Next week we’ll be getting ready for Thanksgiving, so there won’t be an Indivisible SF newsletter. We’ll see you again at the end of the month! In the meantime, we’ve got calls for you to make, advice on getting health insurance, and some thoughts on how to talk turkey about Trumpism over your holiday dinner.
Freedom to Vote Out White Supremacists
Recent discussions among famous Democratic consultants about whether mainstream McAuliffe lost in Virginia due to his “woke” talk and embrace of “identity politics'' were not only wrong but misguided. The Republican party that now openly embraces white supremacist identity politics hopes such criticism will continue because it weakens the Democrats’ powerful coalition of voters.
In the summer of 2020, racial justice became a majoritarian issue. People of all races came out in the streets and that led to wins in 2020. Democrats need to stop playing defense and go on offense about racial justice. That is a strategic imperative for winning.
You can't build coalitions if you're telling millions of people you need as allies that the issues they consider a matter of life and death to them don't matter, don't exist, or can be addressed in a tomorrow that never arrives. Millions of Americans have seen the rising violence from white supremacists, from storming the Capitol on January 6 to death threats against school boards and election officials. Hate crimes have risen dramatically. We need to step up our fight for a more perfect union.
We agree with the Poor People’s Campaign that “our deepest moral traditions point to equal protection under the law, the desire for peace within and among nations, the dignity of all people, and the responsibility to care for our common home.”
Tell President Biden and our Senators that we need that filibuster reform to pass the Freedom to Vote Act quickly so we can vote out the white supremacists that are threatening our pluralistic, multiracial democracy.
Contact our Senators and President Biden and tell them: protect the freedom to vote out white supremacists!
We Oppose the NDAA. It’s NOT a Defense Bill for the 21st Century.
No one is asking how we are going to pay for the Defense Bill. Yet a handful of conservative Democrats gutted and delayed the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“BIF”) because they claim we can’t afford to invest in American children, students, families, healthcare, housing, and climate defense. But they don’t ask how we will pay for the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which at $7.5 trillion is more than twice as large as President Biden’s original $3.5 trillion proposal, and is now more than four times larger than the stripped down and gutted BBBA.
The NDAA controls 60% of ALL discretionary spending in the national budget. It establishes programs, policies, and appropriation limits for the Department of Defense (DOD/Pentagon), nuclear weapons (DOE), defense intelligence agencies, and other defense activities including some Homeland Security programs. But nowhere in its $7.5 trillion budget are there any funds for combating the global warming climate emergency that jeopardizes us daily.
More voters are recognizing that in a globalized world, national security relies on more than guns and soldiers alone. It requires an educated, healthy, and productive workforce; a strong, vibrant economy; and a robust research and science infrastructure that recognizes global warming as a national security threat. As originally proposed, the Build Back Better Act responded effectively to that 21st century understanding of national defense and required those most involved in contributing to global warming to finance solutions through paying a fairer share of taxes. As of now, the NDAA does not.
Let our President and Members of Congress know that millions of voters like us recognize the climate emergency as a major national security threat. Let them know that we oppose the bloated and obsolete NDAA and that even the greatly reduced Build Back Better Act is a national defense bill that deserves immediate passage.
Contact our Members of Congress and President Biden and tell them: we oppose the NDAA as it currently stands.
Get Healthcare Coverage for 2022!
Covered California 2022 Open Enrollment has begun (November 1, 2021–January 31, 2022). It’s time to explore your 2022 health insurance options.
Covered California plans offer a choice of private health insurance companies, including Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield, Anthem Blue Cross, Chinese Community Health Plan, Health Net, and Oscar. Even if you’ve checked your eligibility for a subsidy in the past, check again, because the Biden administration has made additional financial help available to nearly all income levels. The amount you receive is based on your household size, annual income, age, and ZIP code.
If you haven’t started your 2022 application yet, now is the time! Get quality health coverage you can afford and avoid the tax penalty of not having health insurance. For coverage to begin on January 1, 2022, you must enroll by Friday, December 31, 2021.
One of our members, Susan Pfeifer, is a San Francisco-based Certified Enrollment Counselor for Covered California. She is offering to help you (or a friend or family member) to understand what services are included with a 2022 Covered California plan, and help you to enroll or renew, at no cost to you. You can contact her at [email protected].
Talking to your friends and family about Trumpism
This is our first Thanksgiving in five years without you-know-who in the White House. If you’re gathering with family or friends, whether online or in person (and if it’s the latter, we hope everyone is fully vaccinated, and boosted if it’s been long enough), we encourage you to have the hard conversations about the right-wing movement that is still trying, with or without him, to dismantle our democracy and drag us toward an authoritarian one-party state.
In that spirit, we bring you, as we do every year, our guide to talking to your friends and family about Trump(ism).
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If you’re interested in participating in activities like drafting letters to our Members of Congress and developing our strategy for influencing them, the ISF Federal Working Group is where it happens! Join us at our next meeting on December 9. Details on how to register below!
ISF Federal Working Group meeting: Thursday, December 9, 7:30–9 PM. Register here to join our regular Zoom meeting, where we work cooperatively to develop strategies to influence our Members of Congress and the Biden administration to support a progressive agenda. All are welcome to participate and contribute, even if you’ve never attended an ISF meeting before!
Fight Back Fridays: Friday, November 19, 5–6 PM, at 1 Post Street. Join a coalition of local Indivisibles every Friday for FIGHT BACK FRIDAYS. We gather at 1 Post in SF (in front of Senator Feinstein’s office building, at one of the Montgomery Street BART exits) every Friday until the Freedom to Vote Act is passed! Learn more and register here.
About this week’s photo
If you’ve seen our newsletter posts on Twitter and Facebook, you might have noticed that we include a photo or graphic with each issue. Today’s image is a stock photo of people sharing Thanksgiving dinner.
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Keep Fighting,
The Indivisible SF Team
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