Campaign fundraising site suspends Republican accounts in effort to reject ‘Trumpism’

A crowdfunding site for political campaigns has suspended all of its accounts for Republican candidates, saying the values of President Trump and the GOP are not in line with the company’s own values.

Acting Crowdpac CEO Jesse Thomas said in a Medium post Tuesday that the Crowdpac community and users “share values that Trumpism does not,” and that the company will reject “Trumpism” moving forward.

“Because Trumpism is so heavily linked with the modern national Republican Party, and because very few federal leaders in the Republican Party have meaningfully rejected Trumpism, we are temporarily suspending fundraising for Republican candidates on Crowdpac.com,” he wrote.

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“This decision has been a hard one for our company, but as Trumpism has spread through the Republican Party we’ve started to see an increase in campaigns for Republican candidates that we cannot allow on our platform,” he continued.

Thomas cited GOP candidates like Patrick Little, the top Republican candidate for a California Senate seat who has said he admires Adolf Hitler and called for a country “free of Jews,” among those candidates who have used the fundraising site.

He added that campaigns from other parties will remain live on the site, and that other Republican candidates will be accepted on a “case-by-case” basis.

Crowdpac offers the chance for a variety of political campaigns to fundraise on the site, including candidates running for local office and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) push to make gerrymandering unconstitutional.

“We hope that making this move will help our users feel confident that their activity on our platform is a rejection, not an endorsement, of Trumpism,” Thomas wrote.

He also announced that the platform’s co-founder Steve Hilton, a Fox News commentator, stepped down from his position as CEO at the company on Tuesday after his conservative commentary “created a tension within our platform and community.”

Thomas wrote that Hilton’s association with Fox News and Trump gave some the appearance that the use of Crowdpac was “seen as an endorsement of President Trump and his political movement,” and said that perception “isn’t even close to true.”

Hilton hosts a weekly Fox News show called “The Next Revolution,” which launched last year. Trump is a frequent viewer of the network and has promoted the channel on Twitter.

“Our business has been built around removing friction from participation for leaders and candidates, and any perceived endorsement of Trumpism, true or not, could hinder our growth and their success,” Thomas wrote.