This week, Ezra revisits how we beat a MAGA reconciliation bill in 2017 -- and
lessons for beating the Republican Tax Scam today. Plus, we have several ways
you can help stop the cuts, a call to block Trump’s crypto corruption, and
more in our weekly updates.

Hey Indivisibles,

So far, Trump has operated mostly through unilateral executive orders, not
the Republican Congress. The deportation forces, the tariffs, the
dismantling of the Department of Education and other agencies -- all of
that has been Trump and his underlings in the White House, while
Congressional Republicans happily stood aside.

That’s about to change. Let’s talk about reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the main legislative maneuver used to pass bills in the
Senate with just 51 votes, instead of the 60 normally needed to overcome
the filibuster. It essentially lets the party in power push bills through
without bipartisan support. It’s how George W. Bush passed two rounds of
tax cuts for the rich in 2001 and 2003, how Trump passed his original tax
scam in 2017, and how Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act.

And it’s now how Trump plans to pass his legislative agenda. That agenda
is, in short, a massive tax cut to the rich that also kicks 14 million
people off Medicaid and other healthcare, defunds reproductive care
clinics like Planned Parenthood, and slashes food assistance for kids,
veterans, and seniors. If you want a brief on the policy, [ [link removed] ]read this.
I’m going to focus on the politics and what we can do about it.

Here’s the current factional dynamic on Capitol Hill:

* The MAGA faction wants more cuts to Medicaid and other programs.
* The pro-billionaire faction wants more tax cuts for billionaires.
* The vulnerable GOP frontliners don’t want anyone to notice that
they’re supporting this.
* Democrats are unified against it.

What happens next? Republicans try to make the sausage. Mike Johnson
doesn’t have the votes yet. On Wednesday, in an effort to fully win over
the MAGA and pro-billionaire factions, he’s going to make the bill even
worse and even more unpopular. If they then manage to bring MAGA and
pro-billionaires together without a revolt from the vulnerable
frontliners, the bill will pass the House and go to the Senate -- as soon
as this week.

The Senate will make their own amendments to the bill, some of which will
piss off the House MAGA, pro-billionaire, and/or the frontliners. Mike
Johnson will then present that Senate bill as “the best we can get” and
hope the GOP caucus accepts it. They would like to get this done in June
-- far later than they originally planned -- but more likely, even an
optimistic timeline stretches to July.

Or maybe the sausage just doesn’t get made. Maybe the House fails to pass
their bill. Or, after passing the bill, maybe the Senate fails to pass
their version of the bill. Or, after the Senate passes their bill, maybe
Mike Johnson can’t unify his caucus. Or maybe the whole thing just drags
out until September, when Congress faces a funding cliff and complicates
the negotiations even further. 

The bottom line here is that the Republican agenda is not guaranteed --
and this uncertainty gives us an opportunity for action.

Learning from the last failed Republican reconciliation bill.
Reconciliation is powerful, but it’s not a guaranteed win for the ruling
party. Indivisible’s first major legislative campaign in 2017 was around a
reconciliation bill -- the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
During this months-long campaign we had a simple strategy:

 1. Delay.
 2. Toxify the bill with public opposition.
 3. Target pressure on the weakest parts of the MAGA coalition.

Back then, Republicans thought repealing the ACA would be easy. But as we
and others amped up grassroots pressure across the country, they
struggled. After months of infighting, failures, and delays, the House
finally managed to pass its reconciliation bill repealing the Affordable
Care Act in May of 2017 (yes, 8 years ago exactly). The sausage was made!
Or was it?

The reconciliation bill then went to the Senate, where we targeted
pressure on Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jerry Moran, and John McCain,
among others. Week after week, we hammered Republicans for their support
in the press and on the streets, and Senate Republicans could not show up
in public without massive public pushback.

And then… the sausage didn’t get made. The Senate tried various different
versions of a repeal but they couldn’t get the votes. The reconciliation
bill was delayed until it was defeated. The Republicans would go on to
pass the Trump Tax Scam with reconciliation, but the Affordable Care Act
survived.

What we need now. [ [link removed] ]There isn't a congressional district in this country
where cutting Medicaid has more than 15% support. This is a bill that
Members of Congress should be politically scared to support. This is a
bill that should drag out because lawmakers are getting cold feet. This is
not a bill that should pass quickly, quietly, or without mass opposition.

We need a unified Democratic opposition. We need Democrats zeroing in on
the GOP plan, and not muddying the message by getting behind an unrelated,
corruption-friendly crypto bill this week instead -- [ [link removed] ]I’m looking at you
Mark Warner, Kirsten Gillibrand, Angela Alsobrooks, and Ruben Gallego.

We need Democrats to link arms in a focused fight against this, and we
need Republicans to understand there will be political hell to pay if they
go through with it.

This is a live fight. Republicans would like it to be easy. We can
guarantee it won’t be. But it’s up to us to do it -- so please read on to
this week’s actions!

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director
Indivisible

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Your weekly to-dos

 1. [ [link removed] ]Call your Republican representative on Tuesday, May 20, to help
melt GOP phone lines and stop the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. This
Tuesday, we’re joining Public Citizen and Americans for Tax Fairness
to lead a national call-in that overwhelms GOP phones in opposition to
their reconciliation bill! Need a reminder? [ [link removed] ]Add your phone number
here to get a text from Indivisible when it’s time to call.
 2. [ [link removed] ]Call your senators -- Republicans AND Democrats -- to demand that
they oppose a cryptocurrency bill enabling Trump’s
corruption. Indivisibles recently helped derail a toothless bill that
would’ve let Trump keep profiting from the presidency via his crypto
investments. Now, that bill is on the move again, and we need to let
our senators hear us so we can defeat it for good.
 3. [ [link removed] ]Join our “Fight Back with Friends” training on May 27 for new tools
to help get your friends and family off the sidelines! We all know
someone who wants to join our fight but isn’t sure where to start;
Fight Back with Friends is a new program designed to break down that
barrier. Our monthly call next Tuesday, May 27, will give you
everything you need to get started!
 4. [ [link removed] ]Sign up for a No Kings protest to defy Trump’s tyranny and ruin his
self-serving birthday parade on June 14. As Trump hosts his
un-American military parade in DC, we’re rising up everywhere else to
show him and our fellow Americans what real power looks like. Don’t
see a protest near you yet? More events are added every day, so please
[ [link removed] ]check our map again soon or [ [link removed] ]use our toolkit to host your own
event!
 5. [ [link removed] ]Join a “What’s the Plan” call (Thursdays, 3pm ET / 12pm PT) to ask
Leah and Ezra your questions about reconciliation, No Kings, and more!
Each Thursday, our co-founders jump online to break down the news,
draw inspiration from Indivisibles’ work, and answer your questions
directly. Come be part of a free-flowing, interactive chat about
what’s next in our fight for democracy.

P.S. It’s a key week in our fight to stop the Republican Tax Scam, and
we’ve rolled out billboards, phonebanks, door knocking, digital programs,
and more! Grassroots giving has already helped expand our efforts in big
ways, but if you can spare it, [ [link removed] ]you can chip in today to fund
billboards and nationwide organizing to defeat the Medicaid-killing MAGA
agenda.

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This week's update on the Republican Tax Scam

Ezra covered the state of play in-depth in his introduction above, but
we’ll summarize it again very quickly: Speaker Johnson wants to pass the
reconciliation bill* through the House and into the Senate** ASAP, so he’s
granting concessions to his party’s MAGA faction hand-over-fist in an
effort to speed things along.

All that rush and all those concessions to the far-right are making the
bill even nastier, more harmful, and more politically toxic. We need to
pounce on that by applying more pressure than ever to vulnerable House
Republicans who are terrified to vote on this bill.



We’re rallying in Washington, DC to stop the cuts. As Republicans
prepare to vote on this massively unpopular bill, we’ll show them
📣 the real-life scale of our opposition by gathering thousands to
peacefully demonstrate near Capitol Hill. [ [link removed] ]Sign up to join our
rally in Upper Senate Park this Wednesday at 7pm ET.

We’re overrunning capitol phone lines in opposition. Thousands of
Indivisibles are calling their GOP representatives this week about
☎️ opposing the Republican Tax Scam -- especially during the national
call-in day on May 20. [ [link removed] ]Click here to call your GOP
representative on Tuesday, May 20 about stopping SNAP and Medicaid
cuts.

We’re putting up billboards in key GOP districts. We’re placing
outdoor ads that highlight SNAP and Medicaid cuts in nine of the
🪧 most narrowly divided districts in the country, and thanks to
overwhelming grassroots support, we’ve already been able to DOUBLE
the number of billboards secured! [ [link removed] ]You can chip in here to fund
even more billboards and other outreach to stop the cuts.

We’re knocking on doors to sound the alarm. Our Neighbor2Neighbor
program allows folks in four states and eleven key districts to
🚪 knock on doors and educate like-minded neighbors about the GOP Tax
Scam on their own time. [ [link removed] ]Click here to see if Neighbor2Neighbor
canvassing is available in your area.

We’re calling, texting, and empowering our neighbors. Through our
new Fight Back With Friends program, we’re helping folks across the
💬 country connect their friends, families, and broader communities
with tools to join the fight. [ [link removed] ]Sign up for our next Fight Back
With Friends training on May 27 here.



The House could vote on the Republican Tax Scam this week! Use the links
above to take action right away, or [ [link removed] ]click here to check out our “Stop
The Cuts” toolkit for more information on all the ways you can join this
fight!

*You might also see this called the megabill, Republican tax scam, GOP tax
bill, or even “Trump’s big, beautiful bill.” They’re all different names for
the same plan to gut Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs in order to
fund tax breaks for billionaires.

**Passing this bill in the House does NOT mean Republicans have won. They’ll
still need to pass it in the Senate, and if the upper chamber changes even one
word, the House needs to debate and vote all over again. You may remember it
was the Senate that [ [link removed] ]sunk Trump’s first reconciliation bill to repeal the
Affordable Care Act in 2017.

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Where you can protest Trump’s tyranny June 14

With over 700 events on the map and more launching daily, we have the
opportunity to make June 14 -- the day of Trump’s military birthday parade
-- one of the biggest days of mass protest of our lifetimes! But to
maximize the power of our resistance, we need everyone who’s able to show
up to do so and bring friends.

[ [link removed] ]Map of the United States covered in hundreds of blue dots, each representing
a local No Kings Day event -- Click to browse events in your area

[ [link removed] ]Click here to see all the No Kings Day protests on our map, and sign
up to join a gathering near you on June 14.

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IndivisiWIN of the week

[26]A group of Indivisibles yell and wave their signs at the Hands across
Chicagoland protest in May 2025

Over 15,000 activists signed up to form a human chain from Chicago to
Aurora, IL in an effort to shine light on Trump’s illegal and
authoritarian actions! At least nine Chicago-area Indivisible groups and
their local allies partnered to lead this weekend’s [ [link removed] ]massive “Hands
across Chicagoland” protest that stretched nearly thirty miles.

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