Turn Purple 2 Blue

Text with Movement Labs

Update 2/2/25 Movement Labs is texting about the Nominations – asking people to call their Senators. This is the only way we can reach Senators that are not our own!

10/21/24 After a slow start, texting is finally available consistently. Unlike past years, you will mostly just respond to replies. If you haven’t texted yet this year, you may need to sign up for SPOKE again, but your SLACK login will still work. Email Christine@IndivisibleActon.org if you need help.

9/6/24 Movement Labs has many campaigns to choose from – if you want to text consistently, this is the place for you!

2/14/24 Political texting is an easy and fun way to reach younger voters, especially those who may only have a cell phone. Movement Labs is texting now for many grassroots groups. Want personal training for you or your group? Email Christine@IndivisibleActon.org. Or use the button below to get started directly in Movement Labs.

Returning Volunteers w/ Refresher Training

New Volunteer sign up

***Note: if you trained with me before, your SLACK log-in is still valid. You may need to create a new SPOKE account to access current texting campaigns.

6/9/23 I attended a presentation by Focus 4 Democracy, who funded many texting programs through Movement Labs. Although we participated on the other end (volunteers sending the texts) it was very encouraging to hear the in-depth statistical analysis proving that these programs were not only cost effective, they yeilded a higher turnout in all the key states.

Movement Labs uses the program SPOKE to text for all kinds of democratic organizations. It could be texting people to ask them to Run for Something, or join an event, or vote in an election. The campaigns vary throughout the week. You can see what is available and choose what you are interested in. This is a great way to make a difference if you have only small blocks of time!

If you trained with me last year, just go onto your Movement Labs SLACK to see what’s new! You will need to sign up for SPOKE again to refresh your credential. There is continuous support if you have a question. Need a refresher or training? Email Christine@IndivisibleActon.org

You can also use the web portal to get training directly from Movement Labs, see the upcoming list of campaigns, and TEXT!

Indivisible National: Take Action Now!

This link to current actions will be updated by National Indivisible!

Indivisible National Take Action Now!

We expect MAGA’s strategy of “flooding the zone” to continue for the first 100 days at least. We saw this last time too. Unpopular or illegal actions? Check your news feed Friday night. Announcements getting outrage? Watch out, an even worse one will soon distract you. Events are moving fast, so we are linking directly to Indivisible National’s Take Action webpage. You will find explanations and context as well as effective actions to take.

We are making a difference – remember some of these are test balloons to see if anyone cares. Spoiler alert: WE CARE AND WE ARE WATCHING.

Volunteer at the International Institute of New England

Indivisible Acton Area and Indivisible LAB are delivering two carloads of cleaning supplies to the International Institute of New England that were collected at the Help Over Hate Service Huddle on January 20th. This collection drive is completed, but there are more ways to volunteer!

Volunteers needed for:

*Provide ESOL Support to Adult Language Learners
*Help Set Up Apartments for Newly Arriving Refugees
*Provide Career Support to Prepare Clients for Interviews
*Transport Clients to and from Medical Appointments

IINE has offices in Boston, Lowell and Manchester. Refugees are resettled in many areas.

Want to form a community support group? IINE has a Community Resettlement Program. Community sponsorship is a collaborative effort between carefully selected groups of volunteers and agency resettlement staff, working together
under a formal agreement to prepare for and welcome refugees in their communities. Some of the core services sponsor groups provide include
locating and setting up appropriate housing, providing airport pick-ups, assisting with school enrollment, and offering cultural orientation.

Learn More!

Virginia Grassroots Groups to Support Now

Grassroot groups are special because they work in their communities throughout every year, regardless of when elections happen, or who won the last one. Virginia is one of the few states with elections for Governor and the state legislature this year. Here are three organizations working hard for the people in Virginia.

Donate

Rural Groundgame Being able to directly contact well over 2 million voters and offer some level of support to over 100 campaigns is no small feat for a small, scrappy organization reaching volunteers and voters far off the radar of other progressive organizations making investments only in the cities and suburbs.

Your donations help them defy the accepted (and too often unquestioned) “wisdom” of investing exclusively in urban and suburban districts.

Donate

New Virginia Majority works to create a powerful multi-issue, multi-racial movement to transform Virginia through large-scale civic engagement, issue advocacy, and strategic communications and community organizing.

Working-class communities of color have been shut out, silenced and ignored in Virginia, fueling widespread injustice in the state. NVM builds the power of marginalized communities to change the political systems that aren’t working for us.

NVM organizes within Latinx, African American, Asian American, Pacific Islander and youth communities, centering the leadership and demands of working-class women of color. Together, they vote, mobilize and engage to end mass incarceration, build just economic policies, protect immigrants and preserve the environment.

Donate

Network Nova is a grassroots organizing hub run by the unstoppable, badass, fearless women of Network NOVA. We inspire, inform and empower each other and our allies for powerful year-round political action.

Our motto is When We Vote, We Win! We create opportunities for political engagement and civic participation through our annual Women’s Summit, Friday Power Lunch video podcast, BADASS Briefing with political actions and news, Postcards4VA state-wide postcard writing program, and many more events and actions throughout the year. Support Network NOVA and the work of the Virginia Grassroots!

Find more Recommended Groups

Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink

We have a big advantage while fighting authoritarianism this cycle: the past 8 years of creating infrastructure and developing strategies. Indivisible has now released their new guide for 2025 through the Midterms, tailored for fighting in this moment.

Read this, bookmark this, and refer back to this whenever you need inspiration or guidance. These strategies work – they just need your energy to implement them.

How to Use this Guide

One Page Summary

Chapter 1: What Happened and Why it Matters

Chapter 2: A Quick Primer on Constituent Power

Chapter 3: The Plan to Get Through the Next Two Years

Chapter 4: Protecting People and Operating Under Authoritarian Creep

Chapter 5: Form or Find Your Own Indivisible Group

Conclusion

Want to Share this Guide? Use this Link.

Looking for Specific Blue State Guidance?

Democrats Safeguarding Democracy: A Blueprint for Blue States to Fight Trump 2.0

Feeling frustrated that we have all Democratic elected officials and “they already know what to do”? Guess what – they don’t! In fact, they mostly just hear loud attacks from the MAGA minority, and we need to make sure they hear from us, the actual majority.

Our job as Blue state residents is to push them to protect us (and our neighbors if possible) – even if it prods them out of their comfort zone. The Indivisible Guide Chapter 2: A Quick Primer on Constituent Power explains how and why.

Luckily we have more Blue state trifectas to work with this time around. Ezra Levin, Co-Founder of Indivisible, came to talk to the Indivisible Mass Coalition – our statewide organization. The key take away: When making “an ask” of your elected official, make sure it is SPECIFIC, has a DEADLINE, and is MEASURABLE. We will be pressing our Governor, Legislature, and Attorney General to take action to protect us, and our neighbors from authoritarianism.

Read Indivisible’s specific guidance for Blue States
and Take Action

Slide Show from IMC Presentation

Full Indivisible Guide

Resistance Timeline

Resistance leader Robert Hubbell posted the following in his Substack. It provides an excellent and useful guide to of what the next four years under Trump is likely to look like.

To avoid exhaustion in the face of four more years of Trump, we should be thinking about resisting Trump in a series of discrete, shorter time periods. Thinking about our resistance in “phases” can help us be more strategic and relieve artificial pressure from our shoulders.

Between today and the Inauguration (January 20, 2025), Joe Biden is still president and can take steps to appoint judges and implement policies in a way that will delay or defeat efforts to undo Biden’s accomplishments.

After the Inauguration, Trump and his enablers will face the daunting task of embedding themselves in a massive federal government while they undertake their promised deportation of 10 million immigrants. That period will last eighteen months and will be a daily challenge. But then, the 2026 midterms will get underway. Trump’s congressional supporters will be concerned about re-election—a concern that may cause them to re-think their loyalty to Trump. Our leverage and messaging opportunities will increase.

In the last two years of his presidency, Trump will be a lame duck. The internal GOP struggle to replace Trump will be in full swing and Trump will be fighting with his party as much as he will be fighting with Democrats.

The point: While we cannot relent, the period of maximal effort will be the next twenty months (Dec and January, plus eighteen months before the 2026 midterms). What happens after that depends on whether Democrats retake the House in 2026.

So, rather than thinking about Trump’s tenure as a four-year unbroken battle, break up the periods of resistance into smaller periods. Doing so is realistic, smart, and healthy. We are in this battle for the long term. We can’t burn ourselves out with outrage and freneticism. We have a job to do. Let’s do it in a measured but passionate way. That will increase our chances for success.

Fight Back Now! Congressional Contact

Now is a good time to delve into Congressional contact—our most powerful tool for influencing the work of Congress.

Is Congressional contact really effective?

You might be surprised to know just how much of a difference making a phone call or writing an email can be. Take the example of HR 9495 in the last session of Congress. In a first House vote, a stunning 52 Democrats voted yes in support of the bill, which would have given the Treasury Secretary the authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits. For the second House vote (a simple majority vote), only 15 Democrats voted yes. The difference? Many Democratic representatives switched their Yea votes to Nay in response to constituent pushback against the bill. Contacting our Congressional members is one of our most powerful tools for influencing legislation.

Does your congressperson really pay attention when you contact them?

Yes they do! Your opinions are valuable to them and are treated with care. Contacts from constituents are first received and catalogued by congressional staffers—even those messages left on answering machines. Calls also may be answered live by staffers who may engage you in discussion. Your message content is then relayed to your lawmaker to help guide them in setting legislative priorities and agendas. Congressional offices note that calls are more effective than writing because calls are faster to arrive and log in. Emails or letters may arrive too late to influence votes or other actions.

Why is calling or writing so powerfully important?

1. Re-election: Calls to your House Reps or Senators effectively signal how likely you might be to vote for them in the next election. So of course, they’re all ears! Support or criticism is equally important, they’re both useful feedback.

2. Numbers matter: High numbers of calls build pressure and urgency for upcoming votes. You can also be your lawmaker’s ally on issues you both agree on. Being able to cite large numbers of calls or emails on a given issue helps your congressperson defend their position on it.

3. Continual participation in the electoral process: Constituents can help shape issues as they develop into legislation. In non-election years, you may not have an opportunity to vote on items that are really important to you, but you can still influence current votes being taken in Congress. Active constituency ideally should be year-round.

Congressional contact is a quick,easy, and important form of activism.

Even your 1-minute phone call has a positive impact, and it’s simple to do. Assistance is provided by the nonprofit 5calls (https://5calls.org/), who makes this an easy and manageable task. In addition, organizers’ requests for you to contact Congress on a subject typically include clear instructions and a sample script that you can copy directly or personalize as you wish. And if you feel inspired by a cause or issue, definitely consider contacting your congressperson independently with your own message. Your views may end up directly influencing legislation!

Here’s how to find your Congressional Members:

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

___

A November 2024 Synopsis: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

Early fundraising allowed our candidates to call out opponents’ extremist positions, first impressions that Republicans couldn’t shake even by outspending us in the final weeks. We held our ground in the House, flipping 4 seats while the opposition flipped 5. Democrats won two-thirds of the closest House races, and Republicans won control by only 7,309 votes. Alabama, home to the Confederacy’s first capital, elected two Black members to Congress for the first time ever.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham (left), and incoming U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile (right), will be the first Black U.S. House representatives from Alabama to serve simultaneously. (Left: Courtesy Terri Sewell for Congress; Right: Mike Kittrell for Alabama Reflector)

We knew maintaining a majority in the Senate would be a battle, and we aimed to minimize losses. We successfully held onto crucial seats in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan, narrowly losing Pennsylvania in overtime (aka automatic recount.) In each of these states, our Senate candidates outperformed the top of the ticket. While historically, Senate toss-up races have broken disproportionately for one party or the other, they split evenly this year.

Voters supported abortion rights in 7 states, expanding access in already legal states and lifting bans in two others. MAGA legislatures don’t always respect the voices of their constituents, but the voters did speak, and the issue did help our down-ballot candidates.

While the country shifted 7 points to the right, the states we focused on shifted only 3 points on average. Our investments – every dollar, every postcard, text, cured ballot, door-knock, and phone call – made a tangible difference. Losing ground never feels good, but we’ll be grateful for each of the 4 points we refused to cede as we head into 2026.

The Bad:

While Democratic Senate candidates in the deeply conservative states of Ohio and Montana outperformed Harris, we did lose the seats and thus majority control. We also lost the Independent Senate seat in West Virginia, a race we never realistically expected to win. We couldn’t rely on Manchin’s vote anyway, but he did caucus with Democrats, which counted when tallying the majority for leadership.

The Ugly:

Trump, Vance, and a MAGA trifecta; nuff said.

The reason we engage in politics is to influence policy. The policies of the incoming administration are vile, violent, and destructive, and they will undoubtedly cause widespread harm – particularly to the most vulnerable among us. We will surely see a blatant disregard for the rule of law and further erosion of democratic principles. This will unfold against a backdrop of chaos, division, and hatred.

Roll Credits:

We are the bonus cast of characters. [Cue theme song] The experience and connections we’ve gained since the first Trump administration put us in a position of strength. We plan to protect targeted people, defend our democracy, disrupt and disobey authoritarian flexes, and continue to build our power. It will require hard work and sacrifice, but we are equal to the challenge. We are prepared. We are determined. We understand our roles.

Official AP Results

The Shape of Resistance in 2025

In our Worth Fighting For Community Meetings, we have talked about the types of resistance that will be necessary in the new regime. It’s important to note that every person will not have to do every action. Let’s look at these four broad goals:

Protect People We are going to need to advocate to protect people directly targeted by these policies who are at the spear-tip of these policies. Trans people. Folks choosing abortions. Immigrants and beyond. This may look like pushing your state or local government to adopt protective policies, or – if your local government is hostile – organizing to stop them from taking additional harmful action. It includes open and underground organizing for health care, safety in schools, and safe homes.

Defend Democracy, Civic Institutions, and Electoral Competition We will also need to focus on defending civic institutions. We know Trump will go after our civic institutions, from attacking the civil service and weaponizing government agencies to do his bidding to undermining the ability to hold competitive elections. We’ll need to model a culture of dissent and support for those resisting and trying to uphold their missions on the inside of government. We’ll need to organize to mount overwhelming public pushback on efforts to undermine the key constitutional and legal rules that uphold our democracy. And we’ll need to push actors with power in American society – from our own state governments to corporations to faith communities – to hold those red lines.

Elections – You may hear Trump and the MAGA movement try to squash hope that future elections will matter. That’s part of the fascist playbook. That’s why it’s important to be clear: we will have elections in the future, and – if we protect our institutions and build our own power – we can and will win them.

Disrupt and Disobey This goes beyond protesting for better policies into the territory of people intervening to stop bad policies or showing resistance. Some of that will be fierce and in your face, but others will be quiet strikes and work slowdowns. In other authoritarian regimes, there are two ways to remove dictators: vote them out, or mass nonviolent noncooperation by the people to force them. This wing is the part that would help design that second strategy.

Build Our Power We have to build our own political power to insist on something better. This means organizing locally to transform power in your own community. It means fighting for better policies, wherever you are. It means investing in new leaders who can go on offense against MAGA. We can’t just be reacting. Some of us are going to have to focus on a new path forward.

These roles are not set in stone or all-encompassing. They speak to different tactics that might be taken at different times in our resistance.