Just weeks after College Republicans voted to endorse Donald Trump, a new student group called the Democratic Coalition Against Trump has formed on Grounds. The group, established last week, is an extension of the Keep America Great Political Action Committee, which is dedicated to preventing Trump’s election as president of the United States.
“The coalition serves as the home of the grassroots anti-Trump movement for Democrats,” the Keep America Great website states. “It has chairs in all 50 states, comprised of Democratic elected officials, party chairs, delegates, grassroots leaders and activists.”
The coalition’s campus ambassador Adam Beddawi, a third-year College student, said this is the student group’s goal on Grounds as well. The group will help people register to vote and spread information organizers believe is crucial to its message via canvassing, tabling and making phone calls.
“We want to be as fact-based and as tethered to reality as possible,” Beddawi said. “We’re not trying to smear Donald Trump as much as we’re trying to relay information to potential voters that we believe is crucial to their actual decision, because we believe, and the whole reason that this organization exists, is that when you look at the situation empirically, there is no other objective sort of conclusion you can make than that Donald Trump is unfit to be president.”
Beddawi said a large part of why he does not believe Trump is intellectually or politically fit to be president has to do with the president’s role as a representative of the country.
“I can’t imagine that … in terms of representing the country, speaking on behalf of what is actually a very diverse community of citizens, that this is the guy to represent America in terms of foreign relations and international diplomacy,” Baddawi said. “I don’t think that this is somebody that I’m proud to have represent the country.”
Currently, Beddawi is in the process of assembling a team of students committed to the group’s message. In the future, he said he is open to working with groups whose goals align with the coalition’s, including the University Democrats.
Sabrina Kim, University student ambassador for Students for Trump and second-year College student, said the coalition's existence does not change Students for Trump’s goals or plans.
“We don't exist to attack other members of the community and [we] respect the opinions of all students on Grounds,” Kim said in an email statement. “While we obviously fundamentally disagree on politics, I imagine that each group will continue to move forward in our own way and peacefully co-exist.”
Both Kim and Beddawi emphasized the importance of expressing political opinion and their own intentions to do so moving forward.
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