Dear Mr. Trump, This is not what greatness looks like. The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don't look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you. Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding. As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division.
Dear friends,
The unimaginable has happened. President Trump.
And worse, there are Trumps in every town. Threatening all our democracies.
What's most important now is to build a global movement to stop them. You and over 2 million Avaazers have signed the open letter, below, from the world to Trump, and it's been covered across major media. Now it's a manifesto for the next 4 years -- one that will run as a full page ad in major papers and project onto Trump Tower in New York.
Help it become an even more powerful message by sharing it widely:
Dear Mr. Trump,This is not what greatness looks like. The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don't look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you. Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding. As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division. Sincerely,
Sometimes in the darkest moments the brightest lights shine. Let's make Trump a force that brings the world together, to fight for everything we love.
With hope,
Loup Dargent
On behalf of Ricken, Alice, Emma, Christoph and the whole Avaaz team.
PS - Here's a letter with some more thoughts on the moment we're in, and the plan going forward:
We wanted to write from the heart about what just happened in the US, and what's happening around the world.
The shock is justified - the most powerful nation in the world will be led by a breathtakingly ignorant, bigoted, violent, pathologically lying, sexually predatory, vengeful, authoritarian, corrupt reality TV star. Those aren't insults, they're facts.
How is democracy coming to this? How do we deal with it? We want to offer 5 points:
- Acceptance - we can't wisely change anything about the world or ourselves if we don't first accept it. So take a deep breath, and let's face it. President Trump. And Trumpism striving for power in many of our countries.
- Holistic Evaluation - I can't find a better phrase for this idea, but our brains have a deep negativity bias. We are easily overwhelmed by fearful focus on the negative, and we make awful judgments when we are. This is how demagogues rise. We can't let it happen to us. So looking at the situation holistically, here's some reassuring points:
- He's not all-powerful - The US President faces many checks and balances from Congress, the constitution, the courts, his own party, and foreign leaders.
- He was recently a liberal! - Trump is dangerous, but not a maniac. He has praised Hillary Clinton and donated to her campaigns and many of his positions are more reasonable when you scrutinize them. "Building a wall" is just saying he will physically police the US border. It's distasteful, but not crazy. Much of his party opposed him because he wasn't conservative enough!
- He's tapped into legitimate concerns - Trump's supporters are not simply a racist ignorant mob. Polls show at least half are people who are well aware of his faults but are desperate for change, hate Hillary Clinton, and are willing to gamble on him.
- The "people" are not with him - Trump lost the popular vote in the election (he just won through the US's quirky 'electoral college' system). So don't think this was a landslide.
- Climate Change- Trump says it's a hoax and wants to tear up the Paris climate agreement. Climate Change threatens our species and we're running out of time - but IF we can make sure that world leaders don't slow down, but speed up, the US alone can't destroy us. The rest of the world will drive a clean energy revolution that will make renewable energy much cheaper than fossil fuels - the US will be forced to switch by simple economics.
- Fascism - we just don't know what kind of leader Trump is. Is he a Berlusconi, the Trump-like Italian billionaire Prime Minister who was outrageously corrupt and ridiculous but not a fascist? Or is he a Mussolini? We will have to watch like hawks and respond fast to the tell-tale signs of eroding the rule of law, rigging the electoral system, intimidating the media, or promoting hatred of some minorities.
- Terrorism and War - Trump's instincts in the campaign were to call for things like murdering the families of suspected terrorists and introducing widespread torture. This direction is a gift to ISIS and will fuel the global conflict with militant Islam. His ideas are mostly illegal, but we'll have to watch closely and push back hard - domestically and through US allies - if this erratic man-child uses the US military brutally.
Ricken and the Avaaz team.
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