy and hold Trump and his enablers accountable. The midterms are our chance to turn out and vote against Trump's agenda, but we must also put massive pressure on each and every member of his administration. They are fully complicit in Trump's violence-soaked hate. We must make it clear that when it comes to serving Trump, there can be no excuses: You're either with him or you should get out of his administration. Tell Trump administration officials and staff: Resign in protest of the bigotry and violence that Trump foments. Click here to sign the petition. The past week has been heartbreaking, frightening and infuriating. The tragedy in Pittsburgh came on the heels of a Trump superfan allegedly targeting Trump's political opponents with mailbombs.1,2 In Louisville, a white man attempted to break into a black church before coldly murdering two black people at a grocery store and telling another white man he had nothing to fear because "whites don't shoot whites."3 These are not isolated incidents. They are not random. Anti-semitic violence and other white supremacist hate crimes targeting people of color, immigrants and Muslims have surged in the last two years.4 The common thread is Trump, who deliberately courts, stokes, fuels and encourages violent right-wing white nationalism. His carefully scripted words of condemnation reek of nothing but damage control. As he pushes the country toward more and more violence and hate, we must do everything we can to shine a light on the enablers and collaborators who are implementing his agenda and normalizing his extremism. Tell Trump administration staff: Resign in protest of the bigotry and violence that Trump foments. Click here to sign the petition. Mainstream Republicans claim they are staying loyal to Trump in order to control him, moderate him, or rein in his worst instincts. Their craven lies are becoming more and more obvious, and more dangerous, and we need to call them out. They are either legitimizing Trump's hate and extremism in order to get policy wins – like tax cuts for giant corporations and a Supreme Court stacked with anti-woman, anti-worker justices – or they actually agree with his bigotry and calls for violence. Trump is a bigoted extremist who is using his platform and his Party to incite violence. He told his supporters to "knock the crap" out of protesters and said Trump fans who beat a Hispanic man sleeping on the street were just "passionate." After white supremacists marched and killed a woman in Charlottesville, Trump called them "very fine people." He publicly threatens political opponents with violence. He tweeted an anti-semitic image from a right-wing message board that featured a Star of David, demonizes George Soros – a prominent target of anti-semites – and spouts right-wing euphemisms about "globalists."5,6,7 At a rally on Friday, after calling for unity in the face of the bomb threats against his political opponents, which included Soros, Trump again called out "globalists" and repeated, while laughing, the crowd's chant to "lock [Soros] up."8 After Charlottesville, a few Trump staffers threatened to resign. We have reached another such point. Trump demonizes our communities, our families and our friends and openly encourages the violence that has engulfed America. Serving him means endorsing his behavior. It is time to force every member of his administration to make a public choice: Stand with Trump or stop serving him. Tell Trump administration staff: Resign in protest of the bigotry and violence that Trump foments. Click here to sign the petition. Thank you for speaking out, Heidi Hess, Co-Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: - BBC, "Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: Suspect charged with murder," Oct. 28, 2018.
- Vanessa Romo, "Who Is Cesar Sayoc? Bomb Suspect Has Criminal History, Attacked Democrats Online," NPR, Oct. 26, 2018.
- Shaun King, "Louisville Shooter Made Racist Remark Right After Killing Two Black People, but Police Won't Call it a Hate Crime," The Intercept, Oct. 25, 2018.
- Dakin Andone et. al., "Hate crime charges filed in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead," CNN, Oct. 28, 2018.
- Ed Mazza, "Shocking Supercut Shows Trump Encouraging Violence Again And Again And Again," HuffPost, Oct. 25, 2018.
- Jay Willis, "Gary Cohn, Who Was Fine with Charlottesville, Courageously Quits Over Donald Trump's Dumb Tariffs," GQ, March 6, 2018.
- Jeremy Diamond, "Donald Trump's 'Star of David' tweet controversy, explained," CNN, July 5, 2016.
- Nicole Goodkind, "Donald Trump repeats 'Lock him up' chant about George Soros minutes after calling for unity around bomb threats, Newsweek, October 26, 2018.
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