TrueMajority was a progressive advocacy group in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In September 2007, TrueMajority and its related organization TrueMajorityACTION merged with USAction. By 2008, the combined groups had over 700,000 members, making it, together with

MoveOn MoveOn (formerly known as MoveOn.org) is a progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. Formed in 1998 around one of the first massively viral email petitions, MoveOn has since grown into one of the largest grassroot ...

, one of the two largest liberal advocacy groups in the United States. TrueMajority was founded by Ben Cohen, co-founder of

Ben & Jerry's Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings Inc., trading and commonly known as Ben & Jerry's, is an American company that manufactures ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. Founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, the company went from a single ice cream ...

. TrueMajorityACTION was a separate but closely related organization, which had a different status under U.S. law so that it could campaign for specific parties and politicians. TrueMajority merged with USAction in 2007. TrueMajority was mentioned on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show fo ...

'' on March 5, 2007, when Ben and Jerry made a guest appearance. In the episode, they offered free frisbees to Colbert viewers who visited the web site, and then they signed up each viewer who visited as a member of the advocacy group.

Stances

TrueMajority organized protests of the 2008 G-20 Summit. It also opposed the 2008 financial bailout of banks, and helped to organize protests of the bailout. In 2004 TrueMajority ran advertisements calling for a paper trail in electronic voting.

Iraq war opposition

TrueMajority co-sponsored protests and advertisements against the Iraq war in 2003. The organization published anti-war advertisements in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', but its ads were refused by television networks including

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

, MTV, and

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programmin ...

. TrueMajority also supported

Howard Dean Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 ...

in the 2004 Democratic primary, mounting a letter-writing campaign and arguing for his support on the grounds of his

opposition to the Iraq War Significant opposition to the Iraq War occurred worldwide, both before and during the initial 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, and throughout the subsequent occupation. People and groups opposing the war include the gove ...

. In 2008 TrueMajority gathered over 20,000 petitions to urge

CalPERS The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is an agency in the California executive branch that "manages pension and health benefits for more than 1.5 million California public employees, retirees, and their families".CalPERSFa ...

to investigate KBR for

war profiteering A war profiteer is any person or organization that derives profit from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term typically carries strong negative connotations. General profiteering, making a profit criticized a ...

, including in the petitions accusations of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

and murder.

References

External links

USAction's web page
{{authority control Internet-based activism Political advocacy groups in the United States American political websites Anti–Iraq War groups Left-wing politics Defunct organizations based in the United States