Town Hall Video & Follow Up
December 23, 2023
Dear subscriber,
Before we share updates below about our Stop The Coup 2025 campaign to fight Project 2025 and upcoming events, we’re taking a moment to say Thank You for signing up here. Welcome to our campaign! We invite your contribution and ideas for how to quickly spread the word and fight back. We’re adding updates to our website all the time. Email us about your ideas or any feedback at stopthecoup2025@gmail.com.
Our Summary and Chapter Breakdown of Project 2025 is available.
First, and finally! We completed our Summary of the 887-page Project 2025 blueprint, a 30+ chapter breakdown on each government department, plus a short Key Proposals list, so you can get your head around it more easily now. We plan future Advocacy Toolkits for activists. Read the plan. We’re going to use it to identify key targets and develop a progressive counter-blueprint to fight back.
Our first Town Hall was held to a full house on December 17 at The Center in NYC. Thanks to all who joined us – over 200 in person and virtually. We apologize that some of you couldn’t get in via Zoom, and next time we’ll have virtual space for all. You can watch the video of the Town Hall on our new YouTube channel. Please share the video with others, too – the conversation is important!
VIEW THE TOWN HALL VIDEO
Town Hall speakers echoed our campaign’s warning: Project 2025 represents an unprecedented threat to our American democracy and system of government. We need to act with urgency to spread that message. They talked about our need to fight against the GOP’s normalization of dictatorship, which Trump has been doing in the media and on campaign stops by joking about being a “Day One Dictator,” in response to questions about Project 2025.
Our message is clear: No Day One Dictator! This is not a joke. The danger is real. Stop Project 2025!
At the Town Hall, Jeff Sharlet, journalist and author of The Family, discussed the Christian right’s post-January 5 realignment to support Project 2025, inspired by Hungary’s Viktor Orban regime. Scholar Dr. Anthea Butler, author of White Evangelical Racism, warned that Black churches are also being wooed to join the conservative anti-gender culture war.
Via Zoom, Melanie Nathan, Executive Director of African Human Rights Coalition, talked about the exportation of hate from US evangelical groups to Africa, and some lessons offered by South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle to apply against antigay efforts in southern Africa. From Kampala, LGBTQ+ activist Frank Mugisha of SMUG in Uganda, provided a court battle update of the effort to repeal the odious Anti-Homosexuality Act, and called on US and global allies to amp up their solidarity.
In a second panel, Dr. Jessie Daniels, author of Nice White Ladies, discussed the intersection of gender and white supremacy in Project 2025’s anti-feminist, racist platform, while Natalia Aristizabal Betancur, Deputy Director of Make The Road New York, detailed the escalating attacks against immigrants, including in Texas, and how Project 2025 would hugely increase that.
Unbowed, Reginald T. Brown, Board Chair of Vocal-NY, reminded the audience that, as a Black, gay man living with HIV who had survived homelessness, he’d survived many battles, and was ready to take to the streets to fight against Project 2025 and defend our democracy, declaring, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Join an Action Tank! Or start one! Or an STC 2025 chapter!
And plan to join us in DC on Saturday, January 27th, for our first public action.
Action Tanks: We formed our first working groups, or “Action Tanks” (think tank + action) at the Town Hall on core issues: Outreach, Education, Youth & Gaza mobilization, Legal, and Actions. We invite you to join them and add your voice, ideas, and resources. Email us at stopthecoup2025@gmail.com. Want to start a group/lead on a topic? Go for it! Email us. Nascent STC 2025 chapters are also being mulled in the Bay Area, southern Cali, and Philly for local action. We’ll keep you updated. Want to start a chapter where you live? Email us.
Bring your resistance to DC! Saturday, Jan. 27th.
Details coming soon…
We’re joining Rise and Resist and other activist groups in a big visibility action on Jan 27th to protest Project 2025 and the role of the right-wing Heritage Foundation pushing the plan. Our message: No Day One Dictator! Stop Project 2025!
A positive, closing note: Media coverage of Project 2025 has exploded – to the point that the Trump campaign has twice warned GOP allies to stop talking about the plan because it’s hurting Trump with voters. SO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. HELP US AMPLIFY THE MESSAGE.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? — 12 ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE
STOP PROJECT 2025!
NO SLEEPWALKING INTO DICTATORSHIP!
