Indivisible

Indivisibles,

Tomorrow marks eight years to the day that a (golden) escalator ride changed the course of history.

Trump rides down the escalator at Trump Tower while a group takes photos on their phones
Photo by Christopher Gregory/Getty

On June 16, 2015, Trump stared into the cameras and proclaimed “thousands” were in attendance (there were a few dozen -- it later emerged that the Trump campaign had paid folks 50 bucks to stand there, make noise, and wave signs in MAGA merch they’d just been handed). Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Music of the Night” blasted on repeat while reporters waited for the spectacle to start. He used his (xenophobic) announcement speech to demonize Mexicans and promise to build a “great wall” on our southern border.

No one took it seriously. Or literally.

The media. The other Republican candidates. I sure didn’t (at least, not right away).

If you Google articles and news reports from that day, it wasn’t even that prominently covered. Articles include headlines like “Is Donald Trump’s Presidential Bid for Real?” Time reporter Charlotte Alter, who was there, reflects, “I don’t think anybody came away from that announcement thinking he was going to be the next president.”

But we all know what happened next.

Here we are eight years later with a very different image of Trump -- not on an escalator this time, but in a federal courtroom in Miami following his indictment on 38 different counts, including charges under the Espionage Act (read: willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice, false statements, and concealment) after Trump took classified documents from the White House after he tried and failed to overturn the 2020 election.

A courtroom sketch of Trump flanked by his legal team. A judge sits above him.
Sketch by Bill Hennessy for PBS NewsHour

And now, eight years and a lot of protests/district office visits/townhalls/calls to Congress/canvassing/textbanking/postcarding later, a lot of people are reacting much like they did the days after that escalator ride back in 2015: they’re not taking his candidacy seriously -- or at least as seriously as warranted by the threat he represents.

We get it.

We would like to think that any person facing charges for threatening our national security surely couldn’t be elected president. Just like we thought back in 2015 that any xenophobic white nationalist whose biggest accomplishments included appearing on The Apprentice or selling steaks on QVC couldn’t be elected president. We’d even like to think that maybe the courts could save us (lol) or even that Trump’s supporters would choose to bail, given the seriousness of the latest charges.

But we know better.

As Meagan told you last week, there’s a lot we don’t know about Donald Trump’s trial and how long it could take -- but here’s what we do know: Donald Trump is still the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He’s still allowed to run for president. He could still win. And if he does, he could shut down federal investigations into his crimes and even pardon himself for this very indictment and any future federal indictments.

And if we learned anything from that escalator ride eight years ago and the garbage fire that followed, it should be that we should count Donald Trump out at our own peril.

We cannot afford to underestimate the danger that Donald Trump poses to our democracy again.

If you’ve heard enough and are ready to chip in to supercharge our work to hold Donald Trump and his MAGA enablers accountable and retake our Democratic trifecta in 2024, click here or one of the donate links below. If you want to hear a little more about how we’re going to do it, keep reading.

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The truth is that Indivisible was born from regular people all over the country who wished they’d done more to stop Trump from being elected when they had the chance. Since 2016, we’ve gotten reallllllllllly good at resistance. But look, given the choice of prevention or resistance, we should pick prevention. Every time.

Next week marks 500 days until the 2024 election. And what we do right now at this moment -- with all of the lessons we’ve learned together over the last eight years -- is going to determine whether we prevent Trump, or any other MAGA candidate, from getting their hands on the power of the presidency again.

Indivisible’s campaign to win in 2020 required tens of millions of dollars to mobilize and train tens of thousands of volunteers; recruit new people to their local Indivisible groups; provide voter contact resources, tools, and technology to our entire network; and make sure we were running ads throughout the cycle to persuade and turn out key voters.

Real-talk: Our work in 2023 and 2024 is going to take even more. And it couldn’t be more critical (chip in here).

Our right to choose is on the line.

Our right to have our votes counted.

Our right to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

Our right to be who we really are and love who we love.

Our right to learn accurate history and give our kids the education they need to fulfill their potential.

Between now and election day 2024, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and this isn’t hyperbole: Our democracy is on the line.

We can’t wait. The work to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA enablers begins right now. If you can, please donate now to make sure we have all the resources we need to organize and win.

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to talk to you a lot more about our work for the remainder of 2023 and 2024. We’re going to talk to you about ramping up our work and making deep investments to hold the 18 Unrepresentatives accountable for every vote they take with Marjorie Taylor Greene, build capacity locally, and defeat them next November.

We’ll tell you about our plan to support Democratic frontliners across the country and send them back to Congress in 2025 and support local Indivisible groups fighting against MAGA in their communities. We’ll talk to you about doubling down on our work and investment in the battleground state of Arizona to defeat Kyrsten Sinema.

And yes, we’re going to talk a lot more about the infrastructure we’re putting in place to beat Donald Trump (again).

But for now, I’m asking you to think about what you wished you would have done differently back in 2015 -- and I’m asking you to make a plan about the things you’re going to commit to doing over the next 500 days and change to make sure that on Wednesday, November 6, 2024, we can say confidently that we’ve left it all on the field.

And for us to leave it all out on the field and do everything we can as a movement to win, we need your help.

If you've saved your information with ActBlue Express Lane, your donation to Indivisible Action will go through immediately:

Contribute Monthly >>

As always, thanks for everything you do.

In solidarity,
Sarah Dohl
Chief Campaigns Officer, Co-Founder, Indivisible

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