BY BTL STAFF
Do you want to do your part to beat back the Trump agenda? If so, that will require more than calls and petitions according to a group of former progressive congressional staffers who saw the Tea Party beat back President Obama's agenda.
In response, this collective has created "Indivisible: A Practical Guide" to share insider information and offer step-by-step instructions for individuals, groups and organizations looking to replicate the Tea Party's success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents. The guide is intended to be equally useful for stiffening Democratic spines and weakening pro-Trump Republican resolve.
"We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own members of Congress to reject President Obama's agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism – and they won. We believe that protecting our values and neighbors will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda – but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Barack Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump," the group's website reads.
These volunteers believe that the next four years depend on citizens across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda. They believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize citizens of the U.S. They hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief with useful tools to make Congress listen.
The guide, live on Google Doc, is intended as a work in progress, one that the group hopes to continue updating as the resistance to the Trump agenda takes shape. "We wrote this guide because we believe that the coming years will see an unprecedented movement of Americans rising up across the country to protect our values and our neighbors. Our goal is to provide practical understanding of how your members of Congress think, and how you can demonstrate to them the depth and power of the opposition to Donald Trump and Republican congressional overreach. This is not a panacea, nor is it intended to stand alone. We strongly urge you to marry the strategy in this guide with a broader commitment to creating a more just society, building local power, and addressing systemic injustice and racism," the group's website reads.
Anyone interested in building on the tactics outlined in the guide, email [email protected].
