The TEA Party wasn’t intended to be top down. Indivisible, on the other hand…

As I have previously pointed out on my social media pages, I’ve been checking up on the Indivisible movement since its inception. It piqued my interest originally because they claimed to be taking its cues from the TEA Party, which of course I’m a bit of a self-appointed expert on.

Because of that, I thought this e-mail I received (subject line: “Expanding our team”) on Saturday was important enough to cite at pretty much full-length and comment on.

Indivisibles,

We’ve said it since day one: organizing works. It’s more than something we do – it’s who we are. It’s people cramming into the back room of a library for an Indivisible meeting. It’s hundreds of group leaders gathering for a regional institute. And it’s our organizing team supporting that work every step of the way. It’s no secret that Indivisibles are doing amazing work that’s changing our democracy. To help you do it, we are building the best organizing team in the country.

It was all possible because of the amazing support we received in order to double our organizing team this year. Organizing works – and in 2019 we’ve got to level up again. But to do that we need to grow our team by a lot.

(redacted fundraising pitch)

That’s right! We’re doubling our organizing team againWe’re talking 14 new organizers that work directly with Indivisibles to help build power locally, 3 training organizers, and 3 digital organizers to ramp up digital capacity for Indivisible groups everywhere. There’s nothing that can replace skilled, experienced, and locally-rooted organizing, and we act on that belief in our work every single day.

We’re in the midst of building out a brand new phase of Indivisible’s organizing and movement-building work. It’s time to go on offense – to make sure the new Democratic House majority stands up for our values and stops Trump at every turn. And we’re kicking it off with Indivisible groups showing up from day one of the new Congress (and throughout the first 100 days) to hold all our members of Congress accountable, and to take the next step in rebuilding our democracy.

Our staff organizers play critical roles – from leading trainings for local Indivisible groups, to tough coalition-building work connecting volunteers across the country, to supporting massive days and weekends of action, and beyond. The new organizers will be located in key states where Indivisibles are building power for the long haul – and where we can help them do it.

This is going to take a significant chunk of our budget. But it means we’ll be able to make an even bigger impact than anything we’ve achieved so far.

(second redacted fundraising pitch)

Thank you for your organizing, your contributions, and for being a part of this movement. Together, we are ready to go on offense – and together, we will win.

In solidarity,
The Indivisible Team

P.S. We’re hoping to raise $700,000 from online donations in December. This is our most ambitious digital fundraising goal we’ve ever had in the history of our organization. So, if you can, please help us hit our $700,000 end-of-year fundraising goal – and double our organizing team.

Indivisible e-mail appeal, December 15, 2018.

Out of a $700,000 goal, the public had donated just shy of $170,000 as of Saturday night when I originally wrote this piece. Of course, I’m sure the Tides Foundation or Advocacy Fund will cover any shortfall as they have before.

But there’s a bigger point to be made here. For a group which is claiming to take its inspiration from the TEA Party, it should be noted that the TEA Party had several organizations spring up to vie for its leadership role in the months after its inception in February, 2009 – however, a large share of the local TEA Party chapters remained independent and eschewed national organizational efforts. (In my book, I’ve compared the efforts of driving local TEA Parties to lobby for changes to that of herding cats.) Perhaps the lone exceptions to this rule were opposing the stimulus and Obamacare – but on many other issues individual TEA Parties were all over the political map in that some were more libertarian and others included social issues in their charge.

Conversely, the Indivisible movement retains its local influence only insofar as they want their followers to lobby their local members of Congress – the bulk of the action items are ones they deem to be of national importance.

I devoted a rather significant portion of my TEA Party book to the Indivisible movement because its leaders (which, at least as figureheads, were already apparent from day one, unlike the TEA Party) still deigned to call the TEA Party their model. But claiming the comparison was hollow when you consider several facts:

  • While they were held around the country, Indivisible’s most prominent galvanizing event was the Women’s March held in Washington, D.C. the day after President Trump’s inauguration. Unlike the initial group of about 30 TEA Party protests scattered around the nation in February, 2009, the D.C. Women’s March had fawning national media coverage.
  • Indivisible also began with its own guide, which was a how-to instruction manual in how to oppose the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress in their efforts to unwind the previous administration. In other words, the instructions were top-down. The TEA Party was organic and open-source, learning on the fly and listening to the grassroots. As noted above, they had the idea of being Taxed Enough Already but after that they were freeform. One could argue, though, that their guide was the Constitution.
  • While the TEA Party was initially and continually accused of being Astroturf because a handful of already existing Beltway organizations – including those created by the dreaded Koch brothers – were allied with its ideas (while trying their best to co-opt it), the Indivisibles quickly gained big-money backing from friendly left-wing organizations (and Koch-style donors) that have pretty much been allowed to stay behind the scenes. Granted, they have been somewhat transparent about it but it’s easy to have that sort of accountability when there’s only one major group.
  • But thanks to having the media on their side, they have succeeded in flipping the House like the TEA Party did. The Left has also figured out that governing is the hard part and have already considered tactics to deal with this. Perhaps it’s because they have professional politicians at the helm as opposed to common people who were fish out of water when it came to matters political.

And yet no one in the media or the activist Left accuses Indivisible of being Astroturf.

But now that Congress is changing over to Democratic control (at least in the House), we get to see what the priorities of the Indivisible leadership will be. (Bear in mind that we have at least one local branch of Indivisible but they seem to be following the national lead.)

Their “Day of Action” is January 3, which is the day Congress renews after the holiday break. Presumably it’s the day H.R. 1 will be introduced, and as opposed to the Trump tax cuts (which were H.R. 1 in the 115th Congress) this will be a “democracy” bill that will probably include three key aspects:

  • Invitations to voter fraud: same-day and/or automatic voter registration, restoration of felon voter rights, and expanded early (and often) voting.
  • Overturning the Citizens United decision and other campaign finance reforms including public financing. On this one, the devil will be in the details, particularly who is left exempt.
  • Their version of combating ethics violations – which will be aimed squarely at President Trump and Republicans – such as requiring the presentation of tax returns and prohibitions on lobbying after leaving office that will likely take effect just in time for Trump to leave.

For a movement that purports to follow the TEA Party model the Indivisibles sure seem to have things backwards. But what else could be expected from a movement that seems to want more government control over our lives?