National purpose with local action
Next meeting: Monday July 14, 2025 @7pm
Christ Lutheran Church
1701 Arroyo Chamiso Road, Santa Fe
Make your voice heard! 📣 📣 The passage of the Bad Billionaire Bill was exceedingly narrow. The authoritarians are on the defensive. Make your voice heard in whatever way you can, because the participants in an authoritarian regime can see where public sentiment is blowing, and are in a position to put sand in the gears in so many ways while not losing their livelihood. We want to encourage that. And we will go further than that – see the National newsletter for the ONE MILLION RISING plan to defy Tyranny.
Locally, our Vice Chair, Cass Bing, gave an interview on KSFR about how and why we're keeping our protests peaceful in Santa Fe:
Scott Romans
Some worthy perspectives after having just celebrated the 249th anniversary of the birth of our independent nation:
Heidi Li Feldman
Jennifer Rubin
and, after the passage of the Bad Billionaire's Bill:
Guest post
Debra Efroymson
Upcoming Events
Guest post
Guest Speaker Series - July 21
For our July 21st meeting, we will have Reena Szczepanski, the state Representative from District 47 and majority floor leader. See this newsletter on the Big Brutal Bill with the latest summary of legislative status and interim committees at the Roundhouse:
Reena Szczepanski
House Majority Floor Leader Reena Szczepanski was elected to represent House District 47 in 2022 and made history earlier this year as the first Asian American to serve in legislative leadership in our state.
Born in Decatur, Georgia to immigrant parents and a graduate of Brown, Reena has always been driven by a passion for public health and justice. As a teenager, she worked with babies and toddlers affected by HIV/AIDS, sparking her deep commitment to underserved communities.
She served in AmeriCorps’ before returning to New Mexico, where she joined the Department of Health as Hepatitis Program Manager. From there, she became State Director for the Drug Policy Alliance, leading statewide efforts on medical cannabis, overdose prevention, and harm reduction.
Her leadership continued as Executive Director of Emerge New Mexico from 2006 to 2016, training and encouraging women to run for office. She also served as President of the New Mexico Public Health Association and chaired the Santa Fe County Health Policy and Planning Commission.
In the legislature, she has championed public health, reproductive rights, climate action, economic justice, gun violence prevention, and support for working families and the creative economy.
Staying Visible
⚠️Note, the Wednesdays Walk the Talk event has started summer hours, so 11-12am instead of 12-1.
Donovan Kolbly
Donovan Kolbly
Save the date: NM Indivisible Conference
The All New Mexico Indivisible Conference will be August 22-23. More details to come, but judging from the enthusiasm at the Monday meeting, we are sure to have a significant delegation there!
In the News
What folks are saying, of interest around here and elsewhere
Author: Bruce Berlin
Happening Around New Mexico
Check out the web calendar of grass-roots events from around New Mexico. Filter by Santa Fe or your area of interest!
In Defense of Public Lands
The huge turnout for the Public Lands Sell-off Protest in Santa Fe sent a message to Interior Secretary Burgum: our public lands are not for sale! Sen. Mike Lee's provision to sell off public lands was stripped from the Bad Billionaire's Bill:
Admin
but the fight to protect public lands isn't over; take action by lodging your objection to the roll back the 2001 Roadless Rule:
AdminPublic Comment on Hydrogen
The inclusion of Hydrogen in the Renewable Portfolio Standard Definition is open for public comment by the Public Regulation Commission on Thursday.
To sign up for public comment please contact Patrick Rodriguez at (505) 490-7910 or public.comment@prc.nm.gov no later than 5:00 p.m. the day before the meeting. Go to https://www.prc.nm.gov/nmprc-open-meeting-agenda/ several minutes before the start of the meeting for a link to the livestream.
Election Season
Matthew McQueen is running for NM Land Commissioner and having a kick-off event on July 10 in El Dorado. Details in the flyer or at https://mcqueenfornm.com/events
Stay in touch with us
Check out our resources page with lots of links to useful information!
📣 If you have knowledge of how to operate a bilingual website and digital production process, and/or interesting in doing so, please reach out to communications@indivisiblesantafe.org; many Santa Fe'ans are primarily Spanish speakers, and increasing the reach of our pro-democracy message is always a good thing!
And we are still developing our social media accounts, reaching significant audiences through them. We're currently focused primarily Bluesky and Facebook. You can help out with this effort by following us and liking and re-posting our messages. Help us get the word out and expand our digital presence!
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Indivisible National
(published July 7, 2025)
This week, Ezra prepares us for one of the most immediate impacts of Trump’s megabill: a supercharged ICE acting as Trump’s private police force. We have new ways to train up and fight back in the to-dos and updates below Ezra’s intro. |
The full, devastating impact of Trump’s Big Bullshit Bill ("BBB") will not be felt for years, but some of the impact will be felt very soon.
Usually, I use these newsletter intros to give a general overview of the news of the week, but I want to zero in on one aspect of this bill that is, oddly enough, not in the news very much: the creation of an American Gestapo.
I do not think the media, political commentators, or the public at-large understand just how enormous and society-changing this part of the bill is. And I think it would be good for all of us to get real smart real fast on what’s coming soon to a community near you.
This is the part of the BBB that will become immediately visible. The drastic Medicaid and Food Stamp cuts largely don’t take effect until after the midterms, and the tax cuts for billionaires and corporations will be largely invisible to the public. But the American Gestapo is funded now -- right now. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) annual budget balloons to $37.5 billion.
This makes ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency in the history of the republic. To put this in perspective, here are the sizes of other federal law enforcement agencies, many of which have entire TV dramas devoted to them:
Why do they need all this funding? Simple. They want to take the terror and militarization that they brought to Los Angeles and do the same thing in communities around the country. They’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but they haven’t had the money. Now, they’ve got the money.
When does this money flow? Now. This means a hiring spree of 10,000 goons for Kristi Noem and Tom Homan, 100,000 new detention beds, and mega- detention camps around the country. My home state of Texas is already preparing for one mega-camp site.
I don’t know why the broader political and media ecosystems aren’t yet focused on this. There is almost an instinctual pivot to bland political analysis: “How is this going to affect the midterms?” But we can’t wait 16 months for the midterms to start pushing back against this federal overreach. We cannot afford to wait. We have to organize against this in our own communities.
We’ll be getting into this more on Thursday’s What’s the Plan with me and Leah. And next week, we’ll be kicking off our One Million Rising training series to coach up a million volunteers on how to productively, effectively, and as safely as possible engage in non-violent non-cooperation.
This was already a harrowing time to be organizing in defense of our democracy, and this bill only cranks up the threat level. But remember: they have no mandate for this agenda.
Americans do not want a national Gestapo terrorizing their communities. As much as Trump wants to appear all-powerful, he is an unpopular, lame-duck president who just signed into law the worst piece of legislation in modern American history.
And we don’t just have to sit back and take it. Instead, we choose to organize. So please read on for this week’s action items.
In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director
Indivisible
Your weekly to-dos
- Sign on to One Million Rising: our campaign to train one million Americans to lead a local resistance movement. We're undertaking this new effort to dramatically ramp up defiance and non-cooperation tactics society-wide, whether it be at corporations, education, the media, or neighborhoods. Scroll down to learn more about One Million Rising in this week’s updates.
- Contact state and local Dems to demand action against masked ICE abductions. If you live in a blue state or city, your Democratic governor, mayor, and lawmakers have the power to stop secret police tactics like abductions by masked ICE agents. Our Blue State Defiance toolkit helps identify who to contact and what to call for.
- Call your Republican representative as we hold the GOP accountable for slashing Medicaid and SNAP. Congressional Republicans betrayed the people they represent and passed the biggest upward transfer of wealth in American history. The backlash must be swift and loud. If you have any, call your GOP senators as well.
- Register for the Truth Brigade July campaign launch this Wednesday, July 9, at 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT. Authoritarians fear dissent, so they spread lies to crush or suppress it on all fronts. Join this message kick-off and new member orientation to learn how to break through the propaganda noise and get our voices heard.
- Join our “What’s the Plan?” call on Thursday to hear Leah and Ezra answer your questions about fighting back after passage of the megabill. Every Thursday at 3pm ET (12pm PT), our co-founders jump online to break down the news of the week and answer your questions directly! Be part of a free-flowing, interactive chat about what’s next in our fight for democracy.
A new plan to defy Trump's tyranny: One Million Rising
Across the country, authoritarian forces are growing bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations, rollbacks of civil rights, weaponized courts, and full-scale attacks on our democracy.
We can stop this, but it’ll take all of us -- not just on single days of mass action, but by organizing every day, in every community. That’s why Indivisible is launching One Million Rising, a nationwide effort to train one million people to lead effective non-cooperation at every level.
We recommend that you sign up for all three One Million Rising sessions, even if you cannot attend them live. Each training will be recorded to be viewed on demand, and the best way to ensure you receive the recordings is registering on Mobilize. |
The next nationwide day of action
We’re facing the most brazen rollback of our civil rights and fundamental freedoms in generations. It’ll take sustained, united, peaceful pushback to salvage our liberties from the fascist MAGA agenda.
We’re proud to participate in and support our allies leading the next national day of action: Good Trouble Lives On! On July 17, the fifth anniversary of Congressman John Lewis’ passing, tens of thousands of Americans will come together to “make good trouble” in response to the Trump Administration’s attacks on our civil and human rights.
Our final weekly update on the Republican Tax Scam
As you’ve heard, Trump and congressional Republicans rammed their Medicaid-slashing, billionaire-enriching megabill into law last week. Despite immense pressure from their constituents and their own, well-documented objections to the bill, GOP lawmaker after GOP lawmaker folded like a broken beach chair.
They sided with Trump and billionaires over the people they’re supposed to represent. And they showed us once again that, given the chance to slash healthcare or shovel even more money to billionaires, they will never do what’s right for the people they represent.
Those corrupt bastards don’t deserve the offices they hold, and the fight to kick them out of Congress starts now.
We don’t typically emphasize fundraising in our weekly updates, and moving forward, we’ll ask you to take some actions that help the folks most harmed by this horrific bill. But ultimately, the only way we’re going to stop or reverse these policies is by defeating the goons responsible and winning back power.
Follow Indivisible national on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads to keep up on the latest information, and text “INDIVISIBLE” to 59798 to opt-in to our text messaging program, where we send rapid response actions a few times a month.
