Page 10
News
Street Roots • April 7-13, 2017
Indivisible
Anti-Trump organizers in
Portland are borrowing
tactics from an unlikely
source: The Tea Party
BY ELIZABETH BUELOW
STAFF WRITER
n a dark and drizzly Tuesday
afternoon in February, a group of 40
plus Portlanders huddled together in
the Doubletree Hotel near Lloyd Center to
strategize how to bring down the president
of the United States. They had buttons and
signs, hot coffee and pink hats.
Speaking in hushed and urgent tones,
they passed around detailed flyers with the
day’s agenda for their weekly meeting with
staffers from U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s office.
The flyers said: 1. Delay the Supreme Court
hearings for Trump’s nominee, and
2. Support a bi-partisan, transparent, public
investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia,
which includes the disclosure of his tax
returns. Once the program was settled and
talking points were established, the group
stop Trump. People don’t realize the power
they have as citizens - this guide helps us
realize it.”
And according to Wyden staffer Grace
Stratton - who came out to address the
crowd on Tuesday - it’s working. “We love
Indivisible; it’s nice that they always come
with a clear and united message. The
tre k k e d th e block over to W yden’s office,
senator responds to that.”
where additionaf activists’ gathered under
their multi-colored umbrellas awaiting the
appearance of one of Wyden’s staffers or,
better yet, the senator himself.
This is Indivisible Oregon, one of the
thousands of groups of activists that have
sprung up in recent months to resist the
presidency and agenda of Donald Trump.
The group has more than 6,200 Facebook
followers, and those that materialize at the
weekly meet-ups are predominantly women
and retirees, likely reflecting the time of day
(noon) of the meetings. In addition to
Indivisible Oregon, there are 5,000 other
verified Indivisible chapters across the
country, at least two in every congressional
district, including Alaska and Hawaii, all
united around one document - the group’s
own constitution - the Indivisible Guide.
At 26 easy-to-read pages, the guide has
been downloaded more than a million times
since it was uploaded as a Google document
in mid-December. Its popularity boils down
to one easy message: Just say no to Donald
J. Trump and his agenda, no matter what.
If that sounds oddly familiar, it’s because
this isn’t the first time that strategy has
been deployed. The guide was written by
former congressional staffers who witnessed
the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 and,
though in disagreement with their opinions,
came to admire the smart strategies
employed by the anti-Obama activists. The
Indivisible Guide is the gathering place of
these lessons and tactics, condensed down
to help citizens understand what works and
what doesn’t when it comes to their
members of Congress.
“The policy is so easy: resist everything,”
said Andrea Platt, a founding member of
Indivisible Oregon who lives in Portland.
“Progressives can unite. We can agree to
After Tuesday’s meeting, Stratton
followed up with Oregon Indivisible with an
emailed document (which was also issued as
a press release) regarding Wyden’s urging
Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah) to use his authority to allow
members of the committee to privately
review the president’s tax returns. She also
shared two memos on the Affordable Care
Act and Congressman Ryan Zinke’s
confirmation as Secretary of the Interior. A
statement on Indivisible from Wyden’s Press
Secretary Hank Stern compliments the
activists: “It’s clear from Indivisible
members’ enthusiastic turnout for Senator
Wyden’s town halls this year throughout our
state - and from their ongoing
conversations with his field staff - that
these Oregonians are smart and effective
advocates for participatory democracy.
Their impact is strongly felt from the power
of their voices and their determination to
speak out and push back against the regular
outrages emanating from Trump’s White
House.”
O
Origins
“The Trump agenda does not depend
on Trump. It depends on every individual
member of Congress signing off.
Constituents are reminding their members
that they work for the people,” said Gonzalo
Martinez de Vedia, a human rights advocate
and contributor to the original Indivisible
Guide. The guide was written between
Thanksgiving and Christmas - before
Trump had been sworn in - by a group of a
dozen or so individuals who spent the days
and weeks after the election commiserating
in bars and friends’ living rooms trying to
figure out the next step.
“We kind of looked around and realized
that we had a good number of folks who
were former congressional staffers, which
gave us unique experience,” said Martinez
de Vedia. So they got to work on a tool that
they knew would give people the
information to influence their members of
Congress. It was rough going at first.
“We learned Google docs has a limit to
the people who can view it at one time,”
Martinez de Vedia laughed. “And the first
draft had a lot of typos.”
When the number of people clicking to
view the document crashed the servers the
night it went live, the group fixed the typos,
converted it to a PDF, and threw together a
website, indivisibleguide.com. The website
functions as the hub for every Indivisible
group in the United States, with an
interactive map where it’s easy to find your
nearest group or to create one of your own.
Currently, 96 groups are registered within
20 miles of Portland, from the Mississippi-
Williams group to the Multnomah Village
People (MVP), and all the way out to Our
Indivisible Revolution in Sherwood.
The guide’s thesis statement is focused
on citizens acting locally in order to create
resistance: to make calls, show up at town
halls, and demand answers (in oftentimes
creative ways) from their members of
Congress. When the Tea Party enacted this
strategy in 2009, it led to devastating losses
to Democrats and the stable establishment
of the hard right Freedom Caucus in the
House of Representatives. According to
Martinez de Vedia, “We’re ready to say that
the Indivisible movement has gone way
beyond what the Tea Party could have
dreamed of, just by way of numbers alone.
We have a vocal majority, using the same
Tea Party tactics to get results.”
And the results are, seemingly, in. With
the massive defeat of Trump’s health care
bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA),
on March 24, the resistance can claim its
first decisive victory. Due to immense
pressure from citizens across the country,
Republicans in the House came up short on
See INDIVISIBLE, page 11
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y OF
IN D IV IS IB L E O R E G O N
Members o f
Indivisible Oregon
gather for a
demonstration
against President
Donald Trump
outside o f the
Jackson County
Courthouse in
Medford. The group
holds regular
Tuesday rallies at
the courthouse.