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And we won. Indivisibles --
You’ve already received Indivisible’s celebratory email on the American Recovery Plan. It’s huge. It’s progressive. It’s historic. And we’ll be spreading the word about all the good stuff in it through the 2022 elections. This month’s newsletter is about what comes next... and it’s what we’ve been preparing for years now: saving this damn democracy.
If you read to the end, you’ll not only get to weigh in on the democracy work, you’ll also get a pic or two of Zeke at 5 months. Of course feel free to reach out to us on Twitter at @ezralevin and @leahgreenb to tell us how cute he is. Without further ado:
What we’re reading and watching
While national coverage is focused on the incredible American Rescue Plan, something very, very scary is happening in the states. Republican legislators are mounting an attack on voting rights that is staggering in its scope and intensity. They’re fueled by the Big Lie that Trump won the election -- or at least, they’re pretending to be so that they can suppress as many votes as possible.
To get a sense of exactly how scary this is, click here to check out the Washington Post’s review of approximately 250 state voter suppression bills that have been introduced in state legislatures already this year. This is an avalanche of voter suppression legislation -- far more than we’ve seen even in the recent Trump era. And, as is almost always the case, this attack targets Black and brown voters with surgical precision. It should come as no surprise that the attacks on democracy are particularly popular in states with a GOP trifecta -- where Republicans control the state legislature and governorship. From Arizona to Texas to Georgia to even New Hampshire (yes there’s a GOP trifecta there), voter suppression bills are moving at a dizzying pace. We can expect similar power grabs when the GOP trifectas get the chance to redraw (i.e. gerrymander) districts later this year.
This is the state of the Republican Party in 2021: committed to getting power by any means necessary, and ready to burn our democracy to the ground in order to do it. But as scary as this is, we are actually optimistic right now -- because we have the power to act. And while success is not foreordained, it is possible.
And if you’re looking for optimism grounded in trenchant political analysis, look no further than clicking here to watch Stacey Abrams’s interview with Rachel Maddow. Abrams has been on a crusade for democracy since the Georgia governorship was stolen from her through anti-Black voter suppression in 2018. She describes the voter suppression laws championed by reactionary electeds in Georgia and other GOP trifecta states as “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
To repel these attacks and save our democracy, we need congressional action. And the name of that action is the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the For the People Act, and (we would add) D.C. statehood. This is all legislation that has passed the House before. Enacting these policies is within our reach, but we must actively fight back to do it.
Do not despair! This is indeed possible. As Abrams tells Maddow, “We’ve done it before. Time and again, when voter suppression has taken hold of our nation, we have found ways to fight back.” But what about Manchin? What Sinema? What about other holdouts like Feinstein in California or Hickenlooper in Colorado? The votes aren’t yet there, but it’s a mistake to believe that a politician’s positions today will be their positions tomorrow. Mehdi Hasan made this astute point eloquently on his show here: “‘Never' isn't in a politician's vocabulary." To turn “I’ll never change my position on the filibuster,” into “I support passing these democracy-saving reforms by amending the filibuster” requires us -- ALL of us -- to work toward changing the politicians’ minds. And that’s exactly what we see Indivisibles doing right now across the country.
In the last couple months, Indivisibles have held more than 300 events nationwide focusing on the fight to save our democracy. Indivisibles in California just held a town hall with Senator Padilla where he came out against the filibuster, and they’re making plans to get Senator Feinstein onboard with filibuster reform. In January over 400 Indivisible activists joined Senator Schumer for a town hall specifically focused on democracy reform. Indivisibles across Arizona are working with progressive partners and coming up with creative tactics to pressure Senator Sinema on the filibuster and the For the People Act -- just last week, we joined over 100 Indivisible leaders from Arizona, and they turned right around and filled up Sinema’s voicemail boxes in D.C., Tucson, and Phoenix.
This is the tool we have at this moment: making it as clear as possible to senators that we need a full-blown democracy-saving agenda, and we need to get rid of the filibuster to do it. The choice is clear, and we need to know which side they’re on.
Already we’re seeing some politicians move. Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, Dick Durbin, Alex Padilla and more have come out for filibuster reform in order to pass a democracy agenda in the last month. Senator Manchin, meanwhile, is starting to make noises about reform. Are we there yet? No. But the dominoes are falling, and that’s exactly what we’d want to see happen on the way to victory.
It was never guaranteed that we would all get ourselves off the floor in 2016. In 2017, we were never guaranteed to defeat the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Winning the House wasn’t a sure thing in 2018. Neither was getting the House to impeach the president in 2019. And in 2020, we couldn’t guarantee that we could make Trump the first one-term president in a generation. And few people bet on taking both Georgia senate seats, delivering Democrats a trifecta in January. We engaged with our hearts and souls in each of these campaigns -- not because we knew we would win, but because we knew we had to win. And as a result of those victories, we have not saved our democracy, but we have won the opportunity to save our democracy.
Reflections from last month, question for this month
Last month we wrote a long newsletter about D.C. statehood and racial justice, and asked what your Indivisible group was doing to advance racial justice in your own community. We heard from Heather T. that Indivisible Grapevine in Texas has started a monthly project involving education, action and discussion centered on racial equity. Joanna C. tells us that North Boulder Indivisible voted in January to include discussion and problem-solving of “racial and economic inequality issues and policing reform” as an ongoing part of their weekly meetings. Indivisible Sisters in Oregon is one of many local Indivisible groups who wrote us about partnering with their local Movement for Black Lives chapter since the murder of George Floyd.
This month, the theme of the newsletter is voter suppression at the state level. So we want to ask you a simple yes/no question, and then give you a chance to provide more details if you’re willing. The question is this: within your own state, do you see Republicans advancing anti-democracy or voter suppression bills through your state legislature right now?
Feel free to just click one of those options and leave it at that, but we’d love details of what you’re seeing on the ground too. For example, in Arizona, one GOP legislator defended the voter suppression bills by saying “everybody shouldn't be voting... Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well.” That’s a direct quote (here). If you have stories of similarly egregious, dishonest, and racist behavior by these anti-democracy zealots, we want to hear from you -- this will help fuel the fire for pro-democracy legislation in Congress.
Clicking either of those two options above will take you to a form where you can submit more info to help out with this project.
Until next month
That’s it for this month’s newsletter! Again, feel free to reach out to us directly with any questions/comments/concerns. As always, we are 100% committed to building this movement for democracy with you because we know that’s how we will win.
In solidarity,
Ezra and Leah
Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors, Indivisible
PS: You made it to the end! Here are a couple of recent Zeke pics. He’s 5 months old now and so big!
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