Use the Right Framing

H/T to Antonia Scatton in the Reframing America substack.

‘Armed Conflict’? Trump declares war on all of us

Messaging the Shut Down

‘Holy War’: Why Republicans Embrace Apocalyptic Rhetoric

‘Liberal Hollywood’? More like ‘Craven Entertainment Corporations’

Freedom Under Attack—Time to Stand Up

Cancel ‘Cancel Culture’

We Are Not Okay

Trump’s “Fake Emergency Scam” to Target Elections

Nearly Two Thirds of Americans Believe Top August Falsehoods

Whatever is happening, Trump is not “testing” anything

What We Believe: Economies are for People

Assume bad faith from the Trump regime

Trump’s Fake Emergency Playbook Exposed

How to Be a Populist Without Sounding Like a Socialist

Link to the Scatton New Do Not Associate List

Link to the Scatton Do Not Associate Handout

Link to the Scatton Do Associate Handout

Link to the Scatton: Effective or Toxic? What Makes Slogans Work.

Link to the Jennifer Rubin: Words & Phrases We Could Do Without

Optics in Protests

“All new numbers,” boasted Donald Trump last week in the Oval Office, showing off brightly colored charts, the economic equivalent of the Sharpie-edited hurricane map from his first term. Whatever “data” (unpublished and unverified, the press duly noted) they rely on, Trump’s “new numbers” (like “alternate facts”) cannot be taken seriously. The real numbers don’t lie.

“Civil commitment”—rounding up people and locking them up—is Donald Trump’s answer to the nation’s homeless problem, as set out in another executive edict. You need not be a sociologist to understand that homelessness, which afflicts hundreds of thousands of people, results from multiple factors, including lack of affordable housing, rampant evictions, and insufficient access to drug addiction and mental health treatment. This regime and past GOP administrations that have slashed funding for housing, addiction treatment, and mental health have inarguably worsened the problem.

Rather than provide additional funding or support programs that do work (e.g., fund Medicaid anti-addiction programs, or support “housing first” programs to get people off the streets quickly and then provide social services), Trump’s decree seeks to bludgeon states and localities to criminalize homelessness, by fining or locking up people living on the streets without shelter. Such a harsh rationale only underscores that Trump prefers barbarism to responsible social policy with adequate funding.

“Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say.”
Ways to counter this:
Name (and Frame) the tactic
Expose Trump’s strategy. Say “Trump is following the dictator playbook and creating a crisis. Authoritarians create fake emergencies to seize power and destroy democracy.” Do your part to make this common knowledge. Don’t debate whether the issue is really an emergency. Keep Trump as the active agent creating the deception. Tell your friends, families and neighbors: This is how democracies fall—through fake emergencies that justify dismantling democratic safeguards, not dramatic coups.
Show the damage
Each fabricated emergency weakens the constitutional barriers protecting our freedoms. Frame it as a pattern — cumulative structural harm, not isolated incidents. Never let it become normalized.
Say What We Stand For
Remember: It’s not enough to be against Trump. Always present a better vision. We stand for American values, including a constitutional democracy where power belongs to the people, not a despot.We believe in the rule of law that applies equally to everyone, including presidents. We uphold the Constitution as the foundation of American freedom, not an obstacle to be bypassed when convenient.

2025-05-26 Jennifer Rubin, “Trump is conducting all of this deal-making at a time when he is also suppressing or entirely shutting down the prosecution of foreign corruption, fraudulent crypto schemes, and all manner of white collar crime.
So, let’s use language commensurate with Trump’s offenses, i.e., sleazy, corrupt, and kleptocratic. “Grift” or “conflicts of interest” simply don’t encapsulate the magnitude of the corruption Trump is normalizing.

Experts on tyranny point out that people are ill equipped to handle fascism because they make it look inevitable, and we lose our ability to envision the alternative.

Trump and Musk are trying to gaslight us all into believing we live in their FANTASY WORLD in which everyone bows before their power. Comedy of this type works by snapping us out of the brain fog and back into the real world where – oh yeah – Elon Musk is not a God, he’s just an a-hole.

That is what our messaging needs to do for people right now, especially for ourselves.

As you have heard me say many times before: what we talk about is what appears in people’s minds, even if we are making the case against it.

If we talk about Elon Musk’s actions as a “coup d’état,” we make people envision him succeeding. It makes the task of stopping him feel insurmountable, which increases their ability to scare people into obeying in advance.

If we talk about Elon Musk being on a CRIME SPREE, we make people envision what inevitably happens to people on a crime spree: they end up on the run from the U.S. Marshalls.

We need to talk like we live in a world where people like Trump and Musk get stopped, because we DO live in that world! Our successful court challenges, which are happening with remarkable speed, might get overshadowed by the atrocity of the day, but they are still happening.

Our job is to make it possible for people to envision that we can and will defeat these Bozos.

DON’T

Don’t defend “the Government” at all costs. Many Americans understandably believe government is badly broken and harbor deep resentment toward institutional bureaucracy. MAGA, meanwhile, has successfully cast Democrats as defenders of a rotten status quo. As Trump and his cronies take a wrecking ball to our government, Democrats can’t keep reflexively defending it as if it’s working. They must acknowledge government dysfunction and offer a vision to make it accountable and responsive to everyday people.

The “Do Not Associate” List

WARNING: DO NOT POST the actual “Do Not Associate” list or parts of it on your social media. That will create the associations we are trying to stop! Post this instead:

Condemning and correcting just spreads the DISINFO we are trying to defeat. Here is how to stop doing it, with a LIST OF TERMS WE SHOULD NEVER USE in association with vaccines, Ukraine, immigrants, etc. and WHAT TO SAY INSTEAD: 

DO NOT ASSOCIATE:

• TRUMP with DICTATOR
• TRUMP with TARIFFS. (See below.)
• ECONOMIC DOWNTURN with BIDEN ECONOMY or BIDEN ‘HANGOVER.’
• SEN. MARK KELLY with TRAITOR.
• MEASLES with VITAMINS or POOR DIET AND HEALTH.
• CANADA with FENTANYL LABS.
• GEORGE SOROS with TESLA PROTESTS.
• PROTESTS with ILLEGAL or ANTI-AMERICAN SPEECH or PAID AGITATORS.
• MAHMOUD KHALIL with CRIME or HAMAS or TERRORIST.
• VACCINES with AUTISM.
• MEDICAID with WORK REQUIREMENTS.
• IMMIGRANTS with INVASION, CRIME or HIGH HOUSING COSTS.
• UKRAINE with X CYBERATTACK.
• UKRAINE with PROVOKING RUSSIA.
• ZELENSKY with DICTATOR.
• REPUBLICANS with FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE.
• REPUBLICANS with FREEDOM OF SPEECH or RELIGION.
• SOCIAL SECURITY with PONZI SCHEMES or ENTITLEMENTS.
• FEDERAL WORKERS with LAZY.
• AIRPLANE CRASHES with DEI or DISABILITY.
• USAID with RADICAL LUNATICS or CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION.
• MUSK with GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY (OK to use “DOGE.”)
• The FEDERAL GOVERNMENT with WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE.
• TRUMP with MANDATE.
• THE RICH with CREATE JOBS.
• BALANCE THE BUDGET with CUT SPENDING.
• TRANSGENDER PEOPLE with PREDATORS.
• PEOPLE who receive PUBLIC ASSISTANCE with PARASITES

Do not repeat their claims, not even to refute them. Whichever message people are exposed to first is the one that gets neurologically “switched on.”

Do not repeat their claims and assume they speak for themselves.

Do not state the offending opinion first.

Do not expose people to bad headlines in images.

DO NOT TALK ABOUT

• “Waste, fraud and abuse.”
• “DEI”
• Trump’s claim that the Budget Bill has “No cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, or Medicare.”
• What Joni Ernst said out of context. (Make sure to use her gaffe to illustrate her and Republicans’ callous disregard for the lives of people whose access to health care will be taken away by the Trump/Republican Budget.)
• “Job reporting requirements” for Medicaid. Even if we can make a good case for why there shouldn’t be, this isn’t what we should be focusing on.
• “Open borders,” “migrant crime” or whether immigrants are gang members, criminals or mentally insane.
• Elon Musk and DOGE (except for in the ways described below). Keep the blame focused on Trump (and Vogt and Miller.)
• “One, Big, Beautiful Bill.”
• “School choice,” “weaponization,” or “lawfare.”
• DOJ investigations of Biden pardons or autopen use.
• Non-citizen voting.
• Transgender athletes.
• Biden’s mental fitness.
• Where we went wrong in 2024.
• Whether “Abundance” is a smokescreen for deregulation.
• Democratic Party leadership failing or DNC infighting
• Democrats being too old, too young, too centrist or too progressive.
• Disappointing polls or what’s “wrong” with voters.

DO

Communicate on corruption early and often, showing how MAGA billionaires are poised to use taxpayer dollars to line their already bulging pockets. With neither party currently trusted on corruption, Democrats need to get out early and aggressively to claim the upper hand. It is not enough just to villainize billionaires like Musk for their wealth. It’s essential to highlight how these actors are using their outsized influence.

Most importantly, show how MAGA’s corruption harms Americans. In an environment where voters assume most politicians are corrupt, simply describing corruption and self-dealing only goes so far. Democrats need to show how Republican corruption is harming Americans, through cuts to vital programs, weakened regulations, and higher costs of living. Then fight like hell to defend them.

Corruption isn’t just a winning message. It’s the winning message—one with clear connections to the rising costs of living that have driven voters toward despondency. But for Democrats to credibly claim it, voters need to see them fighting for the people in earnest—not pretending that institutions will save us, agreeing to fast-track confirmations for Trump’s loyalist cabinet members, or telling us that Trump’s bootlickers are “honorable guys.”

This isn’t just about Elon Musk. It’s about whether Democrats are willing to stand up and defend the American people—or whether they’ll let a billionaire-bought GOP gut the government and hand over the keys to the highest bidder.

Frame 1: Our Constitutional Freedom vs. Corporate Control

“Our Constitution established government of, by, and for the people—not rule by unaccountable billionaires. When corporate dictators defy our Congress, courts, and constitutional checks, they’re not showing strength—they’re betraying the very freedom our founders fought to secure.”

Moral Core: This frame builds collective ownership of our democratic heritage while activating shared defense of constitutional principles.

Frame 2: Our Public Protections vs. Corporate Takeover

“The public agencies we built together—protecting our food, defending our skies, caring for our veterans—aren’t just ‘bureaucracy.’ They’re the tools we created to protect ourselves and our families. When corporate outsiders dismantle these protections, they’re demanding we surrender our freedom to their greedy and dictatorial whims.”

Moral Core: This reframes public agencies as our shared instruments of self-protection, making the threat personal and immediate.

Frame 3: Our Democratic Freedom vs. CEO Dictatorship

“Real freedom means having a voice in decisions that affect our lives. When corporate dictators replace our experienced public servants with yes-men, block our congressional oversight, and seize control of our government systems, they’re not ‘modernizing’—they’re methodically dismantling our constitutional right to self-governance.”

Moral Core: This builds collective ownership of both the threat and the response, making democracy defense a shared mission.

Some Tactical Responses:

1. “In our America, freedom means we don’t bow to kings OR billionaire CEOs”
2. “Our constitutional freedom includes the right to govern ourselves democratically and lawfully. An attack on our Constitution, our democracy, our government or our laws is an attack on our freedom.”
3. “An attack on the United States Constitution is an attack on American freedom.”
4. “No CEO should have absolute power over our democracy, where power comes from the people.”

Bottom Line: This is an attack on freedom, which is the defining American value.

SAY THIS:

Trump’s self-imposed trade war and unconstitutional purge of federal government employees are already hurting the economy. February job numbers are down and it’s only going to get worse. No wonder he’s trying to spin his way out of the bad news.

Federal Judge, James Boasberg, is demanding answers from Trump, who defied his order to stop flying immigrants to El Salvador without checking first to see if they had actually broken any laws.

Trump doesn’t seem to understand how the judicial branch works. The entire point is to provide checks and balances, and that means judges can order people – even presidents – to stop when they violate the constitution. That’s literally their job!

The average price of a dozen eggs is still $4.95. Trump either doesn’t know the price of eggs or he’s just lying.

Without the Department of Education, only rich kids will get a quality education or be able to afford college. Trump wants to shut it down.

The DOE helps fund local schools in low-income areas and supports kids with disabilities. It promotes high quality teaching through research and helps our young people afford college and training.

Did you know that there are about the same number of people working for the federal government now as there were fifty years ago, even though the population has gone up more than 50%?

Our civil servants work harder than private sector workers and for lower pay. Now Trump is firing them for political reasons, violating their contracts and insulting their character. He’s the one who doesn’t work.

Planes are falling out of the sky. We need more air traffic controllers, not less. Trump’s solution? Fire some of them and for those who remain, take away their union rights. Trump is screwing over workers and putting our lives in danger.

“Those who attack government are attacking all of us, the American people. We have the right to exercise our collective power to shape the society in which we live, particularly when it comes to fighting for economic fairness against the overwhelming power of concentrated wealth.”

We change the entire dynamic of the debate by refusing to fight on their terms and launching a new fight around the questions we should be asking.

Social Security and Medicare were paid for by American workers and their employers. Benefits should go up, not get cut. If you want to balance the budget, close the giant revenue gap caused by decades of the super-rich getting fat off public benefits, research and government contracts and skipping out on the bill.

Putin invaded Ukraine in violation of a treaty signed by Russia. He routinely violates the terms of peace agreements and has his political rivals thrown out of windows or blown up in airplanes. Why is Trump so afraid to stand up to him, or to label him the dictator that he is? And why does he attack Zelensky, who heroically defends the freedom and lives of the Ukrainian people?

The WRONG FIGHT: “Which spending/programs we should cut.”

The RIGHT FIGHT: “Which revenues should we increase?”

OUR POSITION: No cuts. First, we figure out what people need from their government. Then, we raise the revenue to fund the government we need.

SAY THIS:

“The federal government we have now is the output of collective decision making by generations of Americans on both sides of the aisle. Every program we have exists for a damned good reason. If anything, we need more staff and more funding, not less.”

We don’t have to apologize for defending the so-called “status quo” but that doesn’t mean we have to stop there. We can fight for something even better.

The RIGHT FIGHT: “How do we increase revenues?”

OUR POSITION: We reverse the revenue gap created by decades of allowing corporations and the obscenely rich to grow fat off the benefits of government and hand the bill to the American people.

SAY THIS:

“You want to talk about balancing the budget? Let’s talk about how Trump’s tax cuts for the rich blew a giant hole in the revenue side of the equation.”

Expose the Unnatural Hierarchy:

Frame every Trump-Musk interaction through the lens of Trump’s submission to a billionaire who wasn’t “chosen by the people.” Use language that triggers conservative concerns about proper authority: “Trump takes orders from his billionaire boss,” “President surrenders American sovereignty to tech oligarch,” “Who’s really in charge?” This disrupts the conservative moral framework where authority must flow from a single, legitimate father figure.

1. Highlight the Betrayal of American Values: Connect Musk’s control to tangible threats to traditional American institutions. Frame their alliance as “unelected billionaire dismantling American government,” “Silicon Valley oligarch replacing American workers with algorithms,” “Tech dictators experimenting with your family’s safety.” This activates both conservative fears about outside threats and progressive concerns about democratic institutions.
2. Demonstrate the Cost to Regular Americans: Create clear narrative threads linking the Trump-Musk alliance to specific harms to working families. For example, “While your air safety officials were fired to save pennies, Musk made millions that same hour.” “Your children’s school lunch program was cut to fund tax breaks for billionaires.” “Your public services were decimated while Musk’s companies got government handouts.” This unites conservative and progressive moral frameworks around fairness and the protection of the family unit.

Trump is running what amounts to a protection racket against America’s allies. The people of Ukraine are putting their lives on the line to protect their freedom and ours, and Trump is shaking them down for protection money, using Russia as the muscle to extort Ukraine to surrender its natural resources and its independence and become an economic colony of the United States.

Key Words and Phrases

ABUSE OF POWER, CORRUPTION.
We need the terms “abuse of power” and “corruption” to appear more in the public debate than “fraud” and “waste.”

EXTORTION, PROTECTION, RACKET, SHAKEDOWN, “MUSCLE,” THREATS OF VIOLENCE, ECONOMIC or POLITICAL HARM.

MAFIA, ORGANIZED CRIME, CRIME, CRIMINAL. Trump “acting like a” or “playing the role of” a MAFIA DON.

Refer to the war in Ukraine as the UNPROVOKED INVASION of a FREE, INDEPENDENT and DEMOCRATIC NATION .

COLLUSION WITH RUSSIA.

BRIBERY, BRIBE, PAYOFF, CONFLICT OF INTEREST, WHITE COLLAR CRIME

FREEDOM, THE RULE OF LAW, THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL LIBERTIES, SEPARATION OF POWERS, LIMITS OF POWER, CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, FREEDOM, NATIONAL SECURITY

The “Do Associate” List

Feel free to share these however you like!

DO associate:

• MEDICAID with RURAL HOSPITALS and PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES.
• MEDICARE with MOST COST-EFFECTIVE HEALTH PLAN IN AMERICA.
• SOCIAL SECURITY with RETIREMENT SECURITY and EARNED BENEFITS.
• VACCINES with SAVING LIVES or PREVENTING MEASLES or MEDICAL MIRACLE.
• ZELENSKY or UKRAINE with HEROIC.
• The PEOPLE OF UKRAINE with FIGHTING and DYING FOR THEIR FREEDOM.
• SUPPORTING UKRAINE with KEEPING OUR WORD and HOLDING UP OUR END OF THE AGREEMENT. (See Budapest Memorandum.)
• SUPPORTING UKRAINE with PROTECTING OUR NATO ALLIES (who fought with us after we were attacked on 9-11.)
• PUTIN with DICTATOR.
• RUSSIA with DICTATORSHIP, INVADING UKRAINE, THREAT TO EUROPE.
• CANADA or MEXICO with NEIGHBOR, FRIEND, and ALLY.
• MAHMOUD KHALIL or DEMONSTRATION with FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
• CREATE JOBS with INCREASE DEMAND and INCREASE WAGES.
• BALANCE THE BUDGET with RAISING REVENUE.
• RENEWABLE ENERGY with STABILIZING THE CLIMATE.
• CRYPTOCURRENCY with PONZI SCHEMES.
• BILLIONAIRES with PARASITES.
• IMMIGRANTS with HARD WORKING, TAXPAYING AMERICANS.
• IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTERS with CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

DO associate TRUMP with:

• ABUSE OF POWER.
• CRASH THE ECONOMY, RECESSION, STOCK MARKET PLUNGE, INFLATION.
• START A TRADE WAR (with our neighbors and allies.)
• BETRAY OUR ALLIES, ISOLATE THE U.S. from the rest of the world.
• BETRAY THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE.
• AMBUSH, ATTACK ZELENSKY.
• THREATEN TO INVADE CANADA, GREENLAND.
• TRAITOR.
• DEMENTIA.
• COMPROMISED BY RUSSIA, PUTIN.
• ENDANGER OUR NATIONAL SECURITY.
• ABUSE HIS POSITION to ATTACK POLITICAL OPPOSITION, REWARD FRIENDS.
• ABUSE HIS POSITION to CASH IN ON CRYPTO.
• USES HIS CRYPTO to ACCEPT SECRET BRIBES.
• POLITICIZE THE FBI, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.
• MAFIA STATE, MOB BOSS, EXTORTION, THREATS, BRIBERY.
• VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION.
• PARDON CRIMINALS (especially J6, Silk Road Founder)
• SELL US OUT TO BILLIONAIRES, SOLICIT BRIBES.
• BETRAY WORKERS.
• CHEATED HIS CONTRACTORS.
• BANKRUPTED HIS BUSINESSES.
• SOLD the PRESIDENCY to ELON MUSK.

DO associate MUSK with:

• CONFLICT OF INTEREST and ENRICHING HIMSELF.
• HOSTILE TAKEOVER.
• BAD MANAGEMENT, BREAK THINGS, RUIN X, RUIN TESLA.
• ROCKET CRASH, TESLA CRASH, PLANE CRASH.
• VIOLATING OUR PRIVACY and STEALING OUR DATA.
• STEALING OUR TECHNOLOGY.
• RECKLESS and DANGEROUS.
• UNELECTED and UNCONFIRMED.
• POLITICIZE the INDEPENDENT CIVIL SERVICE.

DO associate GOVERNMENT with working to:

• TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER.
• IMPROVE OUR QUALITY OF LIFE.
• INVEST IN OUR FUTURE.
• SUPPORT FARMERS.
• DO CANCER RESEARCH, MEDICAL RESEARCH.
• INVEST IN MANUFACTURING. BUILD ROADS AND BRIDGES.
• STAND UP TO BIG CORPORATIONS, FIGHT MONOPOLIES.
• PROTECT OUR RIGHTS AS CONSUMERS.
• KEEP BANKS FROM DEFRAUDING CUSTOMERS.
• PROTECT OUR RIGHTS AS WORKERS.
• MAKE OUR ECONOMY MORE FAIR.
• KEEP OUR FOOD SAFE.
• FIGHT THE SPREAD OF DISEASE (here and overseas).
• MAKE IT SAFE TO FLY ON PLANES.
• DELIVER MAIL TO EVERYONE.
• EDUCATE EVERY CHILD, FEED KIDS.
• MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO GO TO COLLEGE.
• RETIREMENT SECURITY, SOCIAL SECURITY.
• FIGHT CRIME AND CORRUPTION.
• GIVE MORE PEOPLE ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE.
• STABILIZE THE CLIMATE and SLOW THE INCREASE IN DANGEROUS WEATHER.
• Etc.

DO associate WASTE, FRAUD and ABUSE with:

• PRIVATE CONTRACTORS.
• OUTSOURCE TO FOR-PROFIT COMPANIES.
• WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS.
• MEDICARE ADVANTAGE.

TALK ABOUT THIS

• CORRUPTION: Trump is the most corrupt politician in American history. He pardons criminals, shuts down investigations, and even conducts foreign policy in exchange for open bribes. It is wrong and against the law to use public office for personal financial and political gain. (Endless examples! New ones every day.)
• The RULE OF LAW is about RESPONSIBILITY: it is how we hold each other accountable for how our actions impact others. It is about EQUALITY and FAIRNESS: everybody should be held to the same standard. Rich people should not be able to buy their way out of the consequences of their crimes. (If we had real penalties for white collar crime in this country, Trump would have been in jail forty years ago.)
• INCOMPETENCE and LACK OF CREDIBILITY: Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. Wall Street knows not to take him seriously. So does Putin. He’s losing his court cases. His health people are putting out AI-written documents with fake citations. His FEMA guy doesn’t know we have a hurricane season. DOGE was a complete failure and he can’t balance a budget.
• Trump’s DOGE program was a complete FAILURE: it is costing far more than it saved. We are losing billions because they slashed IRS funding, giving the super-rich a free pass on massive tax evasion.
• Our government and our economy exist to serve the needs of PEOPLE. The TRUMP/REPUBLICAN BUDGET shows clearly that they serve the interests of billionaires and concentrated wealth, not the American people. (Say this, do not just imply it.)
• For some kids, free school lunch might be the only decent meal they get, and supplying schools and food banks keeps small family farms afloat. The Trump/Republican Budget cuts FOOD ASSISTANCE programs, sacrificing BASIC HUMAN DECENCY and common sense on the altar of tax cuts for the rich.
• The Trump/Republican Budget will cause 13.7 million people to lose their HEALTHCARE, cause a huge jump in premiums and costs for people on Health Exchange plans, close hospitals in rural areas, and cut funding for long-term care. This will have a massive impact on people’s lives and many will go bankrupt, suffer or die as a result.
• Our right to take care of our bodies should not be held hostage to our ability to pay. We need to consider much BIGGER REFORMS to make health care actually affordable and accessible to all. (We need to speak to what we would do differently, whatever that may be.)
• The Trump/Republican Budget will add 2.4 trillion dollars to the national DEBT, blowing a giant black hole in the federal budget – all to give a massive TAX CUT to the obscenely rich.
• (Debunk “job-creators” myth without bringing it up.) Too much CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH will lead to fewer good jobs. The ultra-rich use their tax breaks to monopolize industries, crush small businesses, strip-mine companies and leave them saddled with debt, downsize workers and convert jobs to robotics and AI.
• (Explain what we mean by) THEIR FAIR SHARE: The obscenely rich got that way by taking more than their fair share of the value created by workers and consumers, and by using more than their fair share of public investments in infrastructure, research and education, investments that they now do not want to pay their fair share for. (Companies like Amazon should pay dividends to the American people for their investment in creating the Internet, without which they would not exist.)
• Trump is betraying American WORKERS. His illegally ending collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers is the largest UNION BUSTING action in American history.
• ECONOMIC FAIRNESS: Concentration of ownership and wealth have given too few people and companies too much power over us as workers, consumers, and small business owners. All we want is for the economy to work the way we were promised: you work hard and you can support your family.
• We need to raise the MINIMUM WAGE to one people can live on. The American people should not subsidize massively profitable corporations (like Walmart) owned by the world’s richest people, because they choose not to pay their employees a living wage.
• HOUSING market speculation by private equity firms robs families of their ability to build generational wealth. Massive investment firms outbid families trying to buy homes to live in, driving up home prices and forcing people to rent from them instead of buy.
• Republicans put a ten-year ban on REGULATING AI in the Budget Bill that will give corporations a get-out-of-jail-free card for using AI to commit crimes, like rent price collusion or rejecting claims for covered healthcare. (See RealPage lawsuit and United Healthcare)
• With landlord collusion causing record high rents, the Trump/Republican Budget’s drastic cuts to RENTAL ASSISTANCE will throw families out into the streets and cause homelessness to skyrocket.
• Decent, hard-working people: law-abiding long-term residents and immigrants who followed every rule, are being CAPTURED, IMPRISONED and EXILED in violation of their CIVIL LIBERTIES. Every single person in the United States has the Constitutional right to not lose their freedom without a FAIR HEARING.
• There is no place for SECRET POLICE in a free society. People acting as ICE agents should not allowed to wear masks or arrest people without warrants. They should be required to show credentials and trained to respect people’s Constitutional rights.
• All AUTHORITY is granted to government officials by the people on the condition that it be used within the limits of the law and the Constitution. It is illegal and unconstitutional ABUSE OF POWER to use government programs, spending, or law enforcement to reward friends and punish anyone who stands up to you. (Like universities, law firms, judges, and journalists.)
• The CIVIL SERVICE is supposed to be INDEPENDENT of politics. Trump wants all new employees to sign loyalty pledges, like the Politburo in communist Russia.
• The programs of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT are the results of generations of decisions by Americans on both sides of the aisle. They are consistently underfunded and UNDERSTAFFED. The number of people working for the federal government is about the same as it was fifty years ago, even though the population has grown 68%. (Rebutting claims of waste without mentioning waste.)
• The programs of the federal government do the work of KEEPING OUR COUNTRY RUNNING (like air traffic control, food inspection, prevention of industrial chemical accidents). We took them for granted until Trump’s DOGE started taking them away. Now there is record high public support for the idea of “government doing more to solve the country’s problems.”
• Trump already cut JOB TRAINING (Job Corps) and made student loans more expensive. Now the Trump/Republican Budget will push COLLEGE even further out of reach by reducing Pell Grants.
• We are expecting a record hurricane season, and we are not prepared. Trump’s cuts to the NWS and NOAA are making it much harder for us to track DANGEROUS AND DESTRUCTIVE WEATHER and provide advance warning to people in harms’ way.
• With cuts to FEMA, Trump has abandoned victims in North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. This violates the American people’s long-standing commitment to come to each other’s aid in times of crisis.
• President Biden and the Democrats passed landmark legislation to STABILIZE OUR CLIMATE by jump-starting the transition to a clean, unlimited energy economy. Trump is doing everything in his power to undo this on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, even if it means killing good-paying infrastructure jobs.
• RESEARCH into medical treatment and disease prevention is one way we invest in keeping each other healthy and safe. Trump has already slashed funding for the National Institutes of Health, gutting research for cancer, Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), and other devastating diseases. This will also hurt our economy and future competitiveness.
• Programs that track and prevent the spread of INFECTIOUS DISEASES are critically important. Trump’s cuts to programs such as USAID and CDC and his hiding critical health information from the public are already causing unnecessary sickness and death and risk enabling another pandemic.
• INFLUENCE OF MONEY: It’s our government. Our votes should matter more than other people’s money. The influence of big money is behind the SABOTAGE of our government programs and push to PRIVATIZE, to outsource public services like education and the postal service to for-profit companies.
• Elon Musk is the perfect example of Trump’s total CORRUPTION, how he has invited BILLIONAIRES to completely take over our government. Elon Musk invested $288 million dollars in Trump’s campaign, and has made $100 billion dollars since Trump took office. He has raked in government contracts and gotten his companies off the hook for breaking multiple laws. (See Elizabeth Warren report.)
• Government SURVEILLANCE of American citizens is a violation of the Constitution and a threat to our PRIVACY and our FREEDOM. Bringing in Palantir to create a giant central database of all our personal data is what they did in China to control their citizens and stifle dissent. That’s what dictatorship looks like. Once again, this is the result of the outsized influence of a billionaire. This time it is Peter Theil, who just happened to bankroll J.D. Vance’s career.