We did it! ❤🔥✊ Auf https://engagiere-dich.ch kannst du ab sofort nach bestehenden #Kollektiv'en in deiner Nähe suchen. Über 80 sind es schon, alle freuen sich über neue #MitstreiterInnen.

Bin überglücklich, haben wir mit diesem Projekt im Kleinen "beweisen" können, worum es uns im Grossen geht: Wenn sich Menschen zusammenschliessen, wird vieles möglich. Danke an #Sandro, #Noemi, #Timothy, #Nina, #Flurin, #Eticus, #Fabio, #Jasmin, #Luc, #Mo, #Florin und #Yara, dass ihr dieser Idee Zeit ...

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When he was in office, Trump went out of his way to find ways to hurt Amazon to get back at Bezos for unfavorable coverage in the Post. 

Los Angeles Times editorial page editor #Mariel #Garza, along with journalists Robert Greene and Karin Klein, resigned from the paper after its decision not to endorse Harris,
💥and nearly 2,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.

The Washington Post, too, has seen 💥about 2,000 subscribers bow out,
and fourteen of the newspaper’s columnists called the decision not to condemn Trump’s threats to the “freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution” “a terrible mistake.”

Cartoonist Ann Telnaes published a blacked-out square, playing on the Post’s motto that democracy dies in darkness.
Readers are speaking out against the Washington Post for demonstrating what scholar of authoritarianism #Timothy #Snyder calls “obeying in advance” the demands of an authoritarian leader
(although Washington Post legal journalist Ruth Marcus, who signed the letter calling the decision a terrible mistake, pointed out that the Postitself was publishing the many letters of condemnation).

“Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” Snyder’s “On Tyranny” reads.
“In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked.

A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”

The aftermath of the Post’s decision demonstrated what scholars say will happen after such obeying.
Rather than winning favors, such a demonstration of weakness invites further abuse, as anyone who has watched Trump in action ought to know by now. 

Trump’s people pounced, with advisor #Stephen #Miller posting:
“You know the Kamala campaign is sinking when even the Washington Post refuses to endorse.”

Trump then promptly went a step further, claiming that Democrats had taken part in “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery…in the 2020 presidential election” and warning that in 2024, “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again…. Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s threats are designed to convince people he is a strongman who will inevitably win the 2024 presidential election.

But to do that, he will have to go through the voters, who are demonstrating their enthusiasm for Democratic candidate Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

Trump was fund-raising off his conviction with small-dollar donors as well;

His campaign, which portrayed him as the victim of a politicized justice system, brought in nearly $53 million in the twenty-four hours after the verdict.

Several megadonors who had held back from endorsing Trump announced that they were now supporting him,
including
🔸#Miriam #Adelson, the widow of the late casino mogul #Sheldon Adelson;
🔸the Silicon Valley investor #David #Sacks, who said that the case against Trump was a sign of America turning into a “Banana Republic”;
🔸and the venture capitalist #Shaun #Maguire, who, less than an hour after the verdict, posted on X that he was donating $300,000 to Trump, 👉calling the prosecution a “radicalizing experience.” 👈

A day later, #Timothy #Mellon, the banking-family scion, wrote a $50-million check to the Make America Great Again super pac.

#Ed #Rogers, a longtime G.O.P. lobbyist, had never publicly endorsed Trump or raised money for his campaigns.

On May 31st, the day after Trump’s conviction, he sent his first contribution to the ex-President. “There was no case to make that that was not targeted prosecution,” he told me.

He predicted that other Republicans who, like him, had been “allergic” to Trump would now get on board as well.

“I tell people I am a Bill Barr, Chris Sununu, Nikki Haley Republican,” he said, listing the names of Republican officials who had criticized Trump in blistering terms only to support him again in 2024;

Haley, despite having called Trump “unhinged” and a threat to the Republic, had announced the week before his conviction that she would vote for him.

“The choices are 🔹Biden or Trump🔹, and I’m at peace with that,” Rogers said in June.
“I wish it was a different equation, but it’s not.”

❗️Many donors I spoke with at the time described
🧨Trump’s trial as an impetus,
but they tended to cite a litany of other reasons, too, including questions about
🔸Biden’s age and fitness to serve another term, concerns about his
🔸economic policies, and gripes about some of his
🔸appointees, such as the head of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, who has launched high-profile antitrust investigations.

Trump, despite his populist rhetoric, deficit spending, and support for market-distorting tariffs,
has sold himself as a pro-business candidate.

He has promised extensive deregulation,
nearly unfettered drilling for oil and gas,
and tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals.

“A lot of the donors have just come to the conclusion that, when you add it all up,
the risks with Trump are behavioral
—personal behavior and what he says
—versus the policies,” the attendee at the Fifth Avenue fund-raiser told me.

It was a “rationalization” adopted by “even those who were initially very put off, very alienated, by his behavior at the end of his Presidency.”

🆘 By late May, Trump’s campaign had more money in the bank than Biden’s.

The incumbent President’s disastrous performance in a June 27th debate against Trump only accelerated the trend.

“After the debate, Biden looks like a loser,
so these people who were never going to give to Biden,
they’re now even more attracted to the idea of giving to former President Trump,”
the attendee at Fanjul’s dinner said.

“Because he looks like a winner.”

The following month, as Democratic donors and elected officials frantically pressured Biden to drop out of the race,
Trump and the Republicans again outraised the Democrats.

“The Zeitgeist in the business world is that Trump is going to be President again,”
a billionaire C.E.O. who is not a Trump supporter told me at the time.

“Therefore, why fall on your sword on principle?”

He added, “Businesspeople
—their main focus in life is to make money,
and you make money by backing winners. . . .

They’ve concluded, O.K., he’s going to be President,
let’s hold our nose and do what we have to do.”