Indivisible: Invigorating and Redirecting the Grassroots

• In Event: 3270 - Revisiting Threats and Grievances in the Trump Era

Abstract

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, a group of former Democratic Congressional staffers set out to organize and educate the grassroots opposition to the new administration. Indivisible began with an online guide providing an action plan of how to influence Congress. Subsequent efforts focused on ways to influence policy through conventional political channels, by stalling or defeating the Trump administration’s agenda using local, grassroots advocacy tactics. Self-consciously strategic, Indivisible explicitly described its strategy as inspired by the success of the Tea Party. Like the Tea Party, Indivisible’s organizational model encouraged supporters to target members of Congress by attending town halls, making phone calls, and visiting their offices. Indivisible worked to leverage grassroots support to influence mainstream politics, offering an illustrative example of the links between institutional and extrainstitutional politics. I use this chapter to explore how political circumstances shape the avenues of influence available to challengers and the means of contention in which they engage at any given time.

Author

• Megan E. Brooker, University of California-Irvine