Alyssa Milano says ‘we can't survive’ another 4 years of Trump administration as she focuses on grassroots activism to get him out [Exclusive]
The issue of the electoral college has always posed an interesting dilemma to American voters, but it never divided the country as much as it did post the 2016 elections.
The 2016 presidential election was decided by about 77,000 votes as Donald Trump won three important states with a high number of electoral votes —Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Political pundits credit these states as the reason for Trump's victory, despite his opponent Hillary Clinton’s higher count in popular votes.
While most democrats and republicans are focused on the primaries, activists like Alyssa Milano are focusing on laying the groundwork for strong local candidates.
Her agenda to support the elections is elegantly simple – from the ground up.
The actress, who has been politically active for a long time now, launched the 2020Fund with one goal – “We have to get Trump out.”
“We can't survive another four years of this. The children who are being separated from their parents can't survive another four years. The climate can't survive another four years,” Milano tells MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), elaborating about how she sought the advice of political experts on “How do we stop Trump?”
The clearest, most likely route, they figured, would be to stop him in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – “the three states where he just barely squeaked by in 2016.”
And, it has propelled Milano to find out more about the progressive electoral groups in the three states.
“Obviously we should start by supporting the people who already live there and who just need more resources to organize their own communities. So I was asking around. And people started referring me to Movement Voter Project or MVP - they have a cute acronym - they're basically the experts on local grassroots electoral organizing in swing states.”
The independently funded organization has been working with quite a few organizations that fit Milano’s bill and scouting them allowed her to narrow her list down to three organizations per state.
“And then we brainstormed the idea to create the #2020Fund together, and set up Alyssa2020.org, and created a video... and the rest is history,” she explains.
The organizations that 2020Fund shortlisted as their local partners are: Detroit Action, Michigan Liberation and Mothering Justice Action Fund in Michigan; 215 People’s Alliance, Pennsylvania Stands Up and Pennsylvania Student Power Network in Pennsylvania; and Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), Leaders Igniting Transformation Action Fund (LIT AF) and Voces de la Frontera Action, Inc. in Wisconsin.
The campaign has definitely had a huge impact and has raised over $50,000 so far. MVP has promised to match every dollar for a dollar up to one million.
While Milano believes that various states hold the key to take the current president down in their own ways -- especially Florida, Arizona, senate states such as Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina, and even Virginia for the primary purpose of flipping the chambers this fall-- she is also aware that different people must take on different priorities.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin just happen to be hers for now.
However, it is important that everyone does that part in impacting the upcoming elections, she believes, shedding light on the crisis the country and the world is, under Trump’s leadership.
She elaborates, “Trump is destroying everything we care about - from children having parents, to all of us having a livable climate, to the fabric of our country and our democratic way of life. If we don't step up now to make sure we throw him out of the White House, we are setting back progress for generations to come - and I'm scared to death of the world I'll be leaving my five-year-old daughter... don't get me started!”