After Black Women for Harris and White Women for Harris, it was the turn of \u201cWhite Dudes for Harris\u201d \u2014 where almost 200,000 people, including the actor who plays \u201cThe Dude\u201d himself, helped raise over $4 million during a fundraising Zoom call, according to organizers.<\/p>\n
The more than three-hour-long online call saw actors Mark Hamill, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sean Astin and Josh Gad among the men expressing support for Vice President Harris\u2019s presidential bid, alongside \u2019N Sync star Lance Bass and a host of Democrat politicians.<\/p>\n
Most notable among the celebrities was a man introduced as the \u201cdude in chief,\u201d actor Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in \u201cThe Big Lebowski,\u201d released in 1998, and joked: \u201cI qualify \u2026 I\u2019m White, I\u2019m a dude and I\u2019m for Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attendees expressed enthusiasm and excitement for the campaign \u2014 while also joking about the lack of diversity on the call. \u201cWhat a variety of Whiteness we have here \u2026 it\u2019s like a rainbow of beige!\u201d actor Bradley Whitford of \u201cThe West Wing\u201d told the group. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) teased that a White Dudes gathering \u201cdoesn\u2019t usually sound like something I would join, but this is a terrific cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizer Ross Morales Rocketto also acknowledged more serious motivations for organizing the call. \u201cThe left has been ceding White men to the MAGA right for way, way too long,\u201d he said referencing the slogan popularized by Trump, \u201cMake American Great Again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to stop tonight, because we know that the silent majority of White men aren\u2019t actually MAGA supporters. They\u2019re folks like you who just want a better life for their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
A majority of White men have long sided with Republican presidential nominees, and Trump won a majority of White male voters in 2020, The Post previously reported. President Biden ultimately won by assembling a large enough coalition of voters in key states, winning margins among young and non-White voters, college graduates and independents.<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s campaign has had to contend with attacks focused on her gender and racial identity \u2014 with one Republican lawmaker calling her unqualified and a \u201cDEI vice president,\u201d and many political pundits widely presume that her expected vice-presidential pick will have to be a White male to give her ticket the broadest appeal.<\/p>\n
During Monday\u2019s call, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg framed Harris\u2019s campaign as one for \u201cfreedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMen are more free when the leader of the free world and the leader of this country supports access to birth control and to IVF,\u201d he told the online gathering.<\/p>\n
Jeff Bridges: \u201cI\u2019m white, I\u2019m the Dude, and I\u2019m for Harris.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
pic.twitter.com\/75MWMRKggC<\/p>\n
\u2014 CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) July 30, 2024<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The White Dudes fundraiser has no official affiliation with Harris but large amounts of money were raised through matched funds and merchandise sales, including a popular trucker hat, the group said.<\/p>\n
During his speech, Bridges paid homage to Black Women for Harris for inspiring a wave of copycat fundraising calls. \u201cKamala is so certainly our girl \u2026 a woman president, man, so exciting! And her championing of women\u2019s rights, I\u2019m for that, and for all her stance on the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bridges also managed to work in his character\u2019s catchphrase in \u201cThe Big Lebowski,\u201d quipping at one point: \u201cAs the Dude might say: That\u2019s just my opinion, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to raising funds for Harris\u2019s campaign, speakers hoped to energize supporters ahead of what is expected to be an intense race.<\/p>\n
Buttigieg said it was an \u201chonor\u201d to address \u201cthis convening of dudes, right after The Dude,\u201d referencing Bridges. \u201cThe vibes right now are incredible,\u201d Buttigieg said of the Harris campaign. \u201cThe momentum is extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never felt this kind of belief, this kind of enthusiasm ever. I want us to enjoy it,\u201d Whitford said.<\/p>\n
Similar zoom fundraiser calls have been organized to support Harris\u2019s presidential bid after President Biden announced the end of his candidacy earlier in July.<\/p>\n
More than 44,000 people logged onto a Zoom call organized by Win With Black Women to support Harris, raising over $1.5 million, organizers said. The call featured Bernice King, the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr.; 85-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the most senior Black woman in the House; and Donna Brazile, the two-time acting chair of the Democratic National Committee.That event also helped inspire similar fundraising calls for Black men and Latinas.<\/p>\n
Thank you all for an awesome evening. <\/p>\n
\u2013 150,000 people have joined the cause
\u2013 190,000 people tuned in tonight
\u2013 $4M+ raised to the @KamalaHarris campaign <\/p>\n
This is the start of something special and we couldn\u2019t be more proud to be in this fight with you. <\/p>\n
More to come. <\/p>\n
\u2014 White Dudes for Harris (@dudes4harris) July 30, 2024<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
After Black Women for Harris and White Women for Harris, it was the turn of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}