JOIN INDIVISIBLE SANTA FE AND TAKE ACTION
JOIN INDIVISIBLE SANTA FE AND TAKE ACTION
Join us for our next meeting 7pm Monday, December 9, 2024. We will come together as an Indivisible community to begin to plan, strategize, and meet goals for the future endeavors we will take to save our democracy.
We will meet in our regular location, Christ Lutheran Church ,1701 Arroyo Chamisa Rd. Santa Fe NM 87507. Hope to see you
Join us for our next meeting 7pm Monday, December 9, 2024. We will come together as an Indivisible community to begin to plan, strategize, and meet goals for the future endeavors we will take to save our democracy.
We will meet in our regular location, Christ Lutheran Church ,1701 Arroyo Chamisa Rd. Santa Fe NM 87507. Hope to see you there!
The House did not vote on HR 9495 yesterday, they are now planning to vote tomorrow, Wednesday 11/20. Rep Leger Fernandez did not vote on this bill on 11/12. If you haven’t called her office already, do so today or tomorrow and tell her to vote NO! The article from NOW explains why, and gives you a script to use. Please pass this to all the folks who showed up last night to our gathering.
https://now.org/urgent-action-alert/
If there's one universally accepted truth in the modern age, it's that sequels suck. And Trump 2.0 will be no exception. Trump, Vance, and their MAGA minions feel vindicated by the victory of their bigoted, fascistic clown show of a presidential campaign. Trump takes office with a plan to institute the worst parts of Project 2025. He’ll be enabled by a judiciary packed with right-wing ideologues and a congressional majority stacked with MAGA foot soldiers. And he’s assembled a bloc of corporations and billionaires eager to do his bidding in exchange for tax cuts and corrupt favors. But he has no mandate for the staggeringly harmful agenda he’s about to unleash on the country. And together, we have the power to fight back — and win.
Democracy is in grave peril, but it is not dead. Fascists depend on convincing us to give our power away and fall in line, that the fight is over and we lost. And while we must be clear-eyed about the threat, we must not do the fascists’ work for them by giving them powers they do not have. Trump wants to govern as a dictator, but he has the slimmest possible congressional majority and a grossly unpopular agenda. Winning an election with 49.9% of the vote (of those who voted) does not make him a Dictator for Life and does not make Project 2025 the law of the land.
The truth is that political power resides in many places -- from local to state to federal. To stave off the fascists, we must tap into that power in every corner of our country. We must organize ourselves to block their attacks, break MAGA’s political strength, and build a winning majority coalition of our own. Leadership in this moment must come from regular people, not just politicians. Elected Democrats will need our encouragement, support, and cajoling to find their spines and fight back. Elected Republicans can and must break with MAGA or be held accountable for the harm they cause. This guide outlines concrete strategies and tactics that collectively will help us limit harm, win in 2026, and throw MAGA out in 2028.
Eight years ago, we wrote the Indivisible Guide to organizing locally to pressure Congress and block the Trump agenda. Now, we’re offering our best advice on how everyday people can organize to stop Trump 2.0. There’s a lot we don’t know about what needs to be done. We’ll need to learn and experiment as we go. But we hope that this guide will be useful for people across the country who are grappling with what they can do in this moment.
Our shared future depends on everyday Americans choosing to fight back. We believe each of us has a role to play — in blue states, red states, and political battlegrounds across America. We believe MAGA will seek to divide and conquer us, isolating us one by one in an attempt to fracture our resolve. We believe standing together, Indivisible, is the only way to protect our families, our neighbors, and our democracy. And we believe that we will win.
Chapter 1: What Happened and Why it Matters. Heading into the 2024 election, Americans were angry about inflation and frustrated with the status quo. Some voters either flipped to Trump or didn’t vote at all. That gave Trump the margins to win -- but it doesn’t give him a mandate for dictatorship or Project 2025. Americans of all stripes are going to be pissed when Trump 2.0 comes to town dressed in chaos, corruption, and cruelty. We can stoke that backlash to break up their coalition and build ours.
Chapter 2: A Quick Primer on Constituent Power. Trump wants us to believe that the presidency is all-powerful. It ain’t true. Political power in our democracy overlaps between local, state, and federal electeds. Your power comes from your ability to be a source of support (or a pain in the ass) to those electeds. You can use this power to get them to stand up to Trump 2.0 or face political consequences. We review the basics of constituent power -- what it is, how it works, and how yours can do the most good in this moment where you live.
Chapter 3: The Plan to Get Through the Next 2 Years. Our best chance to get through this era with some amount of democracy intact is to hang on until 2026 and win big in the midterms -- breaking Trump’s hold on Congress and making sure election deniers and saboteurs aren’t in charge of the 2028 election. We’ve boiled it down to three big plays:
You’ll plug into the plays that make the most sense for where you live and the leverage you have. Think of it as a giant national pro-democracy team -- some of us are playing offense, some are playing defense, but if we all play our roles, we’ll make it through together.
Chapter 4: Protect and Prepare. Things are about to get much worse, and we need to treat an attack on one as an attack on all of us. That means supporting communities under threat and preparing to operate under increasingly authoritarian conditions. We’ll review how to:
Chapter 5: Practical steps for finding or forming your local Indivisible group. Fascists depend on you, believing you’re alone and powerless. And honestly, on your own, you don’t have a ton of power. But, organized groups of individuals do have power. If you’re a fan of an existing group in your area, join it. If not, get a few friends together, start a new local Indivisible group, and build from there. Your local group is the basis for everything else you can hope to achieve in this period. This chapter includes some starter recommendations for how to pull your new, local, volunteer-led Indivisible group together, connect with others on the ground, and get to work.
Senator Warren says we need to be pushing Senate Democrats (we’re still in power) to confirm as many judges as possible. Here’s a link thru Indivisible to contact our Senators: https://act.indivisible.org/sign/tell-your-senators-fill-every-judicial-vacancy-nowD
(published November 14, 2024)
Folks,
We launched the new Indivisible Guide last night: Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink.
We had 50k people who picked themselves off the floor after an election that ripped our hearts out and registered for the launch call last night with me, Leah, and Sen. Warren. It was awesome. You can watch the recording here if you missed it.
The bottom line is this: Trump wants us to believe he’s all-powerful. He’s not. The original Indivisible Guide focused entirely on Congress. That’s only part of the fight against Trump 2.0. The new guide aims to be as practical as the original, but we widen the scope to include what you can do in cities and states where you have leverage. If we all play our part, we can harness backlash to the horror that’s coming. We can limit harm and break the back of MAGA in the elections to come. We can survive to fight another day.
In a recent interview, the historian of authoritarianism and author of On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder, noted about the moment we’re in: “They want you to be alone. Nobody is going to fix this alone. That’s not how this works.” There’s a role for all of us -- some will play defense, some play offense -- but it all comes down to getting organized in our local groups. Individually, we’re alone and powerless; together, we have power.
So I’m going to ask you to do 3 things:
That’s it. This guide is not everything we need to do. It doesn’t answer all the questions. But it’s a start.
So here’s what’s coming next:
And if you want to get in touch, we need to start investing in communications systems not owned by the state (e.g. Twitter). Leah and I have found a welcoming pro-democracy community on Bluesky, which functions basically identically to Twitter, but without the bots, nazis, and vitriol. Find me there at @ezralevin, Leah at @leahgreenberg, and the Indivisible team at @indivisibleguide. Again, this won’t be enough, but it’s a step in the right direction.
In solidarity,
Ezra
TAKE ACTION
CONTACT SENATOR HEINRICH AND SENATOR LUJAN
Tell them to fill every judicial vacancy NOWCongress is reconvening for the final session of the year and Senate Democrats only have a few more weeks in the majority. With another Trump presidency and a Republican-controlled Senate looming, Democrats must make the most of this time and do everything in their power to safeguard our democracy and our rights.
That’s why they must prioritize confirming pro-democracy judges in the final session. President Biden has nominated a slate of diverse, highly qualified candidates to federal judgeships. The Senate has confirmed over 200 of these judges, but there are 29 more nominations still pending - and that number could grow before Biden leaves office. Confirmations can be slow because there are a number of procedural hoops to jump through in the Senate - but with determination and long hours, Democrats can get this done.
Federal judges serve for lifetime appointments, so it’s crucial that these positions are filled by candidates who are dedicated to upholding the Constitution and our democracy. And we know that if these seats are still vacant when he takes office, Trump will nominate judges that will further the MAGA agenda from the bench.
Fill out this form right now with your information to send an email to your senators urging them to spend the final session confirming as many judges as possible before Republicans take control of the Senate. To be most impactful, we encourage you to tweak the message below to make it more personal to you. Click here to contact your Senators through Indivisible
CONTACT REPRESENTATIVE LEGER FERNANDEZ
Tell Congress to vote NO on HR 9495
After failing to pass it earlier this week, on Monday the House is scheduled to vote yet again on H.R. 9495, a bill that would grant the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Treasury (“Secretary”) the unilateral authority to suspend the tax-exempt status of organizations deemed “terrorist supporting” without providing meaningful due process or requiring any evidence–much less evidentiary standards–to support such a designation. Under President-elect Donald Trump, this legislation would enable his administration unfettered power to stamp out any groups opposed to his agenda. It must be stopped. Click here to contact Congresswoman Leger Fernandez
Letters to the Editor, published in the Santa Fe New MexicanSelling Out
On Nov 5, American heard the siren song of the pocketbook and sold its soul, bartering away our birthright democracy in exchange for the promise of lower gas and grocery prices. Perhaps even the swaggering dealmaker Donald Trump could not have envisioned how successful he would be in driving this Faustian, zero-sum bargain with the American people.
In 1992 the famous presidential campaign strategy mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid." But that was then, this is now. All those who treasure our civil rights and seek a just and equitable society must remain vigilant and active in protecting those rights and remember that, actually, it's the democracy, stupid.
Alexa Bradford
Who Profits?
Kudos to Alexa Bradford (“Selling out,” Letters to the Editor, Nov. 8) for spotlighting the folly of “bartering away” our democracy in exchange for (possibly) lower gas and grocery prices. Assume for a moment that we actually get lower gas prices. Here’s an interesting calculation: In 2022, Americans used 135.73 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel. If the price of fuel drops by 25 cents for a whole year, we save $33.93 billion. But note that according to CNN Business, since Election Day, Donald Trump supporters Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos (a supporter or just scared?) and Larry Ellison (of Oracle), together, are $39.1 billion richer.
Herbert Thomas
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On November 9, 2016 a darkness fell across America. Some of us saw the authoritarian nature of Donald Trump and the Republicans who thought to use him. A group of former Obama campaign and administration staffers wrote a guide that changed our lives and helped us learn how to influence elections, influence our members of Congress, and become activists for progressive change.
We started out, like many of you, with a determination that we would never take an election for granted. In February 2017 a group of people met at DeVargas Mall and for the first few months felt the horror of what some of us knew was coming.
Then we got busy.
To enact a lasting change for justice, equity, peace and access to a fair transformation in the United States of America, vote by vote.
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