As Heather Heyer, the Charlottesville victim, recently said: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Are your MoCs publicly outraged by the events in Charlottesville? Good. Now what are they actually doing about it? Here are four things that you can ask them to do to respond to the tragedy.
1) DONALD TRUMP IS A WHITE SUPREMACIST. HOW ABOUT YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS?
Donald Trump has now doubled down on his support of white nationalists like the ones who held a rally in Charlottesville, VA. It is unacceptable that Donald Trump refuses to condemn white nationalism, and has chosen high-profile members of the alt-right movement to advise him in the White House. But, as always, there is something that Congress can—and should—be doing to respond. Here are a few ways your MoCs can draw a bright line between themselves and Donald Trump.
- They can begin by demanding that white supremacists be removed from the administration. They should co-sponsor H.Con.Res 77, a resolution introduced by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal to condemn hate groups and demand Trump fire staff that support white nationalism. They should also shut down the addition of new appointees that traffic in racism. Trump has nominated Sam Clovis, a conservative talk radio host, to be the chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture. Clovis is not a scientist, but he did help fuel the racist birther movement.
- Congress should remove confederate statues from the Capitol building. Confederate statues honor and celebrate the most repulsive aspects of our country’s history. They do not belong in any public park, town square, or public space anywhere in our country, let alone in the halls of Congress. Sen. Cory Booker is introducing a bill that would remove them from the Capitol building. Stay tuned for more info!
- Congress should address white supremacy head-on. Defending white supremacy is abhorrent and unacceptable for any American. Donald Trump deserves to be censured for his comments, and should be. Tell your MoC to support censure over Trump’s defending of nazis. Your MoC should also be calling for hearings on white supremacy to investigate the extent of this problem.
Ask your MoCs to draw a bright line between themselves and Donald Trump’s white supremacy. Ask them to demand the removal of white nationalists from the White House, of confederate statues from the Capitol, and to support censure for Donald Trump.
2) DEMAND FUNDING IN THE BUDGET FOR FIGHTING WHITE NATIONALISM
For all Trump’s big talk about keeping America safe, his proposed budget puts Americans in danger of attacks like the one in Charlottesville. Trump’s budget cuts funding to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Community Partnerships, which supports the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program. The program is designed to battle all forms of domestic extremism. But Trump proposed earlier this year, along with cutting its budget, to change its name and mission so that it was exclusively focused on Islamic sources—eliminating any focus on white nationalism. In fact, the Trump Administration cancelled a grant approved by the Obama Administration to Life After Hate, an organization that educates communities on the dangers of white nationalism. In FY18, Trump proposes eliminating CVE grants altogether.
The bottom line: we need a Department of Homeland Security that fights domestic terrorism on every front—including white nationalism—and they have to have the budget to do it.
Ask your MoCs to require that the Countering Violent Extremism program retains its focus on white nationalism, that CVE grants are fully funded, and that a substantial portion of CVE grants are awarded to respond to the threat of white nationalism.
3) DEFUND TRUMP’S HATEFUL, ANTI-IMMIGRANT BUDGET PROPOSALS
Donald Trump’s approach to the budget is simple: defund the programs we need and that keep ups safe in order to fund those we don’t need, harm our communities, and make us less safe. If your MoC tries to argue that there is no room in the federal budget to sustain the CVE program, remind them that the House of Representatives just voted out a spending bill that allocates $1.6 billion as a down payment for the “huge wall” Trump promised at his 2016 campaign rallies. That first year of wall funding alone would cover the CVE program’s $50 million FY18 budget 32 times over. Remember, it’s Congress not Donald Trump that decides what gets funded and what does not. Make sure they fund the programs that keep us safe, like the CVE program, and not Trump’s border wall and mass deportation force.
Ask your MoCs to #DefundHate every chance they get in the appropriations process. See our resource for more information about Trump’s mass deportation force, and some of the other things that money should be used for instead.
4) PROTECT OUR IMMIGRANT FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS FROM DEPORTATION
It’s no secret that Donald Trump scapegoated and demonized immigrants to help him get elected. It’s a tactic that he also turns to now whenever he experiences a setback or a loss and needs to give his base some red meat. That same rhetoric against immigrants has invigorated the alt-right, white nationalist movement. One of the best ways your MoC can oppose white nationalism is to protect immigrant families targeted by Trump’s White House.
Protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs. Combined these programs provide relief from deportation to about one million Americans who arrived in the U.S. as children or whose countries suffered humanitarian catastrophes. Both are now under threat. If they have not already, your MoCs should speak out in defense of DACA and TPS—but that’s not enough. Congress could take the futures of the 800,000 young Americans who rely on DACA out of Trump’s hands.
Ask your Senators to co-sponsor the bipartisan Durbin-Graham “DREAM Act”(S. 1615) and your Representative to support Rep. Gutierrez’s American Hope Act (H.R. 3591), and insist that they resist Trump’s multi-pronged legislative assault on immigrants
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