Indivisibles,

I am devastated. I know you are, too. Everyone is searching for answers,
and at the same time we’re all going through the stages of grief. I’m not
going to be able to give full answers in this email, but I want to cover
three things:

 1. What we know and don’t know.
 2. What this means for the next two years.
 3. What we can do next.

What we know and don’t know.

I will do my best to keep this section fully fact-based. We can interpret
and debate later, but it’s important we all understand the facts:

* We know Trump won across the board, with shifts in his direction in
blue, purple, and red states. We were contesting seven Electoral
College states -- AZ, NV, WI, MI, PA, GA, NC -- and he took them all,
along with the national popular vote.
* We know we lost the Senate. At this point we know Brown and Tester
have lost, and we didn’t pick up any of our reach targets in TX, FL,
or NE. Trump will have a Republican Senate capable of approving his
nominees to cabinets and the courts.
* We don’t know who will control the House and we won’t know for days.
It will be very close either way. The House has no input on
presidential nominees, but House control is determinative of what kind
of oversight the Trump Administration receives and what kind of
legislation Republicans can pass.
* We know abortion rights are broadly popular, with abortion rights
ballot initiatives now winning majority support in Arizona, Missouri,
Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New York, and Florida (though
majority support was not enough to pass the Florida protections into
law).
* Indivisibles, here’s a fact: You crushed all the voter contact goals
we had this election in every battleground state and across the
country. You did your part and you did it brilliantly. And also we
know this election did not come down to the breadth, depth, and
quality of the ground game to GOTV. A good ground game is worth a
point or two, and we lost by more than a point or two. 

I believe a loss of this nature requires humility and exploration, not
finger-pointing. While we might each have our own valid critiques of the
campaign, this loss cannot ultimately be reasonably attributed to any
single campaign strategy or decision. It is rooted in the failure to hold
Trump accountable for his crimes in his first term. It is rooted in the
fragmentation of the anti-MAGA coalition, including defections from
corporations and billionaires like Musk and Bezos. It is rooted in the
sinister evolution of media infrastructure and social media platforms. It
is exacerbated by sexism and racism.

But above all, it is rooted in broad popular frustration and alienation
that allowed Trump to successfully brand himself as a change candidate. We
know this alienation is rooted in a sense that democracy isn’t delivering
results for people, and a long term erosion of working class support. We
have a lot more to learn, from a place of curiosity and humility, about
everything that drove this outcome, but this much is clear: at the end of
the day, we simply were not able to convince enough people that the threat
of Trump or the promise of Harris outweighed their frustration with the
status quo.

But I would also urge folks not to jump immediately to the conclusion:
“Trump won, and that means fascism has majority support in this country.”
Project 2025 is deeply unpopular. The MAGA agenda is deeply unpopular. The
voting public is pessimistic about the path we’re on, has felt intense
pain from post-COVID inflation, and saw Harris as a continuation of the
unpopular incumbent’s administration. This was a change election -- just
like 2008, 2016, and 2020 -- and we did not have the change candidate.

What I’m worried about and what this means for the next two years.

I’ll make this brief.

 1. I’m worried about the MAGA legislative agenda.
 2. I’m worried about the Trump administrative agenda.
 3. I’m worried about Trump’s extra-legal actions greenlighted by a
permissive judiciary.
 4. I’m worried about our friends, family members, and neighbors in
marginalized communities who will be targeted by an empowered MAGA’s
bigotry and xenophobia.
 5. I’m worried about what Trump foreign policy means for friends of
democracy nationwide.
 6. I’m worried national Democratic leaders will respond to this defeat as
they did in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, looking to
cut deals with Trump rather than do everything they can to limit harm.
 7. I’m worried that people will see these results and believe all hope is
lost

It’s this last worry that worries me the most, because if we fail to rally
the people to the side of NO, we will surely lose. Fascists depend on
feeding a sense of powerlessness and inevitability about their control. I
am going to do my damndest to make sure we don’t give it to them.

Eight years ago, we wrote the guide to resisting the anti-democratic
extremism of the incoming Trump administration. That Google doc grew into
the burgeoning Indivisible movement of thousands of local groups spread
across every state and just about every congressional district. That
movement saved the Affordable Care Act in 2017, built the largest midterm
margins in the history of the republic in 2018, pushed for Trump's first
impeachment in 2019, defeated him in 2020, won two impossible Senate
runoffs in Georgia in 2021, converted an inevitable red wave to a trickle
in 2022, won in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, and New Jersey in 2023, and then
was defeated in 2024. 

It wasn’t enough to stop a second Trump term -- despite the vitriolic,
fascistic clown show of a presidential campaign, we lost. But all is not
lost.

What we can do next.

The defining feature of the Indivisible movement is not analysis but
community and action. At the end of the day, democracy is more than what
political content we consume, it’s about what we do together. So let’s
gather, in this incredibly hard moment, in community, and talk about what
comes next. 

[ [link removed] ]I hope you’ll join me, Leah, and Mari Urbina for our pre-planned
post-election check-in at 8:30pm ET tonight. We’ll share more thoughts and
engage in a lot of Q&A as well. With that said, here are some additional
thoughts of how we’re putting one foot in front of the other.

Democracy is in grave peril but not lost. This election is catastrophic,
but democracy does not get decided in one election. Had we won, democracy
would not have been saved. After losing, democracy isn’t gone. Tomorrow
the sun will rise. On January 3rd, a new House of Representatives --
possibly one with a Democratic Speaker -- will be sworn in. In 2025, there
will be a rich national debate defined by MAGA overreach and public
backlash. And elections will indeed continue from the Wisconsin Supreme
Court this spring, to the Virginia state election next fall, to the
midterms in 2026. 

We choose to organize. Democracy has suffered, and democracy will suffer
more, but importantly -- democracy is not dead. The fight for democracy
continues if we continue it.

A fascistic ruling party craves obedience, acquiescence, and a sense of
powerlessness from the majority. We will not give it to them. 

The options are to surrender to the forces of autocracy, bigotry,
xenophobia, and minoritarian rule. Or to organize the pro-democracy
majority to reclaim its power. We choose to organize.

We know Trump will use his power to attack our democratic institutions and
our freedoms. We understand the threat of an accelerating slide towards
authoritarianism. We choose to organize.

We know the fascists installed in positions of power will seek to divide
and conquer, focusing their power to terrorize marginalized communities
across the country. We choose to organize.

There are more of us than there are of them. We choose to organize. And we
will win.

In solidarity,
Ezra

Ezra Levin

[2]Indivisible Co-Executive Director

Pronouns: He/him

 

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