The first year of the second Trump administration was defined by horrifying authoritarian abuses from an unpopular regime that were met again and again by courageous resistance from everyday Americans…and cowardice or complicity from elites of every stripe. Despite genuine efforts from a handful of Democrats in congress, their ability to advance real, leave-it-all-on-the-field opposition strategy was repeatedly upended by the feckless leadership of Senate Democrats — and none were more feckless than Leader Chuck Schumer.

Senator Schumer isn’t responsible for all of the Democrats’ problems, but in 2025 he became emblematic of the party’s failed status quo: a poor communicator who is out-of-touch with his own base and unwilling to fight tooth and nail against authoritarianism. We saw it when he folded against Republicans in the funding fight in Spring, and again when he lost control of his caucus during the shutdown in Fall. That record of failure is why Indivisibles called for his removal as minority leader last year, and it’s why we’ve since made new leadership a core priority in our largest ever primary program this year.

Last month, we asked voters in two key Senate race states their opinions on Senator Schumer and his leadership, and the results show that replacing him isn’t just a necessary step for a 2027 opposition agenda — it’s also the smart call for candidates running in elections this year. By clear margins, Michigan and Minnesota voters support primary candidates who publicly declare their intention to vote for new leadership in the Senate and vote Chuck Schumer out as leader.

Chuck Schumer is the Most Unpopular Politician in America

Last month, Indivisible and YouGov asked voters in Minnesota and Michigan their opinions on Democratic leadership. The results paint a clear picture: Chuck Schumer is one of the most staggeringly unpopular politicians in America.

Even though the Trump administration is repeatedly reaching new lows in approval polling, Chuck Schumer is in a league of his own. In Minnesota, Senator Schumer is underwater by 42 points. By comparison, Mike Johnson was down only 18 points, with Donald Trump and Hakeem Jeffries close behind. Similarly, in Michigan, Senator Schumer is underwater by an incredible 45-point margin! No other national political figure comes close.

Minnesota is the frontline in the fight against the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda, and Michigan is an absolute must-win for Democrats in the Senate this year. In both states, Schumer’s leadership is a toxic asset, and those of us working to win on the ground know it. Voters don’t want to entrust the fate of a Democratic majority to a politician they can’t stand. And yes — voters do care who the Democratic leader will be.

Voters are Looking for Candidates Who Will Demand New Leadership

Support for Senator Schumer as caucus leader has been lagging over the past several months, particularly since his failed leadership during the 2025 government shutdown. But that dissatisfaction isn’t just lightly-held opinion; it’s motivating voter behavior.

When polled, Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in both states indicated that they would be more likely to support a candidate who opposes Schumer as caucus leader than one who supports him, in Michigan by a 22-point margin and Minnesota by 25 points. Importantly, this preference wasn’t just about future behavior for winning candidates; majorities in both states (56% and 57%) indicated that a candidate’s position on Schumer was important to them in determining their vote now. In Michigan especially, where we can expect a competitive general election race to be determined in the margins, candidates cannot ignore the political benefit of coming out strongly against Schumer as leader.

More immediately, this question is helping to shape how voters are assessing the Democratic primary field. In Michigan and Minnesota, a majority of Democrats polled (55% and 54% respectively) said that they were more likely to support a candidate who would vote for someone other than Schumer. Both states are in the midst of highly competitive Senate primary elections, and candidates looking to break away from the field would be wise to publicly and clearly announce their intention to drop Schumer.

Winning Campaigns Run Against the Status Quo

The results of this polling tells a clear story: voters oppose the Trump administration and its enablers, but remain deeply unhappy with the Democratic leadership of Chuck Schumer. His level of unpopularity is influencing the way voters see the party and its candidates, and we can’t accept that as necessary baggage. Winning campaigns in 2026 will listen to voters who are demanding better, stronger, more ferocious leadership and run against the Schumer status quo.

If we’re going to win the fight against fascism, we need a real opposition party with real leaders who are up to the challenge. Replacing Senator Schumer as Democratic leader in the Senate is a necessary step to build that opposition party: one led by fighters — not folders — in the face of Trump’s authoritarian agenda. Join us in the fight for a party that will actually fight for us: https://www.indivisible2026.org/

This memorandum reports on the findings of two polls. One, a survey based on 803 interviews conducted by YouGov on the internet of registered voters in Michigan. The sampling process for this survey involved sampling a universe of representative registered voters, capturing responses on key demographic variables to ensure a representative sample. The margin of error is approximately 4.5%. Two, a survey based on 600 interviews conducted by YouGov on the internet of registered voters in Minnesota. The sampling process for this survey involved sampling a universe of representative registered voters, capturing responses on key demographic variables to ensure a representative sample. The margin of error is approximately 5.2%.

Paid for by Indivisible Action. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day arrives this year amid a deliberate effort to rewrite American history and a wholesale assault on civil rights in America.

It has been one year since Donald Trump was inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It felt cruel and grotesque that a man who represents so much of what Dr. King stood against could rise to power on a day meant to honor the struggle for racial justice and democracy.

Over the last year, we have seen a devastating, sustained attack on nearly every facet of the civil rights architecture in America. We have seen the gutting of civil rights enforcement; high-profile purges of Black federal employees and a drive to functionally resegregate the federal workforce; the rewriting of history in official documents and even in Smithsonian museums; and vicious attacks on Black refugees from Haiti, Somalia, and other African countries.

As I write this email, we are awaiting a Supreme Court decision that could potentially gut the final remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act — part of an overarching campaign to suppress Black voters and Black political power across the country.

It is important to name what we are facing. This is a dedicated, organized campaign to eradicate civil rights, erase history, and enshrine white supremacy as a central governing principle. While the scale and speed of the onslaught are immense, the project itself is not new. Today’s MAGA movement is the modern heir to the racial authoritarian regime that has shaped American governance since the nation’s founding.

When we look for inspiration and lessons, we often turn to struggles for democracy abroad. But the truth is that the United States has been engaged in an unfinished fight for democracy for most of its history. In a very real sense, this country did not begin to function as a democracy until civil rights organizers created the conditions for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

That is why the first, and most important, lessons for today’s fight for democracy come from the civil rights movement here at home. In fact, many of the international movements we cite for inspiration trace their own lineage back to Dr. King and the Birmingham Bus Boycott, the Freedom Riders, and the Selma march.

From successful economic campaigns like the Birmingham Bus Boycott, to the disciplined use of nonviolence, to the strategic leveraging of repression so that state violence backfired, to mass mobilization and noncooperation — so many of the tactics and strategies we talk about today were forged by leaders like Dr. King, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Diane Nash, and countless unnamed organizers who refused to accept injustice as inevitable.

The fight for racial justice in America has always been the fight for democracy in America; it’s crucial that we recognize them as inseparable. And as we honor Dr. King and his legacy, we do so not by sanitizing or reducing it, but by recognizing the fullness of his vision — for racial justice, economic justice, and ending war and imperialism.

So on this MLK Day, we ask you to do more than post a quote or take the day off.

We ask you to learn and reflect on the legacy of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, and to recommit to the fight for a just, inclusive, and equitable democracy.

We ask you to support organizations leading the fight today, such as our friends at the Transformative Justice Coalition and Black Voters Matter Fund, who are each organizing to protect and advance Black political power and voting rights in this crucial moment.

And we ask you to commit to sustained, collective action in the months and years ahead.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It bends because people organize, resist, and refuse to comply with injustice — again and again, even when the path is hard.

Honoring Dr. King today means continuing that work.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, tens of thousands of people across the country came together to say “We Ain’t Buying It!” to companies that have capitulated to Trump.

From Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, they participated in a shopping pause at Target, Home Depot, and Amazon, in protest of those retailers completely caving to the Trump administration and going along with their harmful, authoritarian policies.

• Target rolled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies
• Home Depot has done nothing to protect immigrants in their stores as ICE continues to conduct violent raids on their property.
• Amazon has funded the Trump administration through donations and significantly discounted government contracts (including for ICE), all in exchange for massive corporate tax breaks.

We Ain’t Buying It! was a chance to flex our power as consumers and leverage that power to protect our democracy during one of the peak shopping weekends of the year. These retailers think they profit when they go along with Trump, so we took coordinated action to make it clear that there is a price to pay for enabling authoritarianism.

And it wasn’t just Indivisible that took a stand. The campaign was the result of close partnerships with several organizations, including Black Voters Matter, Until Freedom, and 50501. And one of the key benefits of We Ain’t Buying It! was the opportunity to build stronger bonds within that coalition for this type of economic noncooperation, particularly with the Black-led organizations and primarily BIPOC movements that have long been leading the charge on holding these corporations accountable.

But the time-bound nature of the campaign also offered an opportunity to test the Indivisible movement’s ability to engage in economic noncooperation actions.

These actions are relatively new for Indivisible — traditionally our campaigns have focused on influencing elected officials, rather than corporate targets. We’re still learning where our strengths lie and where we may need to keep building, in order to inform future action. And we want to share our assessment with our movement, so that we can all be clear-eyed about what it will take for us to engage in economic noncooperation that results in meaningful impact.

Here’s What We Learned

Despite the buzz that We Ain’t Buying It! got in the press and on social media, actual participation remained a challenge. We estimate that a quarter of the Indivisible movement participated in the shopping pause over Thanksgiving weekend. That’s a substantive part of our movement, but not a majority. So even with the tens of thousands of people that participated, we fell short of the scale we need to truly have an impact on massive corporations, especially when those corporations don’t have other vulnerabilities that make them more movable (like Disney CEO Bob Iger’s personal reputation of sharing progressive values being at stake when Jimmy Kimmel’s show was cancelled).

Participation was high among the most engaged portion of our movement and they demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm over the campaign, but that didn’t translate into sustained momentum across the entire Indivisible network, and did not seem to spill over to the general population. In order to build up our numbers, we’re going to have to address some of the most pressing barriers to participation: strategic skepticism, practical constraints, and inconvenience.

Strategic Skepticism

In our post-campaign survey of the Indivisible movement, skepticism came up frequently. People are doubtful that economic noncooperation works, especially against massive corporations like Amazon and Target. And they have a point — these companies operate at such a massive scale that the number of people participating in an economic pressure campaign needs to be similarly massive.

So, we not only need to reach larger swaths of our movement and the general public, but we need to get them bought in on the strategy. Everyone needs to believe they are joining an effort that can actually be successful and that enough other people will participate that we can make a difference.

Practical Constraints

Our survey also revealed that there were practical constraints that prevented people from being able to participate in the campaign, including price and availability. At a time where costs have risen across the board, many people prioritized shopping where they could get the best price for the items they needed. And the items they needed were not always available elsewhere or there weren’t always viable alternatives for shopping.

These pain points were a deliberate effort on the part of massive corporations — they undercut small and local businesses wherever possible in order to put them out of business and become the only option for many shoppers. So many people are dependent on these major retailers because they intentionally rigged the system. And if we don’t help folks manage the realities of participation, we can’t expect them to engage in economic noncooperation long-term. And we can’t leave those folks behind if we want to win.

Inconvenience

Another common reason people said they did not participate was the inconvenience the shopping pause would cause. They prioritized the ease that comes with shopping at Amazon, Target, and Home Depot and were less willing to be put out by shopping elsewhere.

It’s going to be necessary to continue to foster resilience within our movement, so that people are willing to put up with some inconvenience in order to take meaningful action.

What’s Next?

It’s clear that if we want to engage in even bigger economic noncooperation campaigns, we’ve got to continue building our power. It doesn’t appear that right now, we would be able to do a longer-term action that included more targets that had the level of participation needed to take on and beat the biggest, most powerful Trump-enabling corporations.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t get there. And we’re incorporating everything that we’ve learned from We Ain’t Buying It! and other economic noncooperation campaigns into our plans for 2026. And that almost certainly includes more economic noncooperation. Because we know it can work — it just requires us to bring more people along in solidarity with us and create a culture of defiance that millions of people want to be part of.

We’re continuing to build muscle here. It’s likely that we’ll do a number of different economic noncooperation actions next year, growing our movement so that when we take action, it’s a flex of strength that these massive corporations and the Trump administration can’t ignore.

Since his election in 2016, Indivisible has been dedicated to the defeat of Donald Trump and his authoritarian political project. Winning this fight is existential for our country and our communities, and the struggle in 2025 is as stark as it has ever been. Donald Trump rules as a wannabe king, dismantling our democracy with a league of sycophantic enablers at his side. Empowered by techno-fascists, corrupt self-dealing billionaires and corporate cowards, this regime is killing the American experiment with a death by a thousand cuts.

• We have secret police forces and federal agencies terrorizing our cities and kidnapping our neighbors.
• Working families are being priced out of their communities and we’re staring down the barrel of a catastrophic recession.
• Our First Amendment rights are under a daily assault from a weaponized FCC and DOJ.
• Elections are being undermined through gerrymandering schemes and ballot restrictions.
• Trump, his family, and his enablers are openly extorting others and accepting bribes, stealing money from American taxpayers and allowing corruption to take root throughout our government.
• And both Congress and the Supreme Court have surrendered their duty to act as a check on Trump’s crimes.

The stakes for our country and our communities could not be higher — and we need a real opposition party if we have any hope to fight back and win.

Even in spite of these authoritarian maneuvers by the Trump Republican Party, we know today that there will be elections in 2026 — but at Indivisible, we are also clear-eyed that this regime is gearing up to subvert the results of the midterms. They know that their agenda is historically unpopular, and they’re terrified of the American electorate. They’ve tried to overturn the vote before through denialism and a literal coup attempt, and all of us in the pro-democracy movement must understand this regime’s willingness to illegally and violently cling to power.

We’re not the first country to experience this kind of democratic backsliding, and we’ve got lessons learned from other nations that have faced a similar threat. A common inflection point for democracies that decline into authoritarianism is a successful attempt at a stolen election. A deciding factor for whether an attempt is possible is whether the opposition party is strong, unified, and forceful in response.

The Democratic Party of 2024 and 2025 has not been the beacon of the strength, unity, or forcefulness we need. Instead, it’s fractured. Some Democrats — like Senators Murphy and Van Hollen and Representatives Frost and AOC understand what time it is and act with the level of urgency and ferocity the moment requires. But far too many Democrats have been operating in this era with a politics-as-usual approach, upholding the very status quo that allowed fascism to flourish.

Make no mistake — the Democratic Party is not our enemy. But we also can’t allow it to be an obstacle. It must be the vehicle by which we defeat the fascists in elections and build a framework to move beyond this period of crisis. But despite the electoral wins this year and historic actions by the grassroots base, the division between fighters and folders has caused Democrats to be seen as directionless, with feckless leadership that has led to historic unpopularity. This is not a Democratic Party equipped to be the unified opposition movement we need. Our strongest champions are sidelined or dismissed altogether, while leadership struggles to keep pace with the fascists.

The truth is, we don’t have time to deal with weak leadership. The defenders of democracy in America can’t fight a two-front war against fascists and the capitulators. We need a unified pro-democracy movement, and we need the Democratic Party to be the leading edge of it. Because we know that the one fight that matters most right now is the fight against the fascists. It is existential, and it is unavoidable. We cannot lose, and we cannot afford to have our weakest players in the starting lineup. This debate within the Democratic Party isn’t an ideological one, it’s a practical one: rather than left vs. center, we are asking simply who has what it takes to fight the regime and win?

What we’re hearing from Indivisible leaders:

Indivisible’s leadership is not based in Washington, D.C. — it is distributed across the country, held by thousands of local leaders in every state and district in America. These folks have been on the front lines of the fight against authoritarianism in their own communities, building historic protests, organizing against ICE, fueling electoral wins, and innovating new ways to hold the line against the regime. They are the leaders of the Indivisible movement, and we at the Indivisible national team look to them to understand where we should be focusing our energy to build a stronger pro-democracy movement. So, we spent the last year listening to what they had to say about the Democratic Party — where its problems are and how to address them. And the answer was clear: we need to use primaries as a way to build a stronger party of fighters for the era we live in.

Here’s what we’ve learned from our most recent survey:

• 93% of Indivisibles think that primaries are an important method of reshaping the Democratic Party
• A supermajority of Indivisibles believe that their group will be involved in their local Democratic primary

The eagerness to engage in Democratic primaries is particularly notable, as roughly the same percentage of Indivisibles indicated that their group hadn’t been previously involved in primaries (68%) as those who said that they expect their group to be involved this year (64%).

These are some of the most recent and clear indicators that this movement is ready to lean in on primaries in 2026, but the aggregate numbers don’t tell the whole story. Indivisible respondents also told us what they think defines a fighter Democrat vs. a status quo Democrat. These are the four characteristics that stood out:

1. Fighter posture & willingness to confront

• Treats politics as a real fight, not a technocratic negotiation.
• Picks visible fights with MAGA and with do-nothing Dem habits.
• Names villains clearly, doesn’t duck tough issues to keep the peace.
• Skeptical of “bipartisanship” and “compromise” when it means selling out their own side.

2. What side they’re on: people-power vs corporate/AIPAC/establishment

• Clean or at least non-captured money: no AIPAC, no corporate PACs, no billionaire leash.
• Center of gravity is working people, unions, local communities, grassroots coalitions, not DC insiders.
• Willing to challenge their own party leadership and local machine if those are blocking what constituents want.

3. A bold agenda, free from corporate capture and corrupt influence

• Fighters are the ones pushing structural, progressive changes, not nibbling around the edges.
• While a given fighter candidate may not hold all these positions, specific issues that appear repeatedly and convey the level of boldness people are hungry for include:
   — Expand the Supreme Court
   — Medicare for All / universal health care
   — Green New Deal / serious climate action
   — Housing affordability, student debt, wealth taxes
   — Labor rights / unions
   — Gaza / ceasefire / opposing genocide and AIPAC line
   — Immigration reform and anti-ICE stances

4. New and principled leadership (generational + moral courage vs careerism)

• Not just “younger,” but less captured by the old way of doing things — not waiting their turn, not deferential to machine politics.
• Values > career safety; will risk their seat, seniority, committee favor for the right fight.
• Seen as people who will speak clearly, take risks, and galvanize new voters, including younger folks.

As part of our listening, we’ve been able to identify some early contests where Indivisibles are actualizing these priorities. In Hawaii, we have a clear anti-Ed Case movement gathering steam, looking to unseat the conservative Democratic incumbent who has voted time and time again to empower the Trump regime. In New York, we’re seeing growing energy in the effort to take on Democrats who are too friendly with the funders of fascism and too sympathetic to Trump-style immigration cruelty. And in Minnesota, Indivisibles are unwilling to let Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand hand-pick their senator, instead looking to evaluate the candidates and assess whether Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan will be a stronger representative for the state.

Indivisibles across the country are ready to jump into this fight, but this movement is not a monolith. Many Indivisible leaders are still considering what their position in these races will be, and want time to assess the candidates and the role of their groups. Some Indivisible groups will endorse, others won’t. Endorsements aren’t the only way to wield power in elections, and it’s not the only way Indivisibles will show up to make the Democratic Party the strong opposition party we need it to be. But it’s clear endorsements in primaries are a core component of how Indivisible will be showing up in 2026.

Our strategy for the 2026 primaries:

Indivisible will be running our largest primary program in history in 2026. Throughout the year, it’s become clear that the Indivisible base is fed up with weak and unstrategic leadership, but remains deeply invested in a winning Democratic Party. As a network of activists and organizers, we have a responsibility to use our political power to effect the change we demand. And the ingredients we need for a transformational primary period are in front of us: dozens of retirements and dozens of challenges to incumbent members, a base that is enraged by the failures of current leadership, and a clarity of purpose to — above all else — defeat Republicans at every level to save our country.

Based on what we heard from Indivisible leaders, our goals are simple: nominate real fighters, secure stronger leadership, and demonstrate that the Democratic majorities of 2027 will not be held back by the 2025 status quo. While Indivisible groups across the country will be evaluating and endorsing candidates at every level of government, our national program will be focused on a handful of high-priority congressional races where we can strike a blow against the status quo, nominate a real fighter, and then win in the general election.

For national endorsements, we’ll be looking for Democratic congressional candidates who are clearly part of the fight-back faction of the party. This means:

1. Refusing to take contributions from Fascism Funders — the technofascists of Silicon Valley, billionaire donors helping to enrich Trump and his cronies, cryptocurrency scammers, and AIPAC.
2. Using the power of a congressional majority to investigate and prosecute the abuses and corruption of the Trump regime.
3. And for Senate candidates, a commitment to vote against Chuck Schumer as majority leader.

These aren’t the only criteria that matter, but these standards are central to the identity of a fight-back Democrat, and will be at the center of Indivisible candidate evaluations. This isn’t an ideological purity test. It’s about building a clear dividing line between the status quo and the future of the party — a future where Democrats don’t empower fascists and their enablers, but fight them at every turn.

How will we do it? As always, this primary program will be built and executed in close partnership with groups on the ground. Indivisible’s national program will always be in lockstep with the groups and members in the states and districts where we want to have an impact in a primary contest. We won’t get out ahead of the actual grassroots leaders of this movement. But, we will be proactive, with two approaches:

• In deep blue states and districts, we will be looking for opportunities to support challenges against failed incumbents
• In open contests in both Democratic strongholds and the electoral frontline, we will be looking to support strong fighter candidates who can defeat status quo Dems for the nomination.

Where we find these opportunities, we’ll work with local Indivisibles to assess the candidates and move towards a strong collective endorsement for the right one. We won’t be parachuting into any districts without close consultation with local groups and a deep consideration of the electoral landscape. And while we may be frustrated with some squishy Democrats in frontline seats, we aren’t in this to endanger a potential Democratic majority by challenging viable incumbents in tough districts. And we aren’t just looking for any race where there’s a younger or more progressive challenger on the ballot — this primary effort is about winning the bigger battle against authoritarianism, not scoring ideological or demographic points.

We will always support the ultimate winner of the primary. We’ll work our asses off to support our candidates, but we know the Democratic nominee will always be a better option than a Republican — and we don’t believe in spoilers. There may be some general election independents we’ll look at in the future, but never at the risk of a Republican win.

What’s next:

As of today, Indivisible’s 2026 primary program is live. That means we’ll begin candidate evaluations immediately and continue engaging with and listening to local grassroots groups across the country about the races they’re prioritizing. Throughout December and early next year, we will be hosting conversations and candidate reviews with Indivisibles in target races, with a goal of being able to announce endorsements in early 2026. As in previous years, endorsements will require a supermajority of support from local Indivisible members.

Later this month, we will roll out our updated grassroots endorsements guide to help local leaders and organizers flex their own political muscle by declaring support for candidates in their upcoming primaries. This guide is for anyone who wants to be part of the process of influencing who we have as nominees next year, but the best way to use it is by either joining or starting an Indivisible group so you can be part of this movement to build the fight-back faction together. We’ll have more soon on candidates and races to watch, endorsement announcements, and opportunities to connect with voters directly.

This is our opportunity to course correct in the opposition party — to elevate fighters, move beyond the baggage of the status quo, and create the conditions for change. Primaries are hard but healthy, and this year we have the opportunity to make them truly transformative. Indivisibles across the country have told us they won’t be on the sidelines this year. Neither will we.

Remember the night Trump’s first reconciliation bill failed and we saved the Affordable Care Act?

I do. It was July 28, 2017.

After months of nonstop calls, packed town halls, and rallies in blistering Arizona heat, every sign pointed to defeat. Republicans appeared to have the votes to kill Obamacare, and we had our “we lost” email written, proofed, and ready to send. But we should have known better.

Because in those months, weeks, and days leading up to that vote, Indivisibles never stopped fighting.

Activists like you showed up at Susan Collins’ Fourth of July parades with signs and bullhorns. You stood outside John McCain’s Phoenix office in 100-degree heat. You flooded the Senate with calls. And at 1:29am that July morning, McCain gave the most famous thumbs-down in Senate history — joining Collins and Murkowski to kill Trumpcare for good.

That wasn’t luck. That was power — your power. We fought until the gavel fell, and we changed the course of history.

So, why am I telling you this story?

Simple.

Moments ago, almost 8 years to the day after we killed Trumpcare, the Senate passed Trump’s Medicaid-slashing, billionaire-enriching, big ugly bill. Republicans are celebrating, and we understand if you’re feeling angry and deflated. Lord knows, we’re angry.

But this fight isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

You’ve already moved the needle. You made Medicaid the defining issue of the debate. Senator Thom Tillis broke with Trump on national TV, called out the cruelty of this bill, and announced he wouldn’t seek re-election rather than betray his state’s Medicaid recipients. That didn’t happen in a vacuum — it happened because North Carolinians showed up, called in, rallied at Hands Off events, and refused to let him look away.

The bill now heads back to the House, where Republicans can only afford to lose three votes. It barely squeaked by with a single-vote margin the first time, and it’s only gotten more divisive since:

The so-called deficit hawks are fuming about the $3 trillion this adds to the debt.

Vulnerable “moderates” understand that ripping health insurance away from 17 million people and kicking 11.8 million more off SNAP in order to shovel $4.5 trillion to the ultra-rich might not be a winning message back home.

Anyone who tells you this is a done deal doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Is it an uphill battle? Yes. But so was 2017.

So no matter where you live or who your Member of Congress is, here’s what you can do right now:

If You Live in a Republican House Target District

(Folks in AZ-01, AZ-06, CA-22, CA-40, CO-03, CO-05, CO-08, MI-02, MI-05, MI-07, MI-09, NE-02, NJ-02, NJ-07, NV-02, NY-01, NY-02, NY-11, NY-17, OH-14, PA-01, PA-07, PA-08, PA-09, VA-01, VA-02)

Get a group of friends and neighbors together and plan a District Office Visit for as soon as possible. There’s no getting around it: in-person action is more impactful than phone calls and emails. That means it’s time to show up on your home turf and tell your Republican representative to vote no. Here’s a toolkit to get started and a Mobilize link to register your event so others can find it and attend with you! The sooner the better — and don’t overthink it!

Flood the phones. Tell your representative that a vote for this bill is a vote to destroy lives — and you’ll remember it. Once you make the call (no, but really, you need to make the call because they’re more impactful than emails), send an email to drive home the point.

Help spread the word about what’s in this bill using our social toolkit. When people know what’s in the bill, they overwhelmingly oppose it — but a lot of people still aren’t aware of the details. You can help change that.

Then, knock on 5 of your neighbors’ doors and ask them to call. When you sign up, we’ll send you the addresses for five like-minded neighbors near you, a sample script, and flyers to leave behind so they can take action to fight back against the Republican tax scam.

If You Live in Any Other Republican House District

Flood the phones. Tell your representative that a vote for this bill is a vote to destroy lives — and you’ll remember it. Then, send an email to drive home the point.

Fight back with friends. We’re stronger together, so encourage your friends and family to take action to stop the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Sign up and get access to Empower, an app that has everything you need to text your circle about the Republican tax scam: ready-to-use scripts and messages with links they can use to call their own Members of Congress.

Help spread the word about what’s in this bill using our social toolkit. When people know what’s in the bill, they overwhelmingly oppose it — but a lot of people still aren’t aware of the details. You can help change that.

Share this link. Five texts. One group chat. You never know who’s in a swing district until you ask.

If You Don’t Live in a Republican District

Call folks whose GOP representatives are flippable. If you can spare 1–2 hours for the fight, join a phonebank to call people in vulnerable Republican districts, sound the alarm about this bill, and patch them through to let their GOP representative have it. Anyone can join a phonebank; you just need a phone and a computer.

Fight back with friends. We’re stronger together, so encourage your friends and family to take action to stop the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Sign up and get access to Empower, an app that has everything you need to text your circle about the Republican tax scam: ready-to-use scripts and messages with links they can use to call their own Members of Congress.

Help spread the word about what’s in this bill using our social toolkit. When people know what’s in the bill, they overwhelmingly oppose it — but a lot of people still aren’t aware of the details. You can help change that.

Share this link. Think your friends in swing districts already know? Don’t risk it. Hit forward.

We already changed the trajectory of this fight in the Senate. We may have come up a vote short, but all the pressure we’ve built is now being felt by the House.

Will we win? I don’t know.

But this is what movements do. We rise when they expect us to fold. We organize through the setbacks. And we win the fights they say are impossible — because we refuse to give up.

You ready?

Let’s finish what we started.

P.S. This isn’t a fundraising ask — calls and door knocks and district office visits matter more to us than dollars. But if you’ve got cash itching for a fight, we’ll put it to good use: turbo-charging expanded House phonebanks to patch folks through to their Members of Congress, fueling door-knocks in key House districts, and plastering billboards in key states and districts that scream, “You voted to rip away our healthcare.” If you want to chip in, click here (and thank you in advance).

Over the last six weeks, we’ve gotten the occasional question about why Indivisible, together with our coalition of incredible partners, called for No Kings Day on June 14.

Why another protest? What is it going to accomplish? Shouldn’t we be [insert alternate tactic] instead?

These are good-faith questions, and they stem from very reasonable concerns. The speed, scope, and scale of the MAGA assault — on our rights, our neighbors, our democracy — is staggering. The stakes are enormous. There are days when nothing we’re doing feels sufficient to the magnitude of the horrors we face.

Protest is a tactic. And with any tactic, there’s a danger of tactical freeze, of it getting stale, of deploying it without a real strategy in mind. And it’s easy to look at any single protest and ask, “what did that even accomplish? What was the point?”

So I want to take a step back and talk about the role of a peaceful mass mobilization like No Kings in the context of our strategic analysis.

If you’ve been listening to us over the last few months, you’ve heard us talk about the idea of autocratic breakthrough — a period when a would-be dictator basically sprints to consolidate their power, crush the institutions and people who could push back, and create a chilling climate for everyone else.

For the would-be dictator, success depends on projecting power and creating an aura of inevitability. They need you to believe that Trump is the new normal, that the MAGA movement will be in power for the long haul, that the only rational move is to go along, keep your head down, and protect your own interests.

We’ve seen over the last six months what happens when this aura of inevitability goes unchallenged. Institutions — from state governments to businesses to civil society to higher education to media — start to fall in line, do what Trump tells them, and/or go silent.

Here’s the thing: The aura of inevitability is a lie. It’s all a lie. Power in American society doesn’t derive from the top down. Trump’s grasp is brittle, and he’s overreaching dramatically. He will only succeed if everyone agrees to believe the lie.

Or, as our friend Reverend Barber says: A king is only a king if we bow down.

Countering the aura of inevitability requires a hundred different tactics and strategies. It looks like making an example of Target for obeying in advance and getting rid of its DEI policies. It looks like protesting and toxifying Elon Musk until he bows out of government. It looks like students at Georgetown making a list of Big Law collaborators and organizing their peers to steer clear. It looks like federal workers refusing to obey illegal or unethical orders. It looks like building the muscles and the relationships for collective action.

In short, it requires a countless number of people in a countless number of places to do something that the Trump regime doesn’t want them to do, or to NOT do something the Trump regime wants them to do. That’s how we shake off the aura of inevitability and halt the autocratic breakthrough.

For that to happen, people need to feel like we’re part of something bigger. We need to understand that we’re part of a movement. We need to feel like we will win.

That’s where No Kings comes in. With 1,800 events nationwide, in every state, this will be the single largest protest of this Trump administration.

A single mobilization won’t turn this ship around. But it can do a few very important things:

Change the narrative. A massive show of popular opposition everywhere in the country can disrupt Trump’s effort to project strength. It shows that resistance is big, powerful, growing, and everywhere.

Bring in new people. A mobilization of this scale and scope reaches people who aren’t yet engaged, and — if done right — helps to draw them into a cycle of action and relationships on the ground.

Foster community. When you show up, you realize that not only are you not alone — you’re actually part of something enormous. And that helps to build the shared sense of identity we’ll need for the path ahead.

Spread courage. After Hands Off!, we heard from people in positions of power within institutions — law firms, universities (one big university, in fact), and elsewhere — who told us they were emboldened by the protests to push back on pressure from the Trump regime. As we often say, courage is contagious.

And No Kings comes at an absolutely crucial moment.

Trump and Stephen Miller’s vicious anti-immigrant crackdown has been escalating over the last few months. The scale of the cruelty and terror they’ve created is almost impossible to put into words. And they have been cynically, intentionally sending their masked, unaccountable ICE forces into blue cities and states, communities where no one wants them. They’ve been working overtime to manufacture chaos, so that they have a pretext to deploy military forces to crack down on dissent for all of us.

Trump’s birthday parade and his attack on LA are all part of the same agenda of fascist theatrics, divide and conquer politics, and the consolidation of power.

Trump wants to look strong. What he doesn’t understand is that true power comes from the people. And on June 14th, we’re going to prove it.

If you haven’t found your closest No Kings protest, please check out our map, register, and then help us get out the word by sharing with friends and family.

We are in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis.

That statement has been true nearly every day since January 20, as the administration has usurped the powers of Congress by illegally freezing funds, declared fake emergencies to grant itself more power, and skirted judicial rulings.

But Trump’s brazen defiance of a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a Salvadoran torture prison is truly a watershed moment for our teetering democracy.

To recap:

• The Trump administration has sent over 238 people (likely far more) to a torture prison in El Salvador without due process. Mounting reporting suggests many of these people have no gang affiliation at all, despite the administration’s hollow claims.
• One of those people was Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a man who had been granted protected status, prohibiting his deportation by the federal government. The Trump administration deported (kidnapped) him anyway and blamed it on an administrative error.
• On April 10, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
• In the days since, the administration has made it clear it does not intend to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling, ludicrously claiming that it does not have the power to bring him back.

Abrego Garcia’s legally protected status and the resulting court rulings have made his name a rallying cry. But there are many, many more like him who’ve been snatched up and sent to this foreign prison without due process, and who — by all accounts — were ripped away from their families with no real evidence of any wrongdoing.

And seemingly daily, the administration is grabbing legal permanent residents and visa-holders off the streets, obscuring their whereabouts to impede legal challenges, and deporting them merely for exercising their First Amendment-protected right to dissent.

To add to the urgency of this moment, Trump told El Salvador’s dictator this week that he should build new prisons, because the administration hopes to deport American citizens next.

With Trump openly defying a Supreme Court stacked with his own appointees, we’ll level with you: This crisis won’t be resolved through the courts. And it ain’t gonna be solved by adding our name to petitions. The only way forward is massive public pressure. We all have a role to play.

The first step is simple: Speak out. We need to help our networks understand that this isn’t some abstract threat that has nothing to do with them: If the administration can arrest dissenters, send protected migrants to foreign prisons without due process, and defy the courts, all of our rights are at risk.

Have these conversations in person. Post articles on social that refuse to soften the edges of this crisis or normalize Trump’s actions. Here’s one. Here’s another. And another.

The second step: Make your elected officials feel the heat. Every elected official took an oath to defend the Constitution. This is their moment to put up or shut up.

Democrats are in the minority, but not without power. Richard Blumenthal and Brian Schatz are delaying the confirmation of dozens of Trump nominees. Cory Booker used a marathon speech to take control of one of the most important commodities in politics: Public attention. And Chris Van Hollen is currently in El Salvador on a mission to protect his constituent and demand his return.

Republicans are less likely to speak out against the administration, but they will if they’re getting enough blowback on this (the kind of blowback we’re already seeing at town halls). We can’t let them off the hook here because we expect so little of them — we’ve got to make their phones ring off the hook.

Whether you’re represented by a Democrat or Republican in Congress, call them NOW and demand they speak out against Trump’s defiance of the Supreme Court, push for an end to these lawless abductions, and move to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home immediately.

If they’re not answering or their voicemail is full, you can send them an email using this tool (and then call back!).

Finally: We’re going to need popular resistance. We’ve known all along that stopping Trump’s authoritarian takeover is going to take more than calling our members of Congress. It’s going to take demonstrating to our neighbors, our communities, and to those who may even disagree with us on most things that what Trump is doing is not acceptable. It’s going to take mass popular resistance, bringing people together in community to demand change. It’s going to take getting into the streets to defend our democracy.

You did this on April 5 for the Hands Off! Day of Action. You’re doing this right now with protests and other events during the congressional recess (there’s still time to get plugged in — see the toolkit here, which now includes resources on Abrego Garcia’s case). And we’re going to do this again together on May 1 for the May Day National Day of Action. Big, public demonstrations of defiance are opportunities for us to lock arms, get loud, and fight back. Make a plan to participate now — and among the other chants in defense of our democracy, call for bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia home.

We’re continuing to work with partners on tactics that’ll draw attention to the injustice of these kidnappings and disappearances and put pressure on elected officials to do their damn jobs and uphold our Constitution. Expect more from us on this in the coming days, but please do not wait to take action. When far too many are choosing silence, we need everyone in this movement to raise our collective voice now.

Yesterday was a bad day for Elon Musk and Donald Trump and a good day for democracy. Even after Musk spent more than $20 MILLION to buy a seat on Wisconsin’s top court, Susan Crawford won — and the liberal majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is safe!

This isn’t just a loss for Trump, Musk, and their lapdog Brad Schimel; it’s a wholesale rejection of oligarchy. The people of this country don’t want their courts stacked with bought-and-paid-for judges who’ll do the bidding of Musk and his billionaire friends. The vote results convey that loud and clear.

And this isn’t just a victory for Susan Crawford and Wisconsin. It’s a HUGE win for all of America.

With this win, Wisconsin could finally get fair congressional maps — potentially creating enough competitive districts in that state alone to tip the House nationwide. And because Wisconsin’s so often a lab for cruel MAGA policies, women, workers, LGBTQ+ folks, and immigrant communities nationwide are safer with Susan Crawford on the bench.

So how did we overcome Trump’s minions and Musk’s millions? By organizing everyday people all across Wisconsin to show up and be heard.

We won because Indivisibles and grassroots organizers — from folks on the ground in every corner of Wisconsin, to virtual volunteers across the country — did the work. Here’s some of what our local chapters, allies, and Indivisibles nationwide (like you!) did together:

SENT OVER 14,000 POSTCARDS to Wisconsin voters and 25,800 LETTERS through our partnership with Vote Forward

KNOCKED ON 2,757 DOORS via our Neighbor2Neighbor program and many more through traditional canvasses to speak face-to-face with voters about the importance of the Supreme Court election

MADE 379,455 PHONE CALLS to help Wisconsin voters make a plan to vote for Susan Crawford

SENT 250,000+ TEXT MESSAGES to remind voters about the upcoming election

DONATED OVER 4,000 TIMES to fund the infrastructure and organizing needed to overcome Musk’s millions

Thank you so much for making this victory possible! It’s a huge win for democracy that will set the tone for even bigger wins to come, but we can’t let our foot off the gas for one second…

Yesterday was Wisconsin’s day to be heard. This Saturday, April 5, is for all of us. Because that’s when hundreds of thousands of Americans at over 1,000 protests will gather to tell Musk, Trump, and their enablers: HANDS OFF our democracy.

If you’re ready to make yourself heard and hand Musk another L, register to join your nearest HANDS OFF! event this Saturday — and let’s make this the biggest day of protests since Trump and Musk took office.

Last night, Susan Crawford’s win sent the message that the people will always be more powerful than an oligarch’s pocketbook. On Saturday, we’ll underline and bold that message.

We hope to see you there.

Today, Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to eliminate the Department of Education. Emphasis on “aims to.” Trump cannot unilaterally abolish a federal department created by Congress.

Let’s be clear about what this executive order will do: it instructs Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to facilitate the department’s closure while playing legal tricks to avoid a court making them stop. This approach indicates that the executive order is a preliminary step toward dismantling the department, setting the stage for further actions rather than causing an immediate shutdown.

Trump’s goal here is to weaken the department (and thus public education), starve it of resources, and scatter its programs to other agencies so that Congressional Republicans can claim the Department of Education is “functionally obsolete” and fire the kill shot with legislation abolishing the DOE. We saw this process begin two weeks ago, when the administration laid off half of the department’s staff.

So — even though this began with executive actions, it has to end with Congress. And that means we need to maximize pressure on Congress — in particular on Congressional Republicans — so they understand there will be an unimaginable political cost for this assault on students and teachers.

Past Republican efforts to abolish the department have failed, but this remains a long-term GOP goal, particularly under Project 2025. Lawsuits are already being filed against this order. While they make their way through the courts, we have to organize to save public education in America. Skip to the end for a list of ‘to-dos’ or read on for more info.

What would eliminating the Department of Education mean for students, teachers, and families?

Without the Department of Education, millions of students and families will face immediate consequences. Public schools will struggle to maintain quality instruction as federal funding disappears, leaving states to decide how — or if — they will replace those dollars. The most brutal hit will be on students from lower-income families, those with disabilities, and those attending already underfunded schools. Among the immediate consequences:

• A massive decrease in federal funding will balloon class sizes, lead to the loss of 180,000 teaching jobs, and increase racial disparities in education.
• Title IX enforcement will be gutted, rolling back protections against sexual harassment and assault in schools.
• Accommodations for students with disabilities will be left to state politicians, threatening these programs entirely (95% of students with disabilities attend public schools).
• Students and families who receive support to attend college could lose Pell Grants or federal student loans, leading to more students dropping out, fewer choices, and fewer options for families.
• Many of the programs Trump wants to eliminate include key civil rights protections and funding for disadvantaged students, which will disproportionately harm marginalized communities.

Ultimately, eliminating the DOE is intended to critically weaken the American public education system, one of the cornerstones of our democracy. Which brings us to…

Why are so many Republicans eager to eliminate the Department of Education?

The conservative obsession with eliminating the DOE is as old as the department itself and a central pillar of Project 2025. Opposition to the department is not monolithic — there’s a deeply racist strain that opposes the department’s civil rights protections and efforts to desegregate education; there’s a (related) Christian Nationalist strain that opposes secular education and longs to see funding directed to religious institutions. The Trump administration is staffed with extreme ideologues who’ve long professed these views and have spent decades seeding the ground for this move. This executive order aligns with the broader conservative strategy to dismantle federal oversight in favor of state control, allowing red states to defund public education with fewer guardrails.

But there’s another, glaringly obvious explanation that undergirds so many of this administration’s policies to date: Billionaires see a way to make more money.

Trump, Musk and their billionaire cronies want to slash funding for public schools so they can lower their own taxes and cash in by starting for-profit schools. Who will write the curricula for those schools? Why, other right-wing billionaires! Whether it’s slashing education funding or pushing the GOP tax scam, these billionaires are exploiting the “states’ rights” argument to justify policies that weaken public schools, harm families, and consolidate their own wealth and power — all while ignoring that many states depend on federal education funding to keep their schools running.

What you can do

1. Send an email right now and demand your Members of Congress oppose any legislation that helps Trump weaken or abolish the Department of Education. Republicans need the most pressure right now, but it’s also important for Democrats in Congress to know their constituents want them to fight.

• If you have a Republican senator or representative, send them a message now and let them know that we will hold them accountable for supporting Trump’s assault on our public schools.
• If you have a Democratic senator or representative, click here to send your message and demand that they fight back.

1. First thing tomorrow morning, call your Members of Congress and make sure they got your message. We need to light up the phone lines and ensure they can’t ignore the public outcry to protect our schools.

• If you have a Republican senator, click here to be connected automatically to their office and ask them who they’re standing with: Trump or students.
• Do you have a Republican representative? Call them and demand they pick a side.
• Got a Democratic senator? They need to hear from you as well — call them and urge them to take immediate action against Trump’s education cuts.
• How about a Democratic representative? Make your call and ask them to use every tool at their disposal to fight back.

#3) Make a lot of noise this week during recess. Every Member of Congress is home right now in their states and districts, and they need to hear how pissed their constituents are at Trump and Musk’s lawless attacks on programs — like public education — that we all depend on. Find an event coming up in your area and force them to publicly choose who they stand with: Trump and Musk, or the students, teachers, and families they’re supposed to represent.

No matter what we do, Trump’s executive order is going to hurt students, teachers, and our democracy. There’s no getting around that. But if we fight back — with lawsuits and with focused organizing — we can mitigate the harm as much as possible, beat back Trump’s assault on public education, and ensure the DOE outlasts this administration.

When Republicans first introduced their partisan funding bill to keep the government open — full of extreme cuts, attacks on basic rights, and provisions to give even more authority to Trump and Musk to continue dismantling the federal government — it was clear that the fight to stop it would require Democrats to operate with real unity.

Federal employee unions, litigators fighting Trump in court, outside advocates, House Democrats, many Democratic party insiders, and Indivisible were all in lockstep that passing this bill would be worse than a government shutdown. The GOP funding bill would give Trump and Musk carte blanche to continue their administrative coup, and Democrats voting for it would be complicit in all the actions to follow.

But Senate Democrats had the leverage to stop it: Advancing this bill required clearing a 60-vote threshold for “cloture,” meaning Republicans would need 7 or 8 Democrats to vote to allow their coup-enabling bill to advance. And after House Democrats showed their power with an almost-unanimous vote against the bill on Tuesday, we had momentum as the vote moved to the Senate.

However, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to cave. Instead of using a rare point of actual leverage, he announced his decision to surrender without a fight, voting for cloture and providing a pass for other Senate Democrats to fold. By the time of the vote on Friday afternoon, 10 Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to invoke cloture and allow the bill to sail through to final passage and Trump’s desk.

This was a massive betrayal of the Democratic party, of Indivisibles and activists organizing against this bill, and of our democracy. Because of Schumer’s failure, the bill included zero safeguards against Musk’s illegal and unconstitutional behavior. By refusing to hold the line, Senator Schumer went against the vast majority of his party to fully capitulate to Trump.

Indivisibles drove calls and organized events for weeks to try and stop this bill, and the outage from our network on Schumer’s surrender was immediate. Yesterday, we organized emergency calls with Indivisible group leaders across the country to decide how we should respond. After intense discussion, we took a vote on how to proceed, and the results were overwhelming:

• 82% of New York Indivisible group leaders voted to demand that Schumer resign as Minority Leader.
• 91% of Indivisible group leaders nationwide agreed.

The message was clear: If Chuck Schumer is unwilling to lead the opposition, he must make way for someone who will. Accordingly, Indivisible National issued an official statement calling for his resignation.

This is not a decision we take lightly. For years, we fought alongside Senator Schumer to push for progressive policies and hold the line against Republican extremism. But his capitulation on the Republican funding bill was not just a failure of strategy — it was a failure of leadership. And if he will not fight in this defining moment, then we must demand someone who will. Indivisibles deserve a Democratic party, and leadership of that party, who is committed to fighting as hard as we are.

A minority leader who is unwilling to fight back against fascism is a weakness our democracy cannot afford. We need to pressure every single Democratic senator to speak out and join us in calling for new leadership that is prepared to lead a unified opposition to Trump and Musk.

For folks with Democratic senators, here are two actions you can take right away:

1. Before Senate offices open tomorrow, use our form to send an email to your Democratic senator and ask them to call on Senator Schumer to step down as Minority Leader.
2. Then, tomorrow morning, use our click-to-call page to call your Democratic senator and urge them to call on Senator Schumer to step aside.

Whether you have a Republican or Democratic senator, you have the opportunity to hold them accountable right now while they’re home for recess. Most Democrats voted the right way and opposed the GOP funding bill, and we should have their backs while pushing them to keep up the fight. Find an upcoming recess event near you (or use our toolkit to plan your own) and demand that your senator must stand with working families instead of bowing to billionaires like Musk.

From planning town halls to protesting at Tesla dealerships to showing up to congressional offices, our movement is willing to put in the work to defend our democracy. We have no intention of surrendering to Trump, Musk, or congressional Republicans, and we will not back down until we secure leadership that is equally dedicated to this fight.