The ACLU has received more donations in the past two days than in the past five years

Donald Trump’s Muslim ban did more than just imprison innocent people in airports and bring out thousands of protesters nationwide in support of them. It also brought lawyers, translators, congressmen, and civil rights organizations out to the airports in an effort to assist the detainees. Chief among them has been the American Civil Liberties Union, which went to court and got an immediate stay against Trump’s ban. And for its efforts, the nonprofit ACLU has been rewarded by the public with a stunning amount of donations.

In an average year, the ACLU brings in three to four million dollars in donations. But since Trump’s ban went into effect on Saturday, the ACLU has received more than nineteen million dollars in donations. That means it’s received more money in the past two days than it has in the past five years. These numbers were first reported by Dustin Volz from Reuters. And they point to a new front in the battle against Trump and his extremism: checkbook activism. That trend is just getting underway.

When actress Sarah Paulson won a Screen Actors Guild award on Sunday evening, she used her acceptance speech to ask people to donate any spare money they have to the ACLU. Notably, the $19.4 million total donated over the weekend was before Paulson gave her speech, meaning the total likely grew much higher by the time Sunday was fully over.

The record smashing flurry of donations to the American Civil Liberties Union, along with other groups such as Planned Parenthood which are trying to help Americans who are being hit the hardest by Donald Trump’s devastating policies in various ways, point to just how strongly mainstream Americans intend to fight back against Trump. There will surely be more legal battles to come, so those who want to donate to the ACLU can do so on the official ACLU website.

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/aclu-donations-two-days/1263/