Happy Friday, Indivisibles!

Welcome to the July Leah/Ezra Letter, the monthly email written by the two
of us -- the (married) co-founders/co-executive directors of Indivisible.
Yes, really, we personally write this every month, and we personally go
through your responses -- so let’s continue the conversation!

One note: it occurs to us that we keep on writing to you about pretty
heavy stuff. Last month we were wrestling with Trump’s anti-immigrant
border policies and the Democratic response. This month we’ve got some
questions on strategies for saving American democracy. Not exactly a
barrel of laughs. Sure saving democracy is deeply serious work, but it
shouldn’t be boring or depressing. We actively have fun in this movement
and we hope you’re finding joy in this too. So as always, feel free to
reach out to us directly on Twitter to share pictures of pets, jokes,
videos from fun local Indivisible actions, or even deep thoughts on policy
if that’s your thing: [ [link removed] ]@leahgreenb and [ [link removed] ]@ezralevin.

Question of the month: What does saving democracy look like?

When we’ve polled Indivisible members about their top priority, the answer
is loud and clear: we need to save democracy itself. American democracy is
under threat, and we’ve got to win back power and make some big reforms to
save it. Step one is taking the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2020 --
that’s obvious. Step two is reforming American democracy -- but what does
that mean?

“Democracy” is a big issue. Earlier this year, the House passed the For
the People Act, which includes a ton of great reforms like campaign
finance, election security, and expanding voting rights. This was a great
first step, and now we're grappling with how to build on this. So we’d
love to get your thoughts on some of the big ideas for rebuilding American
democracy. Do you like them, do you hate them, do you have other
priorities? Specifically, we want to zoom in on five big areas:

 1. Democratizing the Senate: Expanding the Senate by creating new states
like D.C. and Puerto Rico, if their residents vote for statehood.
 2. Democratizing the House: Eliminating “safe” districts and ensuring
spoiler candidates can’t throw elections.
 3. Democratizing the Courts: Expanding the Supreme Court and instituting
reforms like term limits to depoliticize it.
 4. Democratizing Voting: Expanding the vote to big groups of Americans,
like young people, immigrants, and incarcerated or
formerly-incarcerated Americans.
 5. Democratizing Media: Breaking up the big media conglomerates and
investing in independent local media.

These are big ideas! Democratic presidential candidates have staked out
ground on some (but not all) of these. There are pros and cons to each of
them, and we want to get your thoughts so we can help the Indivisible
movement apply pressure in the right ways. [ [link removed] ]So let us know your thoughts
here. We’ll reflect back what we’re hearing from you and fellow
Indivisibles next month, and your input will directly feed into our
strategy for leading the national organization on these issues. Thanks for
weighing in!

The Indivisible book manuscript is in!

Speaking of democracy...we turned in the manuscript to the publisher,
Simon & Schuster! We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After
Trump is now going through fact-checking and copyediting. We are so, so,
so, so excited about the final version. It’s got stories from across the
Indivisible movement. It’s got lessons for building local power,
pressuring electeds, and building big blue waves. And it’s got a diagnosis
of the problems facing democracy and some blue sky vision on how the
Indivisible movement can be part of ushering in a pro-democracy,
post-Trump Era. 

As a reminder, we’re both writing this but we’re not taking a dime of the
proceeds. 100% of our advance and any author royalties are going to
Indivisible’s Save Democracy Fund to support all Indivisible’s
pro-democracy work. This is a book for the Indivisible movement -- not for
us.

And on that note, we want this to be a New York Times bestseller! This is
about recruiting more people to Indivisible. More books sold = more
eyeballs = more activists to help save democracy. It’s math. So if you
can, please pre-order the [ [link removed] ]hardcover or ebook version here. We’re told
by the publisher that all we need is 5,000 preorders to get safely get on
that list and help the book catch fire. Also we welcome ideas for getting
this out to more folks -- hit us up on Twitter!

Reflecting back on last month’s question

Last month we asked you about Trump’s border bill, which gave a few extra
billion to his deportation machine. As a reminder, this is the bill that
passed through the House without any amendments ([ [link removed] ]refresher here if you
need it). We were -- and are -- really disappointed with how this went
down, but we don’t want to belabor the disappointment. We’re not here to
just complain -- we’re here to talk about how we can regroup to fight the
next fight.

So your responses to our questions were really interesting -- and
encouraging. Overwhelmingly, Indivisibles are strongly in favor of showing
up in support of immigrant allies who are under constant attack by Trump.
We want Democratic congressional leaders who don’t just swallow whatever
tripe Trump flings our way. And we want Democratic presidential candidates
who clearly define an alternative vision to Trump’s anti-immigrant hate.
Here were the detailed results from the 1,231 respondents:

* 85% thought it was somewhat or very important for Democratic
presidential candidates to offer a bold alternative Democratic vision
for immigration policy.

* 86% were opposed or strongly opposed to passing Trump’s border bill
unamended through the House.

* 87% say House and Senate Democrats should demand cuts in funding for
Trump’s wall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and
concentration camps. 

* 96% support pressuring your members of Congress, including Democrats,
to stand up to Trump in opposition to his anti-immigrant agenda.

* 96% support strict guardrails to ensure Trump uses humanitarian
funding for humanitarian purposes.

Gotta say, after suffering that defeat on Trump’s border bill, it was very
encouraging for us to get these responses from Indivisibles all over the
country. We see that folks want Democratic leaders to really fight on this
-- and that’s where we are too. So while we’re under no illusions that
we’re going to win every battle, we’re building a powerful force to
contend with hate coming from Trump. We’re gearing up for the last big
congressional fight on immigration this year, which will come to a head in
September. The Indivisible national team will [ [link removed] ]keep you updated on how
to pitch in.

Mueller and Impeachment

We know this email is already getting long, but we can’t help but share
some thoughts on the news this week. Finally, Robert Mueller has testified
before Congress. It’s been more than four months since Mueller submitted
the report to Attorney General Barr, and nearly two months since Mueller’s
press conference in May. But he finally testified. 

Think about that -- four months since Mueller finished his report, and
he’s just now testifying before Congress. In his testimony, Mueller didn’t
reveal new information, but the message he delivered was as clear as his
written report: there is damning evidence that Donald Trump has committed
impeachable crimes, and only the House of Representatives can (and must!)
hold him accountable by beginning impeachment proceedings.

None of this is new, but it’s still damning. And if you’re like us, you’re
pretty darn frustrated that House Democratic Leadership is dragging their
feet. One piece that resonated with us is this one in HuffPost,
[ [link removed] ]Democrats Continue Search For The Smoking Gun They Already Have. Trump
has committed crimes -- impeachable crimes! This isn’t controversial among
Democrats. But still, [ [link removed] ]Speaker Pelosi is actively preventing the
Judiciary Committee from moving forward on impeachment.

Why is this happening? The bottom line is that Pelosi knows how to count
votes. There are 235 House Democrats. Of those, only 99 have come out for
impeachment proceedings as of the time we're writing this. This includes
members in many deep blue districts, as well as [ [link removed] ]several excellent
members from flipped Republican districts like Katie Porter, Harley Rouda,
Tom Malinowski, and Mike Levin. 

But all combined, that’s still less than half of the House Democratic
caucus. And even Democrats in many deep blue districts aren’t on the
record yet. As we're typing, there are still 34 members of the House
Progressive Caucus who aren’t publicly calling for impeachment! If they’re
not out fighting for this, other Democrats won’t get onboard either.

None of this will change unless we demand our Representatives change it.
Next week starts the month-long August recess, the longest break period of
congress all year. Your representative will be back in town. Praise them
if they’re leading on this. Or ask them to take a position if they haven’t
already. We need more Democrats taking a stance or we will not win. We’ve
got a big resource on this: [ [link removed] ]impeach.indivisible.org. And you can find
where your representative stands [ [link removed] ]here.

Talk to you again soon

OK, that’s it for this month. [ [link removed] ]Again, please do let us know your
thoughts on big reform ideas for rebuilding American democracy here. And
if you have any follow-ups, send us a tweet at [ [link removed] ]@leahgreenb and
[ [link removed] ]@ezralevin! 

Until next month and in solidarity,
Leah and Ezra

 

PS: Are you as jazzed as us about the second round of presidential debates
next week? The whole Indivisible team will of course be watching, and just
like last time there’ll be an Indivisible debate watching parties all over
the country. [ [link removed] ]Our team put together guides for this here if you want to
host your own, or you can [ [link removed] ]look up your nearest watch party here on our
national event map.

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