Indivisible,

I’m excited for this monthly newsletter and would love to hear your thoughts - feel free to reach out directly on Twitter at @ezralevin. If you’d rather watch than read, check out this short video I recorded while walking the woods this morning summarizing more or less what I write about below. As always, welcome any and all feedback. Let’s get to it!

Wrapping our arms around it

The sheer enormity of the challenges facing our democracy can be so overwhelming that it produces inaction. I want us to work through that though because inaction means ceding the field to those who keep busy - and Trump's authoritarian movement is very busy right now.

So let’s acknowledge briefly what we all know: things are not fine. 

In short, the GOP is a fully anti-democracy party wielding its power to weaken representation and democratic institutions at the local, state, and federal level. Pro-democracy Democrats represent the vast majority of Americans but lack the national political power necessary to overcome GOP opposition. An immense rightwing propaganda operation continuously spews toxic garbage into the body politic. And the media ecosystem is so fractured and polarized that Americans can’t even agree on what reality is. 

None of this is fine, and the Trump-aligned forces don’t seem to be slowing down. There are countless longform pieces of reporting on this. The most recent ones that come to mind for me are Martin Gellman’s piece, Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun, and Zach Beauchamp’s, How Does it End?, pondering the scary places where this Trump-fueled lurch toward authoritarianism will ultimately wind up - dysfunction, constitutional crises, and rightwing political violence.

It’s hard to wrap our arms around how not-fine all of this is. So what do we do?

One foot in front of the other

Faced with all this, we have two options: we can become discouraged and give up, or we can put one foot in front of the other. 

From the beginning of Indivisible, we’ve been one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kinds of folks. The original Indivisible Guide was titled “A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.” Practical. We don’t put on rose-colored glasses, and we also don’t throw our hands up in defeat. We look the problem square in the face, figure out what we can actually do to move the ball down the field a few feet, and get to work together making it happen.

Since Sinema and Manchin sided with McConnell and against our democracy last month, I’ve talked to Indivisible leaders from all over the country about the loss. From New Mexico to Minnesota to Mississippi to Colorado to California I’ve heard the same thing: this sucks, and here’s what we’re planning to do next. Practical.

This is all we can do. And what Indivisible National can do is to help support this work and highlight some practical steps we all can take. So in that spirit, here are three reasonable steps to fight for our democracy during this time of growing authoritarianism: 

1. Replace this bad Democrat with a pro-democracy Democrat. Sinema’s primary isn’t until 2024 (Arizona Indivisibles are committed to primarying her!), but that’s a ways off. The good news is we don’t have to wait two years to start cleaning house. Representative Henry Cuellar - “Trump’s favorite Democrat” who is also under investigation by the FBI (more on that here) - is facing a tough primary challenge in less than three weeks. His challenger, Jessica Cisneros, came within 3000 votes of beating him last time, and local Indivisibles and Indivisible National have endorsed her this time. Leah and I are going to canvass for her next weekend in San Antonio, and if you want to pitch in with effort or money, check out her campaign here.
2. Use your own network to fight right-wing disinformation. We’re not going to be able to convince hardcore Trump supporters to question their savior, but we can work to ensure that their propaganda doesn’t spread further than their fringe groups. To that end, Indivisible runs the Truth Brigade, which identifies sources of disinformation circulating within the rightwing ecosystem and mobilizes Indivisible volunteers to directly combat it using tested methods to spread truth and defuse lies. The Truth Brigade holds regular meetings nationally and can train up anybody interested in participating in spreading truth to overcome lies. If interested, you can sign up to get trained and start helping with this effort here. 
3. Build power in rural areas. I grew up in rural Texas and am well acquainted with the feeling of being shut out from political power in your own community. Fear not - you’ve got co-conspirators who can scheme within Indivisible groups across the country. Indivisible’s second annual rural summit is just around the corner on February 26th. The “Winning Rural Hearts and Minds” summit will focus on messaging, disinformation, and outreach to our rural friends and neighbors. It’s a free all-day virtual event focused on community and training, and the first 250 to register for the Summit will be mailed a sweet surprise, so hop on this! Registration and more info here.

This is not an exhaustive list! Over just the last couple weeks, I’ve chatted with Indivisible leaders in red, blue, and purple states who are planning voter contact programs to expand the House or Senate majority, setting up a statewide Indivisible coordinating structure (28 states have them!), running state or local advocacy campaigns to expand voting rights or defend against voter suppression, launching voter registration programs, and preparing to take over their local Democratic clubs. 

These activities are mutually reinforcing - they all grow our power and strengthen the movement as we confront the forces that aim to undermine our democracy. There is one single path here: informed, strategic, local action. That path branches out in many wonderful ways, winding through all of our communities. It’s up to us to stay on that path and put one foot in front of the other. That we can do.

Oh would you look at that-  it’s almost Valentine's Day

With Valentine’s Day coming up tomorrow, I was thinking of that nugget of wisdom from Cornel West: “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Our work - the work of all of the Indivisible movement - is rooted in the pursuit of justice; in a love for our neighbors, our communities, our country, our democracy. That’s why Leah and I are spending this weekend rallying for a dynamite progressive congressional candidate, Greg Casar (more info on his campaign here), and next weekend we’ll be canvassing to replace the Trump-friendly Cuellar with the democracy-friendly Cisneros. And as we walk to the rally and go door to door talking to voters, we’ll be doing what Indivisibles throughout the country have been doing for the last half decade: putting one foot in front of the other.

In solidarity,

Ezra

Co-Founder, Indivisible 

PS: Y’all know I can’t resist adding a picture of Zeke to these newsletters. This increasingly-large guy is 16 months old and running around town. His current obsession is recycling cans - lifting lids, putting things in them, and taking things out.