Groups You Can Donate to Instead of Hillary’s Unnecessary PAC

Apparently, our country's left-ish party has been cursed with wealthy centrists leading it forever and always, because Hillary Clinton has decided to dip her toes back into American politics. According to a CNN report, anonymous sources with knowledge of Clinton's post-election plan said the two-time presidential candidate "will soon launch a political organization aimed at funding 'resistance' groups that are standing up to President Donald Trump." According to Politico, Clinton plans to launch the PAC next week and will call it Onward Together.

While I'm all about resisting Trump, we don't need to do it alongside Hillary Clinton. As you might've noticed during the 2016 election, between her "damn emails," as Bernie Sanders put it, and her paid Goldman Sachs speeches, there seemed to be a general mistrust of the former secretary of state. (For what its worth, Axios reported Tuesday that she "also plans to return to paid speaking.") Considering the fallout from her failed presidential bid, it's not unreasonable to want a political system free of Clinton-tainted money. In general, we need to run candidates who have policies we actually believe in, the types of leaders who are anointed for more than just being better than the Republicans. Bernie Sanders's campaign—largely funded by small donations—illustrated that it's possible to be relatively successful without the help of corporate donors. So here's a list of political organizations you can give your money to. These are groups that not only resist Donald Trump, but also fight the establishment, centrist political system that so much of the country is frustrated with.

Since the rise of Bernie Sanders and the election of Donald Trump, the membership of the Democratic Socialists of America—our nation's largest socialist organization—has tripled, turning a niche political ideology into a movement. Finally, after years of "commie" being a dirty word in our country, we have an emerging political organization that fights for things like universal healthcare and aims to "decrease the influence of money in politics, empower ordinary people in workplaces and the economy, [and] restructure gender and cultural relationships to be more equitable." Donate here.

Justice Democrats is an organization founded shortly after the inauguration by former Bernie staffers and the CEO of the The Young Turks, a progressive news network. In their own words, they seek to run Democratic candidates that "represent people, not corporations." Justice Democrats primary platforms include banning super PACs, regulating Wall Street, implementing universal healthcare, and furthering non-discrimination protections for marginalized people. Donate here.

Also riding the Bernie Sanders wave, Brand New Congress plans "to run [more than 400] non-politician candidates for Congress in 2018 in one unified campaign" to combat unpopular bipartisan platforms like bank bailouts. They also plan to fight against the influence of the 1 percent in politics. With lofty goals like ending mass incarceration, healthcare for all, and reforming our electoral system to make it more democratic. Donate here.

Specifically targeting the millennial demographic, Sunrise Movement is an anti-Trump organization devoted to organizing protests as well as recruiting volunteer organizers to campaign for progressive candidates in the midterm elections. Explicitly populist, the organization "demand[s] that all candidates refuse fossil fuel money and get behind candidates with a conscience and a spine." Donate here.

Fighting against elected Democrats who have been complicit in the Trump administration, We Will Replace You does exactly what its name suggests. It urges elected representatives to unabashedly resist Trump and lets them know if they don't, they will be replaced. "We fundamentally reject the assumption that Democrats can only win in red states by pandering to racists and big bankers," co-founder Claire Sandberg said in an interview with The Hill. "The way we beat Trumpism and take back Congress and statehouses is offering a coherent vision of our own to put people back to work… We don't need to completely compromise our own values and principles." Donate here.

Directly addressing the problems of the Clinton campaign—like her lack of presence in Michigan and Wisconsin—Knock Every Door is "currently conducting nationwide, door-to-door canvasses to start conversations that should have been happening before the election and that simply can't wait until 2018." In short, they want to get to know Trump voters, non-voters, and disgruntled Democrats to gain better tools to defeat Trump and the Republican party. Donate here.

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