Billionaire left-wing mega-donor Tom Steyer told Netroots Nation, the annual conference of online “progressive” grass roots activists, that they had to push for President Donald Trump’s impeachment in the campaign for the 2018 midterm elections.
“We have a message to believe in. It is simple: we have to take down this corrupt president and his Republican enablers,” he said, adding: “We have to usher in a new era for America. One that is more inclusive, and more just.”
The “netroots” emerged in the early years of Internet activism in response to President George W. Bush, whom much of the left considered illegitimate after the controversial Florida recount in the 200 election. After eventual Democratic Party nominee John Kerry lost in the 2004 election, the netroots flexed their political muscle to elect former Vermont governor Howard Dean — who had crashed out of the presidential primary after his infamous “rebel yell” in Iowa — as Democratic National Committee chair.
Andrew Breitbart once crashed the Netroots Nation conference in 2011, when a similar conservative conference was being held nearby in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Steyer is reportedly committing $110 million — plus 1000 staffers and 2000 volunteers across two separate organizations — to the impeachment cause in 2018, the first step of which is to elect a Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Although impeachment depends on the help of Democratic leaders, Steyer chided them for not being aggressive enough.
“How many people in this room think that the Democratic establishment in Washington is listening to you and doing what you want? … Me neither. Because I don’t see a single constructive thing coming out of Washington, DC, not one thing.” By that, he meant that the Democrats were not doing “anything real” to stop President Trump.
“They are not willing to face a devastating and obvious truth — that he is wildly corrupt and that we are well past the threshold to kick him out of office,” Steyer said.
He urged the activists of Netroots Nation to force the issue by taking the case for impeachment door to door during the campaign.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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