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Hi friends, 

It’s time for this month’s Leah and Ezra newsletter! 

Leah here this month, and I want to talk about January 6th, 2021 –- and
what it means for November 8th, 2022.

There are lots of people covering every twist and turn of the January 6th
Committee’s public hearings, and it’s now clear beyond a shadow of a doubt
that on January 6th, we faced a staggering criminal conspiracy to overturn
the 2020 election that was orchestrated by Donald Trump and his loyalists
in the White House. I’m not going to recap all the developments for you,
but I do want to share a few reflections about the hearings and where we
go from here.

What’s working about the hearings 

We’re seeing polling data suggesting that the hearings are breaking
through the noise. Since mid-June, support for uncovering what happened on
January 6th has [ [link removed] ]increased -- including among Republicans. Recognition
that the events of January 6th involved not only Trump but a broader group
of Republican enablers has risen. 

This was not a given! It’s incredibly hard to break through in a crowded
media environment. But it does seem to be working. 

Why? Because this is not your normal congressional hearing. It’s been
constructed carefully, thoughtfully, and creatively to not just unearth
information but to paint a picture of what really happened on January 6th.
It’s accessible and engaging to a wider audience.

If you know Congress, you know that what we’ve seen over the last three
weeks is a wild departure from your standard congressional hearing. MoCs
generally view hearings as their own personal soapbox. They show up to
speak, spend their allotted time lecturing the witnesses so that they can
get their own thirty-second soundbite, and seem vaguely surprised when the
witnesses say anything back. Generally speaking, the desire of every
elected official to get their moment in the sun trumps the imperative to
actually get answers out of the witness or to tell a collective story.
Even really crucial hearings -- the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, for
example - largely fall victim to this dysfunctional dynamic. So it’s a
huge credit to the January 6th committee that the events so far look
nothing like this.

In short: creative and thoughtful storytelling is helping to ensure that
the full scope of the criminal conspiracy to overturn our elections is
laid out for the public -- and that the public is listening.

That’s important because…

The criminal conspiracy that tried to violently overturn our elections on
January 6th is ongoing.

The attack on the Capitol on January 6th may have ended in failure, but
the attack on our freedom to vote has only begun - and it’s growing more
powerful and more dangerous every day. Career elections administrators are
being violently threatened and harassed out of their jobs. Sham “audits”
have been used to distract, derail, and sow doubt in the results of the
last election. Voter suppression legislation has made voting in key states
much harder, particularly for brown and Black people. Across the country,
Big Lie candidates are running for everything from local county clerk
offices to Governor of Pennsylvania. Republican House and Senate
candidates are embracing the Big Lie, and if they win, they’d be poised to
have the power to do in 2024 what they could not in 2020. Perhaps most
terrifyingly, the Supreme Court just took a case that has the potential to
radically empower state legislators to dictate the outcomes of federal
elections.

In short, the criminal conspiracy to overturn the election will be on the
ballot in November. The question is, will the voters understand that? And
will it impact how they vote?

We have to make sure voters connect the dots.

Perhaps the greatest risk we face right now is that voters view January
6th as something that happened in the past - terrible, yes, but also not
relevant to the problems they face in 2022. If that’s how they see it,
we’re in real trouble. 

That’s where the rest of us come in. The January 6th Committee can unearth
the facts and tell the story of what happened. The Department of Justice
can, should, and must initiate prosecutions against those who participated
in this grave attack on our democracy. Our role is to connect the dots and
raise the temperature on the threat ahead of us.

How? We do what we do best -- we show up, get loud, and get creative. We
demand answers. We keep this in the headlines, on our networks’ social
media pages, and in the public eye. There are MAGA extremists, election
deniers, and Trump enablers scattered all around the country -- we need to
do everything we can to keep them, their wildly unpopular ideas, and the
threat they pose in the news and force other Republicans to answer for
them. 

We’re currently in the 4th of July recess -- a moment when Members of
Congress are home in their districts, looking to meet constituents and get
good press. It’s important that the story this cycle be about widespread
constituent outrage - over Roe, over January 6th, and more. Check out our
bird-dogging guide if you want to help make sure they hear from you.

We’re working alongside all of you to help make this happen. For example,
Pennsylvania Indivisibles are working to turn up the heat on leading
conspirators Scott Perry and Brian Fitzpatrick. Stay tuned because we
can’t wait to share what they’re working on.

Will any of this change MAGA extremists’ minds and transform them from
coup enablers to champions of democracy? Almost certainly not! But we know
there’s a population of voters out there -- people who voted with us
before and Republicans who feel negatively towards the extremism of the
MAGA faction -- who are currently up for grabs. And we know there’s a
population of voters who agree with us, who’d vote Democratic if they
vote, but who might just skip the midterms. We need both of those
populations of voters to hear about this constantly, to believe that the
threat is real, and to vote accordingly. 

We can make this election a referendum on the threat that MAGA extremism
poses to our freedom -- but it will take all of us.

And on that note, I’m going to do something a little different in my final
closing. I know a lot of the readers of our monthly emails are Indivisible
leaders and activists, so I want to use the megaphone I’ve got here to
make a couple of asks:

RSVP to the Indivisible Convention

If you’re an Indivisible leader, volunteer, or looking to start a group,
and you just read the above and thought…that sounds great! Where do I
learn more? Well, we’ve got you covered. From July 12-14th, we’re hosting
our convention for Indivisible leaders and activists. This three-night
series was designed with input from Indivisibles to cover the topics you
think are most crucial -- strategic, persuasive messaging, creative voter
outreach strategies and movement coordination, and recruiting membership
and strengthening your groups. We’ll have incredible guest speakers, but
perhaps most importantly, we’ll have opportunities to connect with, learn
from, and strategize with other Indivisibles. [ [link removed] ]Sign up NOW to hold your
spot (and if you’re already signed up, forward this to a friend or fellow
group leader). Register once and you’re signed up for the entire event.
(You will need to sign in to your zoom account to register.)

Take the Indivisible Group Leader Support Survey

If you’re a leader, you know that ever since we got off the ground in
2017, Indivisible has been testing, innovating, and developing new ways to
support local groups. That’s looked like many different things over the
years, from building a distributed fundraising system to help you raise
and spend money to launching grants and reimbursement programs to
developing customized versions of tools like EveryAction and TurboVoter to
running caucus programs for communities of interest. The common thread is
that we care about creating tools, resources, and supports that make it
easier for you to do your work. 

We’re now preparing to launch an updated suite of group support resources
in early 2023 -- super exciting! -- and we’re kicking off that process by
gathering as much feedback as we possibly can about what’s working, what’s
not, and where you’re looking for more, new, or different kinds of
support. We want the broadest possible participation in this -- we want to
hear from people who use our resources, people who don't use our
resources, people who aren’t sure exactly what resources we offer to begin
with, and everything in between. It’s all helpful as we revamp and
relaunch! So please hop on over to [ [link removed] ]take the survey and stay tuned for
the next steps as we continue to improve our offerings to support you.

In closing

I’ve been told I can’t close without a picture of Zeke, so here he is,
smiling and happy, just a few minutes after he got his FIRST COVID VACCINE
SHOT this month:

We’ve been waiting for this moment for what feels like forever, and we’re
so grateful that we’re on the path to being a fully vaccinated family.

[4]A picture of Ezra holding zeke celebrating his vaccine

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