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, 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. 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 -- 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

Your weekly to-dos

1. 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? Add your phone number here to get a text from Indivisible when it’s time to call.
2. 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. 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. 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 check our map again soon or use our toolkit to host your own event!
5. 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, you can chip in today to fund billboards and nationwide organizing to defeat the Medicaid-killing MAGA agenda.

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.

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

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.

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.

IndivisiWIN of the week

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 massive “Hands across Chicagoland” protest that stretched nearly thirty miles.

Follow us on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads to keep up on the latest information, and text “INDIVISIBLE” to 59798 to opt-in to our text messaging program, where we send rapid response actions a few times a month.