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Indivisibles,

In these newsletters, we keep our eye on our North Star -- rebuilding the
Dem trifecta to codify abortion rights and pass democracy reform. While
staying focused on that, we cover the same three things every couple-ish
weeks -- what’s in the news, what we have to be proud of, and what we’re
discussing in the movement. These can be long…so I’m bowing to popular
demand and including a summary at the top this time:

The News: Trump and Republicans are scared as hell of the political impact
of their fight to ban abortions. They are going to lie and obfuscate, and
we have to break through that to win.

The Brag: In the face of a Civil War-era abortion ban, local Indivisible
groups are gathering signatures to get an abortion rights referendum on
the ballot, earning media hits to focus public attention on the
Republicans’ culpability, and organizing to turn the state blue. This is
good for Arizona and great for the country.

The Discussion: Leah and I are going to host an informal chat this
Wednesday at 4pm ET/1pm PT. Nothing fancy -- just time for the movement to
do some live Q&A as an extension of these newsletters. [ [link removed] ]Register here if
you want to join the chat (and it’d help us to know there’s interest!).

The News: The GOP is scrambling on abortion -- this is the story of this
election. 

Two weeks ago, Trump made an announcement on abortion that reveals very
little about his own position but a lot about the state of the race and
how very, very frightened the GOP is. It’s worth digging in, because
there’s a lot here that has implications for the next 6.5 months. 

Trump’s history of anti-choice extremism. Before we get to that “new”
position, let’s do a quick refresher on Trump’s position going back to
2011: 

* Trump in 2011: “[ [link removed] ]I am pro-life”.
* Trump [ [link removed] ]promised to appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe
* Trump said there should be “[ [link removed] ]some form of punishment” for those who
get abortions
* Trump [ [link removed] ]called on Congress to send him a national abortion ban to
sign
* Trump celebrated Roe being overturned and bragged, “[ [link removed] ]I was able to
kill Roe” 

There’s a lot about Trump that can be hard to nail down, but his record on
abortion rights is crystal clear: He wants to take those rights away.

Trump’s new big lie. But then came Trump’s announcement. He claimed he now
supported letting states, rather than the federal government, set abortion
policy.

Why the switch? Trump told us why. In his own damn statement announcing
this “new” position he explicitly said he had to make the statement for
political purposes. To quote the jackass, “You must follow your heart on
this issue, but remember, you must also win elections….” He effectively
said, “Hey sorry, I have to lie about this to win votes,” and then
proceeded to lie about it.

But as soon as he gets into office, we know what he’ll do because his
coalition has literally published the plan for what they’ll do if he wins.
He’ll sign a national abortion ban if Congress sends it to him, and he’ll
use the administrative power of the FDA, DOJ, and Department of Health and
Human Services to severely limit abortion rights unilaterally without
Congress -- even in blue states. We know this because all of this is
spelled out in [ [link removed] ]MAGA’s 900-page governing agenda ominously titled
“Project 2025.” 

Why the media’s failure to cover Trump’s lies matter. The immediate
reaction from the media was to take the telegraphed lie at face value. I
won’t link to the barrage of favorable articles praising Trump’s
“moderation.” Instead, I’ll link to [ [link removed] ]Rachel Maddow’s satisfyingly
thorough takedown of the media’s initial response to Trump’s
announcement. 

Trump’s announcement was a farce. He doesn’t have a new position. He’s
just lying. And large swathes of the media, at least initially, were
willing to just report that lie as reality. 

The problem goes beyond Trump. In Arizona, Kari Lake, an infamously
right-wing candidate who praised a total abortion ban in Arizona less than
2 years ago is now [ [link removed] ]trying to present herself as pro-choice. The
Christian Nationalist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson [ [link removed] ]plays dumb
when asked about a national abortion ban even though he is literally a
cosponsor of the “Life Begins At Conception Act” (along with most House
Republicans). 

This is a GOP-wide strategy. Their plan over the next 6.5 months is to lie
and obfuscate about abortion because they know if they state the positions
they actually hold and have publicly held for years, they’ll lose.

Our challenge is this: We have to cut through the bullshit. You and I both
know the Republicans are lying. But we’re not the target audience for
their lies. They want the disaffected and “double-hater” voters who
distrust both sides to go into the polling booth thinking, “the GOP isn’t
so bad on abortion, so I’m going to vote on other issues.” Our job over
the next 6.5 months is to bring the truth to these voters: The GOP is an
existential threat to our rights and freedoms. The contrast could not be
clearer: Donald Trump and the Republicans will take away your rights, and
Joe Biden and the Democrats will codify your rights.

It’s fascism or freedom on the ballot this November. Or as the posters
say, Roevember is coming.

The Brag: We’re on the frontlines of defeating MAGA’s attacks on our rights.

The fight over abortion rights just got supercharged. The Arizona Supreme
Court, which is composed entirely of Republicans appointees,
[ [link removed] ]reinstated a Civil War-era abortion ban for the state a day after
Trump declared states should decide. This archaic, horrifying law dates
back to 1864 (literally pre-statehood), has no exceptions for rape or
incest, and criminalizes performing or helping someone obtain an abortion
unless necessary to save their life. 

This is among the most reactionary abortion bans in the country. It was
made possible by Trump killing Roe and Republicans in the state passing a
law that explicitly allowed the court to reinstate the 1864 ban.   

Since then, Democrats in the state legislature have tried to push forward
a repeal of the 1864 ban. Republicans -- who narrowly control both the
state House and Senate -- blocked efforts to repeal not once, not twice,
not three times, but TEN TIMES. 

The response to the Republicans on the Supreme Court and in the
legislature has been massive. Think of the Dobbs ruling in 2022 localized
just in Arizona. 

And Indivisible has been helping fuel that response in the state. In
Sedona, [ [link removed] ]Flagstaff, Prescott, [ [link removed] ]Scottdale, Peoria, [ [link removed] ]Tucson, and
Phoenix, Indivisible groups have been leading public events and getting
earned media across the state. As [ [link removed] ]Indivisible’s Mari Urbina told NPR
in Arizona, our sign-ups for volunteers to collect signatures surged 50%
in the state, and we’ve had people come in from 61 cities spread across
every congressional district in the state -- blue, purple, and red. 

We will win this fight, but only if we do the work. As organizers, yes, we
want Arizonans mad at Republicans for taking away their rights --
assigning blame is an important part of the political process. But we
don’t just want people to feel pissed off at the Republicans coming after
their rights -- we want them to see they can be an active part of fighting
back. The state legislature is flippable. The 1st and 6th congressional
districts are flippable too. Gallego can defeat Kari Lake to deliver us
the Senate. And we can win those 11 electoral college votes to deliver the
White House to Biden. We can make Republicans pay for their actions, and
then we can start to undo the damage they’ve done.

That’s the plan at least! If you know folks in Arizona who want to help on
the ground -- [ [link removed] ]please send them our way. And if you want to send some
grassroots dollars in to help make this plan happen on the ground,
[ [link removed] ]please support our Arizona PAC here. 

One note: I got a question in the newsletter asking what we do with money
we don’t spend. For Arizona, there’s not really such a thing --
practically every dollar we take into the Arizona PAC is going to be spent
on supporting this work in Arizona this year. We’re not saving for a rainy
day -- 2024 is that rainy day. Money for groups, paying for organizers,
helping events win local press, training volunteers to talk to voters and
collect signatures -- if you think this sounds good, well, that’s what
you’re buying when you throw in a few bucks.

[ [link removed] ]Support our activists in Arizona

The Discussion: How about we try talking in real life?

One of the highlights from writing these newsletters has been reading all
your replies. But one thing that frustrates me is I can’t directly respond
to a lot of questions that come in. In addition to having a problem
writing too much, I also enjoy talking too much, so I thought we’d try
something out this week. Wednesday at 4pm ET/1pm PT Leah and I will be
available for a Zoom chat ([ [link removed] ]register here to let us know there’s
interest). We’ll spend a minute giving an overview of what I covered here
(and any updates), but we’ll save the bulk of the time for taking
questions from you and others who join. Nothing fancy -- just a
conversation in the movement.

If there’s appetite for this, we’ll do more, so this isn’t your last
chance. But if you’re really bummed you can’t make this one (or if you
really want us to schedule one of these in the evening after we put Zeke
and Lila down instead of during the workday), [ [link removed] ]let us know here. This
is experimental -- we just want to do it if it’s helpful to folks.

Hope to see some of you on Wednesday. 

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin

Ezra Levin

[21]Indivisble Co-Executive Director

Pronouns: He/him

PS: Breaking news about our 1-year-old Lila: She got a tooth last week.
It’s the biggest thing going on in her life right now. As for 3.5-year-old
Zeke, we made the mistake of buying a printer, and now we mostly spend our
free time printing screenshots of the 50-foot crab monster Tamatoa from
Disney’s Moana.

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