Dear MoveOn member,
On Saturday night, the LA Police Department issued a statement commending protesters for being “peaceful and orderly” during demonstrations that started on Friday in response to a brutal new wave of ICE raids.1
Yet also on Saturday night, Donald Trump ordered National Guard troops to LA to crack down on those same peaceful protestors.2 And yesterday, Trump deployed active-duty Marines to LA.3
When a reporter asked Trump about sending federal troops to the streets of LA, Trump responded, “We’re gonna have troops everywhere.”4
Lynn, this is a dangerous escalation—and an inflection point. Trump is using military force against peaceful American citizens exercising their constitutional rights. And he’s doing it at this moment in part to distract us from his massive budget pending before Congress that would strip health care from 15 million Americans—all to make the rich even richer.5
We must respond—urgently, peacefully, and in massive numbers—calling our members of Congress, showing up to our elected officials’ offices, and bringing our friends, family, and neighbors to one of the 1,800 peaceful No Kings Day protests this Saturday.
And we cannot stop there. MoveOn will keep building our mass opposition movement. That’s what this moment and these unprecedented times demand. That’s how we’re going to stop our country’s very fast slide into authoritarianism and stop Trump’s stealing from all of us to make the ultra wealthy even richer.
It’s going to take bringing even more people into the movement, training them, equipping them with the tools to help organize their own communities, and continuing to be a critical part of a web of organizations helping to unite us all and bring us into the streets. That’s the work of MoveOn.
Kendall, this kind of organizing is very resource intensive.Can you donate $5 a month to MoveOn to help us have the resources to keep building the mass opposition movement?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
The timing of Trump’s decision to send troops into the streets of LA is no coincidence. He’s trying to distract us from the larceny happening in Congress, as Republicans attempt to strip health care from 15 million people at a time when so many are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table—all to give the ultra wealthy tax breaks.
Trump wants to scare us into submission. He wants us to stay quiet, stay home, and let him and his wealthy friends reshape America in their white nationalist image.
But there are more of us than there are of them. And, together, we cannot and will not let that happen.
Remember that studies of social movements worldwide show that it takes just 3.5% of a population engaging in sustained peaceful protests to topple an authoritarian regime.6
We need to keep building and keep turning more and more people out to protest. The Women’s March in January 2017 was the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history.7 Between 1% and 1.6% of the U.S. population participated. Double or triple that scale would approach the 3.5% threshold.
That’s our mission: doubling or tripling the size of the Women’s March and engaging 3.5% of the U.S. population in mass, sustained protests to stop authoritarianism in America, which is here, at our doorstep, right now. That’s what we’re building to, because that’s what it’s going to take to end Trump’s abuses of power and attempts to even further enrich the billionaire class at the expense of working families.
Lynn, with the military in our streets, time is of the essence. We need to build the peaceful mass opposition movement that will stop Trump, and we need to do it urgently. But we need your help to have the consistent financial resources to keep building and getting more and more people in the streets.
Please, if you can afford it, will you donate $5 a month to help us mobilize millions to stop Trump’s tyranny?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Britt, Rahna, Emily, David, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. Post on Bluesky by The Tennessee Holler, June 7, 2025
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lr2uht5idk2k
2. “Trump’s Dangerous Decision to Suppress Anti-ICE Protests With Troops,” The Intercept, June 8, 2025
https://theintercept.com/2025/06/08/trump-national-guard-ice-immigration-protests-los-angeles/
3. “Trump deploys Marines to Los Angeles,” Politico, June 9, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/09/trump-deploys-marines-to-los-angeles-00395016
4. “Trump LA protest response risks turning US military into political force, veterans warn,” The Guardian, June 9, 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/09/veterans-trump-national-guard-la-protests
5. “House budget bill would kick 15 million people off health insurance and damage local economies,” Economic Policy Institute, June 4, 2025
https://www.epi.org/blog/house-budget-bill-would-kick-15-million-people-off-health-insurance-and-damage-local-economies/
6. “Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule,” Harvard Kennedy School Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, April 2020
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/publications/questions-answers-and-some-cautionary-updates-regarding-35-rule
7. Ibid.
Want to support MoveOn’s work? Donald Trump and his MAGA allies expect us to give up. But we will not give them what they want. We will never stop working to defend our fundamental freedoms and protect our democracy. MoveOn has been leading the movement against right-wing extremism for 26 years, and we promise you that we will still be here every step of the way forward.
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