Splitting the opposition: securing the coin and what they do with it

Editor’s note: Back in January I promised a multi-part series of posts based on a book I started on the Indivisible movement that, simply put, just wasn’t coming together as I would have liked. So I decided to serialize that beginning of a book draft – with a little more editing as I see fit – and add more writing to make this into a multi-part series of posts.

This is the (long-awaited, as it turned out) third and final part, which will talk about how aggressively Indivisible is seeking its funding and converting it to radical action. You can start this back up with me here.

Money is the mother’s milk of politics.

Former California state treasurer (and Democrat) Jesse Unruh

It’s an unfortunate fact of American political life that organizations require money to get out their message. Even a candidate who received billions of dollars’ worth of “free” media thanks to a measure of celebrity prior to his run needed $68 million in the waning days of the 2016 campaign to succeed. “What if we hadn’t spent that?” asked Brad Parscale, digital media director for Donald Trump’s campaign. “We might not have won.”

Knowing that, imagine having the lofty goal of disrupting the Trump presidency and winning the first midterm elections against him – but beginning from scratch financially. And while the Indivisible movement had a few built-in advantages, such as a sympathetic media and no shortage of progressive groups willing to pass the hat around in order to get them off the ground, that gravy train wasn’t going to last forever given the number of other left-wing advocacy groups standing in line with outstretched hands, begging to save the whales or secure slavery reparations, among thousands of others. Once the e-mail list was created and the contacts were verified, the pitches began.

Anyone who has spent time in the political world – or even donated a few times to a candidate or cause – knows the tenor of a fundraising letter. It always begins in a conversational style, almost apologetic that there’s a problem which needs to be addressed, but eventually insisting that your contribution of $10 to $100 will be VITAL in getting the candidate elected over his unworthy opponent. (Yes, they liberally use the bold fonts, too.)

For all their insistence that they were different and “had a ‘fundraising second’ approach” which made it a secondary concern – in many instances they insisted that, given one’s choice between activism and donation they’d prefer the activism – as the 2020 campaign began to take shape, the tenor of the average Indivisible e-mail changed significantly. While they generally communicated a weekly “to-do” list of five or six items to those on their e-mail list, by the time the middle of 2019 rolled around these missives also just as frequently had the “ask” for contributions, as did several other e-mails each week. Did you really expect grassroots?

For example, in a July 1, 2019 e-mail to supporters, the curtain was opened for a peek at some of the expenses and dollar amounts Indivisible was expecting to attain in 2019:

  • $275,000 for a mass e-mailing tool
  • $20,000 for the peer-to-peer texting tool
  • $15,000 for September “Day of Action” materials – this was representative of the usual “Day of Action” budget, which would be replicated a few more times in 2019.
  • $20,000 for “bird dogging” materials (“bird dogging” is basically a real live version of online trolling.)
  • $380,000 for in-person training and other organizing events for groups and group leaders
  • $350,000 for access to the voter file and other organizing tools for groups

They don’t fail to note that “this doesn’t even include things like salaries and benefits for organizing staff!” But just this budget for a half-year was $1.06 million.

And this isn’t the only time. In fact, practically all of their e-mail missives now have an “ask” for several ongoing organizing projects. But the Wuhan flu – and yes, I use that phrase just to needle them – made necessary a change in tactics as face-to-face meeting was out and virtual strategizing was in. Take this idea for example:

On May 12, Indivisible groups in Tallahassee, Phoenix, and Austin littered the grounds of their statehouses with body bags, representing the 81,000 American lives lost to COVID-19. Lives that could have been saved if not for President Trump and GOP Governors and Senators’ failure to adequately respond to the coronavirus pandemic. 

These incredible actions generated national media attention for their destructive responses to the virus, the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans, and dangerous re-open orders in states around the country.  

“Indivisibles marked National Hospital Day with Body Bag Protests”, May 15, 2020.

Unfortunately, they seemed to forget the biggest concentrations of those deaths were in progressive-run places like New York City, New Orleans, and Seattle. None of those places have a Republican mayor or governor; meanwhile, Florida, Arizona, and Texas combined (as of this writing) have fewer COVID-19 deaths than Democrat strongholds Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York have by themselves. Hopefully those body bags were sent by Indivisible to the progressive areas which truly needed them.

Of course, the Indivisible folks have also jumped on the George Floyd bandwagon with another ludicrous scheme. This is from policy team member Eli Gerber:

We’re unpacking the racist history of policing, the impact policing has on Black communities, and why taking money out of the multi-million dollar budgets of police forces and using it to fund resources and programs that people really need is so urgently necessary – especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, which has revealed how badly we are failing to meet people’s basic needs.

Policing Black communities and inflicting violence on black people can’t fix the problems that centuries of racist policies have created. It’s time to defund the police and invest in things like schools, clean water, food and housing assistance, social workers, and more.

“Police Violence is its Own Pandemic – Tune into Episode 3 of COVID Corruption”, June 6, 2020.

Honestly, I didn’t sit and watch the latest video after I wasted five minutes of my life watching Gerber whine about the Wisconsin primary being held as scheduled back on April 7 in part 2 of this awful series. I guess the logical question is then just who will enforce the laws in these cities if there is no police department?

If these views are mainstream then we don’t live in a Constitutional republic anymore.

In less than two years the Indivisible movement (Indivisible Project and Indivisible Civics) had garnered over $25 million in contributions, according to these summaries of their IRS 990 forms. And that was only through 2018 – they may have doubled their take again in 2019 and 2020. Moreover, there are only a handful of local Indivisible groups with their own 990 forms, which tells me all their action is inside the Beltway.

On the other hand, looking through that same data source and doing a simple search for “tea” provided 200 results, and many of them were local TEA parties reporting little to no assets. The largest TEA party group spent most of its six figure take on website and media consulting, making it sound like a scam PAC from the get-go. (It was not the Tea Party Patriots, who have even more modest fundraising figures.)

It’s a case of claiming to have a “fundraising second” approach like the national Indivisible movement does versus actually scratching out an existence on a shoestring as most TEA Parties do (and have done since their inception.) This disparity may be part of explaining the success of Indivisible, but it also shows that it’s a far more Astroturf entity than the TEA Party ever was, despite all the accusations otherwise.

So where does all this lead?

Americans who still believe in the ideals of their nation as defined by its Constitution are the majority, but it’s one that’s rapidly dwindling because people believe the Indivisible propaganda echoed all across the media and culture.

“The truth shall set you free” is not just part of a Bible verse (John 8:32) but is more important than ever. Take a look beyond the seductive promises of so-called progressives to the essence of individual freedom and self-governance.

Last year I wrote a book about the TEA Party and closed it by explaining how to renew its tree of liberty. We should get involved in the political process at the local grassroots again and propose real solutions that don’t involve overbearing government and that empower all of us, not just a manipulative elite residing far away. It’s past time to divide Indivisible by beating them at their own organizing game.

Guess I really didn’t need a whole book to tell you that, so my initial instincts have been proven correct. But if you want to start this study from its beginning way back in February, here’s part one.