Indivisibles!

Ezra here with this semi-regular, biweekly-ish email digesting the news of the day, following up on our conversation about the Biden campaign’s messaging on democracy, and doing a little bit of bragging (with a little bit of asking). That’s the plan at least, let’s see if we can stick to it.

The News:

Trump’s the nominee everywhere but in the news -- and he likes it that way

If you’re paying close attention to politics, you know Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee. But if you’re just a casual observer of politics, there’s a good chance you don’t know that -- because that’s not how the media has been covering the state of the race. 

Trump won Iowa earlier this month in the biggest blowout in Republican Iowa caucus history. Headed into the New Hampshire primary, I saw a fair amount of spin coming from Democratic Party officials and those adjacent to the Party to the effect of “almost half of Iowa voters voted for someone else! Trump’s not that strong!” I would like that to be true.

He then wiped the floor in a 1:1 matchup with Haley in New Hampshire -- arguably the strongest possible state for her, full of comparatively moderate Republican primary voters.

This primary is so obviously over that news broke this week that the Republican National Committee briefly considered just pronouncing Trump the “presumptive nominee”. 

Despite this, most of the major news organizations are living in a fantasy land where the Republican primary is still full of possibilities. Because the primary technically continues on, these major news organizations can’t declare a winner -- that might look like bias. So they have to pretend that we just don’t totally know who will be the GOP nominee.

The result of this widespread misleading news coverage is that (surprise, surprise) most Democrats and almost half of independents don’t think Trump will be nominee according to a poll taken earlier this month. 

I don’t work for the Democratic Party and Indivisible doesn’t attempt to be a bipartisan news organization, so we can put aside the spin and head-in-the-sand coverage. Trump owns the modern Republican Party. He will be their nominee. 

Why are we up against Trump? Because of Republicans, of course. The xxxxxx -- a podcast led by anti-Trump former-Republicans -- got the analysis pretty spot on in their episode, “The GOP Chose Not to Stop Trump:” 

“This party is a cult of a mad man that tried to end the democracy, and everybody is acting like, 'another Iowa caucus.'” “How can you be in this party still?”

“Cowardice all the way down.” “At every juncture they think something else would take care of him….literally their plan was run for president and hope he dies or goes to jail.”

If you want a deeper dive into the complicity of the Republican Party, check out Mike Podhorzer’s recent post: Will January 6th Be Enough to Save America?

The short version: Trump will be the Republican nominee because the majority of Republican voters believe he won in 2020. The morality play that these primary voters are living in is one in which their dear leader was illegitimately deprived of the presidency and is now the target of a witch hunt perpetrated by the most odious members of the vilified left. They believe this because Trump says it just about every day. They believe this because rightwing media and elected Republicans parrot or politely ignore the lies rather than confront Trump and risk the wrath of his cult followers.

Jonathan Chait wrote in New York Magazine, “If Republicans wanted their party to nominate somebody other than Donald Trump…then they needed their voters to understand that he lost the 2020 election. But doing so required hard steps they were never willing to take.”

As a result, that dark, bizarro-world story of election denialism is the official party line of the GOP. And it’s a story that inexorably leads to a Trump renomination.

Trump is extending the primary election to delay engaging in the general election. The RNC dropped the plan to declare Trump the “presumptive nominee” because Trump himself rejected the idea. He wants the primaries to continue. That’s because while Trump is dominating the primary, he’s a historically weak general election candidate.

• First, he’s a loser -- voters rejected him 4 years ago. Unlike 2016, he doesn’t hold the promise of exciting -- if dangerous -- insurgent outsider. He’s old news. 
• Second, he’s distracted. He’ll have to spend much of 2024 dealing with the 91 criminal indictments. Presidential campaigns are intense and, well, time-consuming. It’s not helpful to have a hobby that involves mandated court appearances throughout campaign season.
• Third, he’s an extremist, and has built a coalition of MAGA extremists around him. And what we’ve seen repeatedly over the last 7 years -- most recently in midterms and then last years off-year elections -- is that voters do indeed reject extremism at the polls. 

The biggest loser in the country desperately wants to continue being portrayed in public media as the big strong winner. As long as this state of affairs continues, he gets to crush his competitors in primary after primary without having to run an actual general election campaign until later in the year.

Every week we’ll see more and more Americans waking up to the fact that the choice this November isn’t between a hypothetical Republican and a hypothetical Democrat. It’s Joe Biden vs Donald Trump. And the sooner we collectively understand that as an accepted reality, the sooner we can start having a nationwide discussion about whether we want fascism or freedom in 2025 -- and exactly what those two alternate worlds would look like. That’s the discussion Trump doesn’t want to have. 

Trump’s on a winning streak and riding high. The fall is coming.

The Discussion:

Campaign messaging on democracy

Speaking of defeating fascists… in my last newsletter I asked for your thoughts about Biden’s kick off ad focused on the MAGA threats to democracy and his first campaign speech on the anniversary of January 6th insurrection. I got hundreds of responses, and had a lot of fun reading through them. I’d characterize Indivisibles as overwhelmingly supportive of focusing on the existential threats MAGA poses; somewhat nervous about Biden’s speech delivery and style; and all over the map when it comes to what else the campaign should emphasize or message on. A sampling of responses:

Karen in Indivisible Stamford: “Inspiring...focuses on what we need to do to save democracy for our kids and future generations...very effective”

Rita with St. Paul Indivisible: “Love the ad. Biden's voice and speech are clear, decisive, strong. His first words have just a wee stumble, which I think is a good thing -- we know he struggles with a stammer, so we don't want to hide it or pretend he doesn't have that tendency. The pace is good, with the visuals matching the cadence of the words.” 

Doris with Big Bend Indivisible in Tallahassee: “It's good to remind Americans that they are in touch with reality and that they are not extremists. We share core values.”

Nelson with Stand Indivisible in Phoenix: While I do think that the ad was OK, I am concerned that to some extent we build Trump up by saying how terrifying he is. It would be better to focus on what a loser he is. Some persuadables are convinced that someone who seems "strong" would be best for leadership.

Maria with Livermore Indivisible: “Gave me goosebumps. Like the line about how the world and our children are watching. Also tying democracy to freedom. A shorter version to reach younger, online generations would be good.”

Marion with Prescott Indivisible: “It gave me hope. I felt good after watching it and I shared it with my husband immediately.”

Karen with St. Louis Indivisible: “I think it should be shown over and over. Great speech”

It’s largely positive feedback, but not all positive. Folks are worried that Biden just isn’t a great speaker -- either because he rambles, suffers from a stutter, or lacks energy. On the message strategy, our members want to see similar hard hitting ads on other extreme GOP policies. Folks want the campaign to paint a picture of what the real-world consequences of losing our democracy to MAGA will be. 

All to say, I see in your responses general, movement-wide unity around a full-throated defense of democracy on the campaign trail. And I see a complex set of questions and opinions about messaging strategy that makes sense for big grassroots movement like ours.

This is not the end of our discussion of messaging -- we’re early in the campaign season, and this will be a major focus in the weeks to come. In just a couple weeks, on February 15th, we’ll be doing our national 2024 campaign kickoff. If you’re interested in diving deep into messaging, voter contact, and electoral strategy, I highly recommend you join that call -- you can register here.

In my next newsletter, I’ll start a new survey for another round of conversation. But if you have immediate responses -- positive, negative, or somewhere in between -- you can respond to this email and I’ll read through everything that comes in. Many thanks for engaging and continuing the conversation. 

The Brag:

Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Lose

I’m always bragging about the movement -- for obvious reasons: We’re awesome. But this week I have to brag about the national Indivisible team. We just had our first all-staff, in-person retreat since COVID hit in 2020. We were doing final planning work ahead of the big national launch of the electoral campaign in a couple weeks (again, RSVP here). Our political team presented on the target races we need to win in order to defend and expand our senate majority, retake the House, and protect the presidency. Our data team presented on an extremely cool new approach to voter contact that we’ve now tested and confirmed to kick ass. Our policy team briefed us on plans to prepare for a 2025 Congress so we hit the ground running. Our organizing and training teams walked us through the support we’re providing to local Indivisible groups this year. It was A LOT.

The national Indivisible organization is a movement organization -- when we’re doing our jobs right, we are supporting the groups on the ground to build power and focusing that power nationally to have the greatest impact. 

• That’s why we have organizers spread around the country working directly with local groups.
• A national services and training team to run programs like GROW Grants and IndivisiGather grants to support local groups.
• A data team to create and administer voter contact tools.
• Policy wonks to demystify complex congressional processes and translate movement energy into legislative influence.
• Political campaigners who design target district and state campaigns.
• A legal team to make sure if and when MAGA sics their dogs on us, or local Indivisibles, we’re squeaky clean and protected.
• Digital, design, and press teams to make sure we’re creating beautiful, accessible content, get it the hands of people who can use it, and make sure press covers it.
• Operations, finance, and development to make sure we’re running and sustaining an organization in a responsible way. 

I am not enough of a poet to describe the talent, creativity, dedication, and sheer good-human-ness that was under that roof for the retreat. Indivisibles of course know the power of gathering in person with co-conspirators in this fight for democracy. When it’s good, it’s electric, and the world is conquerable.

That’s what it felt like on Indivisible’s national team last week.

Every brag comes with an ask. If you have interacted with someone on the national team and appreciated the support you got, the tool you used, the guidance they provided, help us pay for this work. Invest in this team -- they’re worth it. And while you’re at it, reply to this email with a note of appreciation to the team -- I’ll pass on everything you send.

I’ll write again in a couple weeks or so. Will Haley have dropped out by then? Who knows, who cares. It’s fascism vs freedom. And we’re gonna win.

Ezra

Ezra Levin Co-Executive Director Pronouns: He/him