A Sustained Movement Will Stop Trump and Musk
This week we’ve seen frightening reports of Elon Musk and his cronies—who are unelected private individuals—unilaterally taking over the US Treasury and USAID, blocking access to employees and Members of Congress, and threatening those who voice opposition to them with prosecution. The details of what they are doing are unclear, but we know that they are affecting payments for federal contractors, attempting to stop the work of federal employees, as well as moving and deleting incredibly sensitive data. We were as shocked as all of you to see the initial inaction from our Members of Congress, as well as the total lack of response from any authorities who are supposed to protect the government.
We can’t sugarcoat it: This is a constitutional crisis and a very dangerous moment. It will be a long and difficult road to fix what has been broken this week. But we are the ones to do it.
The answer to chaos unilaterally imposed by evildoers is a massive and sustained movement. Right now, our goals are to get involved and to get our elected officials on board. We need to show that we are a powerful bloc of Americans who are ready to defend our democracy.
So what do you do now?
- Call your Members of Congress early and often. The more people call, the more pressure they feel to act. We are calling on our Senators to stop all Senate votes until the Musk coup is abandoned.
- Join rallies at the offices of your Members of Congress TODAY.
- Demand that our State elected officials do everything in their power to protect Californians from Trump’s illegal actions.
- Provide resources to your friends and family. Many of you, like us, might be fielding questions from your friends and family about this shocking situation. Share resources with them and encourage them to pick up the phone. The more people speak out, the better.
These actions are already having an effect.
This week, we’ve seen many of you filling up the phone lines, voicemails, and inboxes of our Senators and Attorney General. Some of you have already stopped by the offices of our Members of Congress in person. They are reporting very high numbers of calls and a lot of pressure from constituents to do something—and it’s working. Just yesterday, several Senators announced that they are on board with blocking all Congressional business until Musk is stopped and a commitment to democracy is restored.
The bottom line is we have to build and maintain a sustained movement and get in the habit of showing up regularly and forcefully. Our elected officials won’t pay attention if we don’t, and bad actors like Musk are enabled by silence.
A Note About the 50501 Protests (and protesting in general)
You may have heard about the “50501” protests that are taking place today in State Capitols across the country. As far as we know, this is a grassroots movement organized on social media, but we are not aware of who is running these events, and it varies by state. Indivisible is not affiliated with these protests, and we don’t know who is.
If you decide to go to Sacramento, we advise you to use discretion and caution. Here are some protest safety tips:
- Go with people you know and trust.
- Turn off face/fingerprint unlock (or bring a burner phone instead of your regular phone)—this goes for everyone in your party. Biometric unlocks can legally be compelled by police without a warrant, whereas your passcode is covered by your right to remain silent.
- Come together, stick together, leave together.
- Leave early if things get too spicy for folks in your party.
- Such events should generally have a defined start and end in both space and time. If you hear a call for “now let's march to ______” that wasn’t in the plan, ignore it (or consider leaving).
- Write the arrestee phone number for the local NLG (National Lawyers Guild) chapter on your forearm in Sharpie juuuust in case. For Sacramento, this is (916) 500-4NLG (4654).
- Be wary of privacy if taking photos or filming.
Any protest runs the risk of attracting bad actors, police action, and potential violence. We expect our members to understand nonviolent protest, know their rights, and act in a way that is safe and respectful to others. However, when you don’t know who’s running the event, you don’t know how they’re going to run it, which is why we are asking you to use your diligence.
WTF is a SWF (Sovereign Wealth Fund)?
A few days ago, news came out that Trump is ordering the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund with the potential to buy TikTok. "Sovereign Wealth Fund" sounds really cool and governmental. But SWFs are actually profit-making businesses competing with private businesses. Since we're fresh out of unemployed princes, a U.S. SWF could be run by salaried government employees or by highly-paid contractors (Haliburton, anyone?). If a Democrat proposed it, Repugs would probably call it “Socialism.”
One obvious problem with SWFs are all of the obvious inherent conflicts of interest and opportunities for crony-corruption among elected politicians and the bureaucrats/contractors. For example, if a U.S. SWF bought TikTok they could contract with Elon Musk to run it (for the public good, of course). Goody-goody.
Many nations have SWFs, but they are all countries that have big budget or trade surpluses, or sales of nationally owned resources (China, Saudi Arabia, et al.). America has lots of valuable national resources, but instead of selling our natural resources on the global market we lease them out to mega-corporations at very low “sweetheart” rates and it's the corporations that reap the profits. Meanwhile we fund our government through debt and taxes. So where will the wealth needed to form an SWF come from?
Certainly not our non-existent trade surplus. Our deficit? Our taxes? How would that work? Cui bono?
It remains to be seen whether the Sovereign Wealth Fund will be challenged in court, and how that will turn out. But it certainly appears to be an outlet for corruption that we need to monitor going forward.
From the State & Local Team: What Issues Are Important to You?
Our state & local team has relaunched and are working hard to organize a powerful, sustained progressive movement in San Francisco! They’re looking for your feedback: what issues are most important to you?
If you missed the last survey, now’s your chance to also tell us who your Supervisor is. It’s very helpful for us to know the breakdown of which districts are most represented in ISF.
Fill out the Google Form here.
If you’re interested and on our Slack, please join the “#local_and_state_action” channel in Slack, and add your information to the Google sheet pinned to that channel.
If you’re not on our Slack workspace and would like to join, come to our next meeting (date TBA) and we’ll get you plugged in.
Which Supervisor District Are You In? Let us know!
We want to know which districts our members are in. Fill out this Google Form so we can find out which Supervisors we need to focus on for our local work!
Voting is Open in ADEM! Time to Get Your Ballot In
Every two years, Democrats across California vote to elect the delegates who will represent them in the California Democratic Party. That time is upon us once again.
The process is called the Assembly Delegate Election Meeting, or ADEM. We wrote in late 2020 about what the ADEM is for and how it helps build power.
Each Assembly district will get to elect 14 delegates. You can now vote in the ADEM election online, or you can vote in-person later this month. You have until 6 PM on Sunday, February 23 to register for in-person voting. In-person voting will happen Saturday and Sunday, February 22–23 at locations up and down the state.
For those looking for a slate of progressive candidates, our friends at The League of Pissed-Off Voters have linked to the Grassroots Rising slates. Neither we nor the League have endorsed any candidates in the ADEM elections.
Want To Help Us Do This Work?
We can help plug you in where your skills will do the most good to help resist this administration.
If you would like to join and do important work with us, we welcome you! Currently we are especially in need of volunteers to help with the following:
- Managing our social media, creating posts and graphics.
- Making short-form videos to help educate people on our topics in an accessible way.
- Tracking state and local legislation and working with our state and local legislatures and Mayor Lurie.
No experience is needed, and we will train you and provide everything you need. If you would like to help us, please contact us at [email protected].
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Rally/Press Conference at Senator Padilla’s office TODAY: Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 12:45PM: Join a coalition of Nor Cal Indivisible Groups for a press conference and rally to demand that our Senators fight back. After rallying at Padilla’s office, we plan to move down to Schiff’s office at 1 Post RSVP here.
State Senator Scott Wiener Virtual Town Hall TODAY: Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 6:30PM: Join Senator Wiener to discuss the California Legislature’s special session and other work to defend California values. RSVP here.
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If you’ve seen our newsletter posts on social media, you might have noticed that we include a photo or graphic with each issue.
Today’s graphic is an original graphic calling for our Members of Congress to resist Trump’s administrative coup.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
If you'd like to support our all-volunteer team:
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