Indivisibles, 

Ezra and Leah here again with the August edition of our monthly newsletter! Can you feel that? Yes, it’s August, but we’re not talking about the heat. It’s hot and humid and terrible outside (at least where we are in D.C.). But there’s this other feeling in the air. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is -- but it almost feels like...hope? November is coming. It’s suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, shockingly close. Big things are afoot, and we’re going to get into them here. As always, we welcome your outreach to us directly on Twitter if you want to check in on anything: @ezralevin and @leahgreenb. Let’s get to it.

What we’re reading

Trump has said a lot of dangerous, inane things since we last wrote, and for the time being he’s still president, so we’ve paid attention. Two weeks ago, he was asked if he would accept the results of the election, and he responded “No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either” (source). Then this week, he suggested we should delay the election entirely (source), and then doubled down the idea even after bipartisan pushback. Even the 40-year Republican and co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society called this “fascistic” and worthy of impeachment (source). But when asked about the comment by the press, he doubled down to say that the election may very well need to be delayed (source).

Was Trump just trying to distract from his most recent failures? The fact that Federal troops withdrew in disgrace from Portland (source)? The fact that the U.S. hit 150,000 deaths from the pandemic that Trump has criminally mismanaged (source)? The catastrophic, historic, record-shattering 32.9% drop in economic activity in the 2nd quarter of this year (source)?

Maybe that’s part of it -- Trump is indeed very talented at changing the conversation when he doesn’t like where it’s headed.

But we think it’s more than that. This wasn’t just a day or two narrative-shifting statements. Trump has been actively seeking to undermine the results of the election for literally months. We took a look back since Covid hit and his poll numbers plummeted, and saw how Trump has relentlessly attacked vote by mail and cast doubt on the upcoming elections:

This isn’t even close to an exhaustive list of Trump’s statements on the issue since Covid -- it’s just a sample of some of his tweets. This effort to cast doubt on the election is taking up quite a bit of what little headspace Trump has. 

And these attacks are more than bluster -- they’ve had a real impact. More than 2 months ago the Democrats in the House passed the Heroes Act to fully fund, among other things, election security, vote by mail, and the U.S. Postal Service. Then last week -- after doing diddly-squat for two months -- the Senate Republicans proposed their own Covid response package -- which includes nearly $700 million for new fighter jets, nearly $2 billion for a new FBI building new Trump’s hotel, and precisely $0 (nada, nothing, zilch) for election security, vote by mail, and the U.S. Postal Service (source).

So it sure seems like there’s a concerted strategy by both Trump and the Senate GOP to cast doubt upon the election, make it more difficult for people to vote, and lay the groundwork to contest the results. That’s an extreme thing to write -- a couple of adjectives short of what you might call planning for a coup. But if this sounds too tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theory to you, we suggest you read or listen to this NPR story from last week on the Transition Integrity Project (source). The project is made up of academics, military leaders, national security leaders, media, and former elected officials and political figures from both parties -- and it’s been convening for months to game out what a Trump-backed coup might look like. Needless to say, there is no similar group planning for a potential Biden-backed coup because it would never even occur to anyone to convene such a group.

One answer to these truly disquieting signals coming from Trump and the Senate GOP is to prepare to protect the results of the election. And indeed, Indivisible launched a large coalition called Protect the Results to do precisely that -- prepare for a mass mobilization immediately after the election in the event that Trump moves to contest the results (more details on that campaign here).

But that is not the only tool in our toolbelt -- and in fact, our best opportunity to guarantee the peaceful transfer of power after election day takes place long before Election Day. The best defense is a great offense: we have to absolutely crush Trump in the election. That means not just winning the key battleground states by 50%+1 votes -- but in landslides. It means not just getting 270 votes in the electoral college votes, but 300 or more. It means building up such an enormous tsunami of turnout that the election is impossible for Trump to steal and the results are impossible for him to contest.

This is our plan, and the work is happening right now. This week we launched our Windivisible campaign (get it, to win?). In 2018, to build the Blue Wave, we reached out to more than 10 million voters in key states to get them to the polls. This year we’re doubling that to 20 million. And by “we” -- we mean you, us, and all of our friends. This is a volunteer-led effort. That’s how we reach these voters. That’s how we build turnout. That’s how we win(divisible). 

And we’ve got good news: you can be part of this right now. Here’s an invite for ya: this Saturday, August 8th, at 8pm EST, we’re holding our first virtual Windivisible Bootcamp. Whether you’re a pro or you’ve never texted, called, or mailed a letter to a voter, that’s OK! We’ve got you covered, and we need you in this with us to do this work. More details and registration info here -- try to register soon-ish because space may fill up for this one. The bootcamp is free of course -- just bring yourself, your energy, maybe a friend or two, and your commitment to help save our democracy.

OK, whew, that was a lot. Let’s talk real quick about last month’s conversation starter.

D.C. statehood and our post-Trump democracy

Last week, Vice President Biden sent Indivisible a congrats video message for our Windivisible campaign kickoff (how cool is that? You can watch the video here). He ended with this:

"I'm counting on you to join me in the fight for economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice, immigration justice, and for a sweeping expansion of democratic rights that finally elevate the people of D.C. to equal place in our democracy."

Also last week, President Obama gave a eulogy for civil rights hero and former Congressman John Lewis. And he ended with a call that sounded somewhat similar (source):

"Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better...By guaranteeing that every American citizen has equal representation in our government, including the American citizens who live in Washington, D.C. and in Puerto Rico…And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do."

We didn’t time it this way on purpose, but this happens to line right up with last month’s newsletter. In that letter, we started a conversation with you all about democracy reform and D.C. statehood. Specifically, we asked you 3 simple questions:

1. Should D.C. be a state?
2. Would democracy reform legislation be incomplete without D.C. statehood?
3. Should D.C. statehood be a first-100-days priority for a President Biden?

Short version: we’ll release full results on Monday, but y’all responded with a resounding “yes” to all three questions, though at different levels. We read through the hundreds upon hundreds of written responses too to get a bit more texture on Indivisibles’ thinking here. 

Many, many of you raised the point that it’s not just D.C.! As Margaret from HoCo Indivisible in Maryland wrote, “No taxation without representation, and that includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.” The taxation argument was popular -- dozens like Adina from Sante Fe Indivisible included it in their messages. And it’s no accident that the places that do not have representation, from D.C. to Puerto Rico to Guam, are places where people of color make up the majority of the population.

Puerto Rico especially came up a lot in the responses. Ellen in Indivisible Sacramento, Cynthia in Olympia, and many others made the point that Congress should defer to Puerto Rico on the statehood question - if they choose it, great, but it’s first up to Puerto Rico. 

These are all really important points -- and one key principle that we hold in our own advocacy is that every territory of the United States should have the right to determine its own future. The people of Puerto Rico deserve self-determination, which could involve choosing to become a state or choosing to become independent. It should be up to them -- and Congress should respect their decision.

There were also a few who wrote that D.C. statehood was a priority, but maybe only after Biden cleans up some of Trump’s messes -- e.g. from Desert Progressives Indivisible in Arizona. And we got a couple proposals to give D.C. to Maryland or Virginia or both instead of making it its own state (and it’s important to be clear on that point that neither D.C., MD, nor VA wants this to happen). 

All in all, Indivisibles seem to be pretty darn aligned on this issue Biden, Obama, and each other on D.C. statehood. Now all we have to do is elect Biden, flip the Senate, hold the house, and build the mandate for this democracy agenda to become law. Easy peasy.

Our question for you this month

We loved reading through your responses on last month’s discussion topic! For this month, we want to lean into that with something a little more free form. Here’s the question: let’s say a family member, friend, colleague, or someone socially distanced on the street tells you: “Hey, I’m worried Trump or this GOP senator is going to win re-election and I don’t know what to do about it.” What is your advice? What do you recommend they do over the course of the next 93 days? 

For us of course one immediate thing we recommend is the Windivisible Bootcamp next Saturday (here!), but we want to get a sense of how folks in the Indivisible movement are answering this question themselves. Tell us how you’re answering this question here, and we’ll report back next month and share the good ideas.

That’s all for this month -- stay cool, stay focused, stay committed, and stay Indivisible. 

In it to win it,
Ezra and Leah
Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors, Indivisible 

P.S. Tomorrow is the start of the 3rd trimester for Leah! All’s going well, and the bump app says it’s now as big as an eggplant. Oddly it always gives the size relative to some sort of fruit or vegetable. We graduated from head of lettuce last week. Looking forward to cantaloupe.