[UPDATE: This event will not take place on Monday August 19. Some people scheduled to speak canceled, and we felt the number of remaining speakers was too few to have a good forum. Apologies to the many who were interested in coming. We are considering rescheduling this for sometime in the fall, and if that happens we will send out a further announcement.]

Rhode Islanders will get to hear and compare the views of different 2020 presidential candidates at a forum Monday.  It will feature knowledgeable supporters of different candidates presenting their candidate’s views on 5 important progressive issues, namely: war/peace, immigration, policing, surveillance, and climate.

The forum will run from 7-8:30pm on Monday August 19, though it may be good to arrive early.  The last part of the event will be for audience Q&A. 

The event is sponsored by the Rhode Island Anti-War Committee (and cosponsored by Rhode Island Rights).  To keep the forum focused, we concentrated only on candidates who are relatively more anti-war on the Democratic side, and that had the result that most of the candidates included in the forum are more or less progressive.  However, we do intend to give a fair and equal hearing to all the candidates who are covered in the forum.

To be clear, we didn’t ask candidates to be there personally, so don’t expect to see them in person.  Instead, for each presidential candidate who is included, we will have a supporter of that candidate there to discuss the candidate’s views.

You can sign up on the event’s Facebook page. Feel free to share it.

The location for Monday’s forum is currently set for Rochambeau Library at 708 Hope St in Providence.  There is a slight chance that the event may be moved to a different venue in Providence, but we will let people know at least 2 days in advance if that happens.  Check this Uprise RI page or the Facebook event page for updates. 

We do not yet have a final list of which presidential candidates will have a supporter speaking for them at the forum, but it won’t be just lower-level and mid-level candidates.  We will release more information on that prior to the event – again, you can check this Uprise RI page or the Facebook event page for updates. 

We have had some success in finding people who could speak as supporters of the different candidates — so far, we’ve done this through contacting organizations supporting each candidate.  But there are still some “open slots”: candidates for whom we are still looking for someone to speak about their positions.  If you support a candidate and are familiar with the candidate’s views on our 5 issues (war/peace, immigration, policing, surveillance, and climate), there may be a chance that we’d have a slot for you to present the candidate’s positions at the forum: email [email protected] if you’re interested in doing that.