National purpose with local action
Next meeting: Monday July 28, 2025 @7pm
Christ Lutheran Church
1701 Arroyo Chamiso Road, Santa Fe
Be your unique self, and resist in your own way ❤️ A key point from the One Million Rising kick-off is that there needs to be multi-modal resistance. That means doing all kinds of different things. Some will work better than others, but all are necessary. Show up to protests! Participate in a pro-democracy group! Put up a sign! Bring your friends! Do what is possible for you, and what is sustainable. For example, I personally am overjoyed that I can bring my particular talents to this effort by helping with this newsletter. Everyone doesn't need to, nor should, do the same thing – but if we all do what we can and we are aligned in our mission of democracy – then we will succeed.
Thank you for being part of the civic engine of democracy.
– Reena Szczepanski
Upcoming Events
The kickoff of the One Million Rising campaign was a huge success, with 120k+ attendees on the call - easily maxing out Zoom! - and immediately blew past the goal of 1000 pledges to hold a community engagement meeting. By the end of the call, there were over 5,000 pledges. The recording is linked in the National newsletter, below. And the next meeting is July 30 – sign up here:
Here's Scott's angle:
Scott Romans
Speaker and Writer Bureau
Jane S is putting together a speakers and writers bureau, organizing the resources we need to populate the media with our message of democracy. If you're interested, let her know at media@indivisiblesantafe.org.
Regular protests
Donovan Kolbly
Donovan Kolbly
In the News
What folks are saying, of interest around here and elsewhere
Jennifer Rubin
In "we ❤️ DEI" news, shareholders voted overwhelmingly to preserve DEI initiatives at 30 companies:
Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
Last Thursday's celebration of John Lewis's contribution to democracy included a screening of his biography, Good Trouble. It was excellent, inspiring, motivating... and the theater was full, as well. There were Good Trouble protests around, and it also inspired many reflections on the nature and need of protest in a democracy:
if you are fatigued, depressed, or demoralized by the flooded zone of lies and outrages flowing from the Trump regime, get up off the couch and out of the house anyway. Take up the responsibility of citizenship in a democracy. We do not have the luxury to wallow in despair.
– Jen Rubin
Jennifer Rubin
And if you are tracking Trump's rapid slide into un-favorability and dementia, HCR provides a good update:
On Friday, G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported that “polls show Trump’s position plummeting.” On Friday morning, the average job approval rating for Trump was 42.6% with 53.5% disapproving.
Heather Cox Richardson
Happening Around New Mexico
nm.news
Check out the web calendar of grass-roots events from around New Mexico. Filter by Santa Fe or your area of interest!
Towards a Police State
With the passage of the Big Billionaire's Bill, the national move towards a police state is accelerating. ICE is funded at levels beyond that of many national armies, and as we've seen from the regime's other appointments, you can be sure fealty to the regime will be a key hiring criteria. But the regime's hold on power is not the only beneficiary; some NM communities are depending on those funds as employment opportunities for their people. (Reena addressed this point in an interesting way at the Monday meeting, pointing out that a way the state can resist is by using the state's workforce commission to provide better employment options. A great example of resisting by lifting up.)
Legislature Interim Committees
Committees have started to meet in the gap between sessions; this is a great way to get an idea of how the different agencies operate, and get ahead of what is likely to come up in the regular session.
One thing our guest speaker, Reena Szczepanski (House majority leader), emphasized during her talk on Monday is that establishing a relationship with your legislator during the interim between sessions is a great way to get your voice heard. Otherwise, all the legislators hear from are lobbyists and corporate interests.
ISF Leadership
Stay in touch with us
Check out our resources page with lots of links to useful information, constantly being updated as we find new web resources to help fight for democracy and the rule of law.
You can help our effort to expand our digital presence, including social media on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram by following us and liking and re-posting our messages, or sharing our website with people who might be interested – they, too, can sign up and get this newsletter! 🎉 Help us get the word out!
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Indivisible National
(published July 21, 2025)
Last week, in response to Trump’s escalating authoritarian overreach, Indivisible launched the first of a three-part training series on strategic non-cooperation. We had 150,000 people register. We broke Zoom. The next day, Leah and I talked about it with Erica Chenowith (of 3.5% fame) on What’s the Plan.
The gist of the threat is this: Trump and his allies aren’t satisfied with just dominating Congress and the courts. They want to dominate law firms, universities, businesses, and media institutions as well. This is textbook authoritarian overreach, and we can organize against it -- but we have to pay attention to it rather than just to Congress and the courts.
In the last few days, we’ve seen a case in point example of what Trump’s strategic domination looks like with CBS News, detailed in this piece by the Guardian’s David Smith.
This serves as a good example for what we’re up against, so I think it’s worth getting acquainted with the facts. Here’s the timeline as we know it:
- Sept 2024: Paramount (owner of CBS News) and Skydance Media file multibillion dollar merger paperwork with the FCC.
- Oct 13, 2024: 60 Minutes on CBS airs an interview with Kamala Harris.
- Oct 28, 2024: Trump sues CBS/Paramount for $10 billion, claiming the interview was edited to hurt his campaign.
- Jan 2025: Trump is inaugurated.
- Feb 2025: Trump increases damage claims against CBS/Paramount to $20 billion and demands the FCC pull CBS’s license.
- April 2025: 60 Minutes’ longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigns, citing management pressure that infringes on his journalistic independence.
- May 2025: CBS News president Wendy McMahon resigns for the same reason.
- July 2, 2025: Paramount announces a $16 million cash settlement to Trump.
- July 14, 2025: On The Late Show, Colbert calls the payout a “big, fat bribe.”
- July 17, 2025: CBS announces The Late Show is being cancelled.
Paramount described Colbert’s firing as merely a financial decision, despite it being the number one late-night show for nine seasons. No doubt their bottom line played a key role -- just not in the way they’d like us to believe!
The Paramount executives aren’t stupid. They understand Trump is capricious and thin-skinned. They know he hates Colbert. They see that he can single-handedly block their valuable merger deal. And (tooootally coincidentally) just as they campaign for merger approval, they’ve simultaneously made the choice to remove a popular Trump critic from the air.
The reason institutions and leaders obey in advance is because they benefit from doing so, at least in the short-term. Our job as organizers in a time of authoritarian breakthrough is to create countervailing pressure.
These institutions and leaders need to know people will back them up if they fight back. And, on the flip side, they need to know there are consequences if they simply play by Trump’s rules.
This is why Indivisible is focused on training a million people on how to engage in strategic non-cooperation. This is the fight we’re in now. Read on to this week’s to-dos to join up.
In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible
Your weekly to-dos
- Sign up for the One Million Rising call on July 30 to learn strategic non-cooperation strategies and stand with one million Americans organizing their neighbors. As our slide toward authoritarianism accelerates, it falls on us to lead the fight against fascism and force vital institutions off the sidelines. In our July 30 call, you’ll be trained to organize others and lead active non-cooperation in your community.
- Get friends and family into the fight by attending our Fight Back with Friends training tomorrow, July 22, at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Fight Back with Friends is a program to help you pull friends and family off the sidelines with talking points, tools, and tactics designed to grow our movement. Tuesday’s monthly call focuses on the One Million Rising campaign.
- Don’t let Trump bury the Epstein files! Use our toolkit to help expose the cover-up. We’ve put together an explainer on the state of Trump’s Epstein cover-up, complete with action items and shareable social posts. The Trump regime wants to flex its power to sweep this story of abuse and corruption under the rug; we won’t let that happen.
- Learn messaging skills to advocate for all our communities and combat racial fear-mongering at tonight’s Solidarity in Action call. Tonight (July 21) at 7pm ET, podcaster, researcher, and communications expert Anat Shenker-Osorio will teach the Race Class Narrative -- a vital messaging framework to help build solidarity across lines of difference and overcome right-wing messages of hate and fear.
- Join our “What’s the Plan?” call on Thursday to hear Leah and Ezra answer your questions about our big new summer initiatives. 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.
P.S. We're launching billboards in key Republican districts -- from purple battlegrounds to deep-red Trump country -- calling out Trump and his enablers for covering up the Epstein files, and since these weren't planned or budgeted for, they depend on this community's immediate grassroots support. If you can, chip in here to fund Epstein cover-up billboards and other efforts to toxify Trump.
Have you joined One Million Rising?
We’re in a period of “authoritarian breakthrough” -- when a would-be regime moves to rapidly consolidate power, eliminate checks on that power, and operate with total impunity. We see it every day in Trump’s deployment of the military in LA, mass firings of qualified federal employees, supercharging of ICE, and so much more.
The key to stopping authoritarian breakthrough isn’t attacking the would-be ruler, but chipping away at the vital institutions upholding their power -- causing the entire house of cards to collapse.
That’s why we launched One Million Rising, a push to train over a million Americans in how to identify, influence, and successfully move businesses, universities, local governments, and other vital institutions from appeasement to active non-cooperation.
Over 100,000 Americans already signed up to lead their personal networks in the fight against fascism, and in our next call, on July 30, we’ll talk about how to get others on board with impeding Trump’s fascist tactics and hosting your first community resistance gathering.
We recommend that you register for all the One Million Rising sessions, even if you can’t attend them live. You can already watch a recording of the One Million Rising kickoff call here, and the best way to ensure you receive recordings of future sessions is by signing up on Mobilize. |
Preach beyond the choir with our new social toolkit
Social media and online conversations are powerful tools to share vital truths and grow our movement, but too often, progressives find ourselves messaging specifically to the people who already agree with us!
To build the multi-racial, multi-generational movement needed to stop Trump’s power-grab, we have to bring new folks into the fold -- particularly those who might not share all our views or follow the same news sources. That’s why we’re launching TRUTH & SHARE: a new social toolkit featuring shareable news from across the web that’ll help toxify Trump and MAGA.
TRUTH & SHARE includes news highlighting Trump’s most unpopular policies and biggest failures. It’s not about highlighting every Trump atrocity; it’s about calling attention to policies and actions that broad majorities would reject.
Get ready for Accountability August
Congress will soon head home for August recess, just weeks after Republicans approved Trump’s Big Bullshit Bill to take healthcare and meals from millions while funneling tax breaks to billionaires.
Congressional recess gives us an opportunity to tell representatives how their votes hurt our communities and organize to hold Republicans accountable. At the Accountability August info session this Wednesday, July 23, Congressman Greg Casar, Indivisible, and our partners will present the tools to make the most of that opportunity.
IndivisiWIN of the week
In Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, roughly a dozen local Indivisible groups rapidly came together to hold their representative, Pete Stauber, accountable for his vote to slash SNAP and Medicaid.
During their “Grow a Spine, Stauber” protests, hundreds of Indivisibles simultaneously rallied outside multiple Stauber offices spread all across the district – showing passersby what their representative's vote meant to their community, and reminding Stauber himself that he’ll be held accountable for selling his constituents out.
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.
