There’s a new social media movement that is prepping for the 2020 presidential election. The movement can be found on Twitter and on Instagram.
David Krouse, who lives in Los Angeles, CA, said the movement is urging pro-life voters to vote in the 2020 Democrat primaries.
The movement started on March 1 as a Twitter protest in an attempt to build awareness to the Democrat Party’s support for abortion and disenfranchising anyone who doesn’t support abortion.
“Basically, for years, I’ve been a Republican voter,” Krouse said. “But if you’re pro-life, you have really nowhere to vote.”
Krouse said Republicans hype the pro-life issue during campaign season, and then follow it up with broken promises during the legislative session. Some pro-lifers would vote for Democrats, Krouse said, because there are other issues they can agree on with Democrats.
“They do nothing to keep that issue alive,” Krouse said. In 2008-10, a lot of people who are pro-life were disgusted to see that many so-called pro-life Republican leaders actually fight against the human life amendment because they said it would take the abortion issue off the table and hurt us in the 2012 election.”
With President Donald Trump well on his way to the Republican nomination, Krouse is focused on trying to raise awareness for any Democrat nominee who would support a human life amendment.
He said previous movements have focused on holding people in power responsible and have targeted people who are blocking progress. Picketing was a strategy utilized during the women’s suffrage debate.
“We’ve been picketing on Twitter and also on Instagram every single day since March 1,” Krouse said. “Every day different people have retweeted it across the country. We’re seeing traction in Iowa actually in terms of mobilization as well as New Hampshire.”
Krouse said he’ll officially switch his party registration on July 1 with the hope of Democrats putting someone in the race who is pro-life.
“We want to put Republicans and Democrats on notice,” he said. “I live in California where we have an open primary, so I don’t have to switch my registration, I can actually vote in the Democrat primary without doing it, but I do want to send a message that the Republican Party needs to take action if they want pro-life support. I also want to put the Democrat Party on notice that pro-lifers can and will vote anti-incumbent in their primaries because we’re tired of people being elected who are not pro-life in that party.
“We need both parties to be pro-life, not just one party. That’s a basic expectation of any political party that wants to be a political party in America.”
If no pro-life Democrat is running, then Krouse encourages voters to simply vote anti-incumbent. And if there is no pro-life Democrat in the next election, then keep voting anti-incumbent until whoever is seeking political power gets the message.
“We’ve seen Republicans recently, with the exception of possibly Donald Trump ironically, not do anything either,” Krouse said. “This whole Born Alive Act they bring up day after day and keep bashing Democrats — Republicans didn’it pass that for two years. That was in the Republican Party platform in 2016. Yet when they had control of both chambers of Congress and the President was ready to sign it, they couldn’t get the legislation to him. They don’t care. And they’re not going to care as long as people vote for Republicans because they’re ‘pro-life.'”
There’s only one way for pro-life voters to make Republicans care, Krouse said.
“They’re going to care when people start punishing and holding people in power responsible,” he said. “If Republicans aren’t doing anything on life, go to the Democrat Party. If you don’t like incumbents, vote them out. Bring in new people. Just start getting rid of people.”
Krouse said he’s not telling people to vote for someone who is pro-choice necessarily. He’s also not suggesting who to vote for in the general election.
“But I am encouraging pro-life voters to flex their muscles and mobilize in the Democrat Party to basically send a message, especially in Iowa and New Hampshire, if a pro-life candidate rises up even to like third or fourth there, that is going to be definitely sending a message nationwide and it’s going to send a message to the Democrat Party.
“If the Democrat Party keeps pushing abortion and they don’t support human rights on this issue, they’ll lose elections and votes.”
Krouse said there’s one candidate who has declared in New Hampshire that says he would support a human life amendment. Henry Hewes is a pro-life Democrat running for President. Krouse said he has declared for a Human Life Amendment.
“I don’t necessarily think he’s going to be viable, but I do think any candidate who declares for the Human Life Amendment — if they get votes and boosted up, that sends a strong message to the Democrat leadership. It sends a strong message to people all over hte country that we’re not going to tolerate this any more.
What many people do not know, Krouse said, is that Ellen McCormack was the first pro-life candidate to run for president. She ran in 1976 as a Democrat. She was a housewife and early leader of the pro-life movement.
“She was the first woman to qualify for federal matching funds and secret service protection,” Krouse said. “She beat out multiple better-known politicians. It really forced the pro-life issue into the Democrat Party at a time when Republicans were still politely pro-choice. Gerald Ford and Betty Ford were both pro-choice. So that’s what we’d like to see this year.”
Krouse said he believes there are more pro-life Democrats than people realize. He said he talked with Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America. In 1978 there were 125 members of Congress who were pro-life Democrats. Today, he said, “there’s like four.”
He’s had conversations with people on the ground in Iowa, he said. He’s been told there are pro-life Democrats in Iowa.
“A lot of people don’t want to come out because they’re afraid the rank-and-file pro-life voters won’t support them in the general election,” Krouse said. “Pro-life folks should never have become just supporting the Republican Party. That was actually an election strategy left over from the 1960s.”
Krouse said the life issue should have remained a bipartisan issue.
“We should make a point of requiring every single political party to support the right to life,” he said. “But the Republican Party became defined as the party for life and the Democrat Party became defined as the party of death. The pro-life movement actually lost power in the Democrat Party because of that.”
Interested individuals can retweet from @NM4LIFE or share @NationalMobilizationForLife in their Instagram story.
