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May 25, 2017; LGBT Weekly
NPQ has written about rage donating—donations inspired by President Trump’s attacks on the rights of women, Muslims, the press, immigrants, and people of color. A new app called WeCanResist.It has just taken things up a notch. It allows users to automatically donate to nonprofit organizations every time Trump tweets “something dangerous or hateful.”
The app supports nonprofits that are “fighting to protect democracy, human rights, or the environment,” said cofounder Allyson Kapin. Users select the nonprofits to which they want to donate from a list that includes “350.org, Black Lives Matter, BYP100, Clean Water Action, Crisis Text Line, Hollaback, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Immigration Law Center, National Organization for Women, URGE, and Voto Latino.” Users also set a monthly maximum amount and a donation amount per tweet. A monthly report tells the user how much money they donated and how many Trump tweets reflected what the app website calls “toxic ideology.”
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Kapin said, “While there are some high-profile nonprofits that have been raising millions of dollars since Trump was elected, there are many other organizations that are doing equally important work who desperately need funding to sustain their efforts to fight Trump’s anti-democratic agenda.” One hundred percent of donations go to the featured nonprofits.
An NBC News article covering post-election apps earlier this year noted that “[t]he last time Democrats lost a presidential election, in 2004, some of the party’s largest donors got together to seed massive new groups that became pillars of a new progressive infrastructure.” This time the charge is being led by “a diverse mix of programmers, lawyers, mothers, and political operatives have taken it upon themselves to build new tools to harness the energy created on the left to oppose President Donald Trump’s actions and policies.” The article calls it “a fascinating experiment in decentralized political infrastructure building.”
Kapin said, “We’re using Twitter, the very medium that Trump loves best and that he says was key in helping him win the election.” Inspired by the upcoming G-7 summit and Trump’s threat to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, the app will soon track other legislators.—Cyndi Suarez
