Indivisible "What's the Plan" Weekly Zoom 5/8/25

It's Thursday! Which means Indivisible's "What's the Plan" Zoom just wrapped up, and I'm here to tell you all about it.

Today was very logistics heavy when it comes to June 14th "No Kings Day," but there were other things discussed as well, so, let's dive in!

1. Intro

   They mentioned an op-ed in the NYT "No One Has Ever Defeated Autocracy From the Sidelines" by Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt, these are the premiere voices on the death of Democracy, and they feel we still have a Democracy because of those of us who are fighting back. It's really that simple. Most institutions and people were starting to or had already bowed down, and that has virtually all stopped because of the noise we have made. We are the changemakers. This is a vital article for everyone to read, but especially if you aren't impressed with the protests. They are important and they are making a diffrence, they're one of the only things that is.

2. June 14, No King's Day

   It was just announced that DT is going through with the military parade, which will cost upwards of $50m. We do not want counter protests, rather we will be everywhere else.

   DC won't be devoid of events, there will be a community building event hosted by Free DC, but it will be very far away from the parade route.

   There is a huge coaltion of groups co-leading this, there are 30 partners so far, go to nokings.org for more. There were already 364 events on the calendar in 48 states when the call started, by the end of the call, there were 2 events in AL and 1 in WV, which were the two states missing. The flagship event will be in Philly not DC, and there's even an event in Florence Italy already on the calendar. There were 1300 events for Hands Off, 1100 for May day, hopefully this will be bigger than both, so if you don't see a protest planned for your area, sign up to host one, if you can.

   1. How do we get media to pay attenion?

      First, if you see an article that talks about the military parade, but doesn't mention the No Kings Day, contact the journalist and let them know, if it's a local publication, tell them what event you're holding locally. We are the ambassadors.

      Each local group needs to have some focus on getting the word out to local media. Indivisible has a toolkit to help with that. Influencers want to know where the energy is, so, if you want influencers to take notice, you have to flood their comment section. Make it clear this is something a lot of people care about. We are still struggling in the new media space so it's something to pay attention to.

      And with Rachel Maddow down to one day a week, and most people not paying attention to traditional media anyway, that's more important than ever in general. If you like a journalist you can't just assume they're getting the attention they deserve. I will say, personally, there were a lot of names mentioned in the chat of people to follow, mine wasn't one of them. My point is that you have to spread the word about your favorites, cause they're not going to be discoverable otherwise.

   1. Nationwide strike

      We need to get away from the idea that we are ready to move on. We have not yet hit the threshold of broad opposition, we still have some work to do to grow this current protest movement. We are still building the muscle, and that's a good thing. We still don't have the infastructure in place to make a general strike possible. We cannot call for something we can't deliver, and right now we cannot deliver a general strike. I will say, some unions are talking about one for 2028, so that tells you the level of planning needed.

   2. What about doing some kind of human chain across the protests?

      Great idea! Ezra said he's going to look into it, but something like that likely takes more planning than we have time for. That said, this is the type of creativity we want. They mentioned some sort of relay race from Canada to Mexico that WA, OR and CA Indivisibles planned for supporting immigrants a few years back. Something like that could work in the future. but probably not now.

3. Will Indivisible be involved in the June 6 Vet Rally?

   Yes, of course! We need to show up for every single community under threat, it's not just the right thing to do, but it's also strategic, it's how we build our coalition. We must physically bring our communities out to support each other. No Kings Day isn't the next protest day, it's just the next protest day with that many active partners. And you can find more info about that Rally at unite4veterans.org.

4. How is Indivisible supporting Pride Month?

   First, No Kings Day is going to be working with HRC to figure out how best to combine pride and the protest in as many places as possible. Boston is already calling theirs "No Kings YAS Queens." But again, it's about your local Indivisible. Are you connected with the local queer community? Do you know where your local PRIDE event is? Is your group going to have a presence there? Is your group paying attention to the school board? Going to meetings? Are you inviting local school board candidates to your meetings so you can endorse the best candidates if you have off year school board elections (as the queen of election guides I know for a fact, across the board that answer is no). It's not just about Pride month, it's about creating an ongoing collaboration

5. Are we planning any sort of messaging around DT's Temper Tariffs?

   Not really? We should tie ourselves up in knots about the exact perfect framing. This isn't about debating good vs bad tariffs. The messaging is simple and the same as everything else; they're hurting us to consolidate power and help themselves. Republicans could have stopped this at any time but have chosen not to. That's it.

6. Why aren't any Dem electeds mentioning the protests?

   I was thrilled to hear both Leah and Ezra push back on this. We have a really good group of members that are constantly talking about protests, we just have to amplify them.

7. Where are we on getting Schumer to resign?

   The most recent news is that Schumer has a 17% approval rating. That's bad. Honestly, if it's going to happen it will be after a flashpoint gone horribly wrong. The Crypto fight is the next big one. Huge news today, there was a fear about enough Dems voting for cloture on a crypto bill that doesn't reign in DT's bribery at all. But that didn't happen. However, this bill will come back and we need them to stand up then too. If he continues to do that we must praise him for a job well done, something that also should have happened this week in regards to the SAVE Act, which the Senate Dems killed just like he said they would. It all goes back to needing to praise those who do the right thing whenever that is.

8. Will Indivisible call for the Olympics and World Cup to be moved out of the US?

   Ezra hadn't considered that at all, but he is now. They're going to investigate how these decisions are made, If a group like Indivisible can effect the decision, etc. Again, creative ideas like this are so important.

9. How do we keep the pressure on about things like CECOT and NPR/PBS?

   it's the same as everything, really, we have to prevent the consolidation of power. We must keep raising our voices and asking these questions in all settings. It's not just about what can I learn, but moreso, what can I do? How can I help the cause? We all have to do our part to win. Every question we can ask can likely be answered by "organize something in your community and get press coverage for it"

So that's this week's summary. I hope you got something out of it. If you made it to the end comment 📰 (newspaper) cause press coverage (new media and otherwise) really is the name of the game. As long as we show up and it gets covered we can and will save Democracy.

Our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!