Indivisibles,
This time in 2016, Ezra and I were in Austin for Thanksgiving, sitting at
the kitchen table at his dad’s house.
We were still reeling from the election of Donald Trump, and looking for
something -- anything -- that we could do to respond. The night before,
we’d met up with a friend who told us about a Facebook resistance group
she was managing and how they weren’t sure what to do to have an impact.
A light bulb went off for both of us.
We knew exactly how grassroots activists could have an impact -- as former
congressional staffers in the early Obama years, we’d seen the Tea Party
organize a powerful resistance that nearly brought Congress to a halt.
What if we took the lessons we’d learned from that era, reverse-engineered
them, and wrote a simple guide to making Congress listen? And then we
could just put it out into the world so that any new activists who were
getting organized could read it. Maybe a few folks like our friend and her
Facebook group would put it to good use.
As soon as we came up with the idea, we were obsessed. We started an
outline that night and started drafting the guide the next morning. Ezra’s
family kept trying to get us to leave our laptops and hang out -- it was
Thanksgiving! -- but the project just consumed us. It was the only thing
we wanted to do.
That day, we decided this guide needed a name. The Tea Party had had a
name rooted in American history, one that captured the imagination. What
was something comparable for us, something rooted in our values and our
history?
Ezra and I came up with a lot of bad ideas that just didn’t fit. Great
Society. Four Freedoms. Then I thought about the Pledge of Allegiance. I
had an idea. I tried saying it out loud: “Indivisible.”
It gave us both goosebumps. One Nation, Indivisible. It was more than a
word -- it was a promise. Because in this moment, with Trump poised to
take power, when our democracy and our neighbors would be under attack, we
would need to fight together, indivisible. That was the only way we’d make
it through.
A couple weeks later, [ [link removed] ]Ezra tweeted out a link to a Google Doc:
“[ [link removed] ]Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Resisting the Trump Agenda.” Within
an hour, the traffic on the doc was causing it to crash. And that very
night, we started getting emails from folks all over the country who were
angry and scared and organizing. People who would pick up the charge,
start leading this movement, and help change the course of American
history. People who would soon start calling the groups that they had
formed “Indivisible” groups.
Yes, the Trump administration has been as damaging and cruel as we could
possibly have imagined. But in response to something so incredibly evil,
and dark, and corrupt, Indivisibles have responded with love, light, and
determination.
It hasn’t always been easy, but we are finally starting to see the light
at the end of the tunnel. Last year, we were a part of the Blue Wave that
brought dozens of new progressives into office nationwide. This year we’ve
had victories in places like Virginia and Kentucky. And in just the last
few weeks, we’re finally getting real movement towards impeaching Trump
and holding him and his cronies accountable for their crimes.
So today, as we have Thanksgiving dinner (again) with our family in
Austin, we have this hope for the future thanks to this incredible family
of Indivisibles across the country who are making that hope possible.
Thank you for banding together, indivisible, with us.
In solidarity,
Leah Greenberg
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