Indivisible updates + actions: Colbert cancelled as CBS caves, Epstein covered up as Trump rants and raves - Indivisible

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https://indivisible.actionkit.com/mailings/view/119537

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TLDR

Hey DU'er.

Last week, in response to Trump’s escalating authoritarian overreach, Indivisible launched the first of a three-part training series on strategic non-cooperation. We had 150,000 people register. We broke Zoom. The next day, Leah and I talked about it with Erica Chenowith (of 3.5% fame) on What’s the Plan.

The gist of the threat is this: Trump and his allies aren’t satisfied with just dominating Congress and the courts. They want to dominate law firms, universities, businesses, and media institutions as well. This is textbook authoritarian overreach, and we can organize against it -- but we have to pay attention to it rather than just to Congress and the courts.

In the last few days, we’ve seen a case in point example of what Trump’s strategic domination looks like with CBS News, detailed in this piece by the Guardian’s David Smith.

This serves as a good example for what we’re up against, so I think it’s worth getting acquainted with the facts. Here’s the timeline as we know it:

Sept 2024: Paramount (owner of CBS News) and Skydance Media file multibillion dollar merger paperwork with the FCC.
Oct 13, 2024: 60 Minutes on CBS airs an interview with Kamala Harris.
Oct 28, 2024: Trump sues CBS/Paramount for $10 billion, claiming the interview was edited to hurt his campaign.
Jan 2025: Trump is inaugurated.
Feb 2025: Trump increases damage claims against CBS/Paramount to $20 billion and demands the FCC pull CBS’s license.
April 2025: 60 Minutes’ longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigns, citing management pressure that infringes on his journalistic independence.
May 2025: CBS News president Wendy McMahon resigns for the same reason.
July 2, 2025: Paramount announces a $16 million cash settlement to Trump.
July 14, 2025: On The Late Show, Colbert calls the payout a “big, fat bribe.”
July 17, 2025: CBS announces The Late Show is being cancelled.
Paramount described Colbert’s firing as merely a financial decision, despite it being the number one late-night show for nine seasons. No doubt their bottom line played a key role -- just not in the way they’d like us to believe!

The Paramount executives aren’t stupid. They understand Trump is capricious and thin-skinned. They know he hates Colbert.

They see that he can single-handedly block their valuable merger deal. And (tooootally coincidentally) just as they campaign for merger approval, they’ve simultaneously made the choice to remove a popular Trump critic from the air.

The reason institutions and leaders obey in advance is because they benefit from doing so, at least in the short-term. Our job as organizers in a time of authoritarian breakthrough is to create countervailing pressure.

These institutions and leaders need to know people will back them up if they fight back. And, on the flip side, they need to know there are consequences if they simply play by Trump’s rules.

This is why Indivisible is focused on training a million people on how to engage in strategic non-cooperation. This is the fight we’re in now. Read on to this week’s to-dos to join up.

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible

Your weekly to-dos
Sign up for the One Million Rising call on July 30 to learn strategic non-cooperation strategies and stand with one million Americans organizing their neighbors. As our slide toward authoritarianism accelerates, it falls on us to lead the fight against fascism and force vital institutions off the sidelines.

In our July 30 call, you’ll be trained to organize others and lead active non-cooperation in your community.
Get friends and family into the fight by attending our Fight Back with Friends training tomorrow, July 22, at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Fight Back with Friends is a program to help you pull friends and family off the sidelines with talking points, tools, and tactics designed to grow our movement. Tuesday’s monthly call focuses on the One Million Rising campaign.

Don’t let Trump bury the Epstein files! Use our toolkit to help expose the cover-up. We’ve put together an explainer on the state of Trump’s Epstein cover-up, complete with action items and shareable social posts. The Trump regime wants to flex its power to sweep this story of abuse and corruption under the rug; we won’t let that happen.

Learn messaging skills to advocate for all our communities and combat racial fear-mongering at tonight’s Solidarity in Action call. Tonight (July 21) at 7pm ET, podcaster, researcher, and communications expert Anat Shenker-Osorio will teach the Race Class Narrative -- a vital messaging framework to help build solidarity across lines of difference and overcome right-wing messages of hate and fear.

Join our “What’s the Plan?” call on Thursday to hear Leah and Ezra answer your questions about our big new summer initiatives. Every Thursday at 3pm ET (12pm PT), our co-founders jump online to break down the news of the week and answer your questions directly! Be part of a free-flowing, interactive chat about what’s next in our fight for democracy.

P.S. We're launching billboards in key Republican districts -- from purple battlegrounds to deep-red Trump country -- calling out Trump and his enablers for covering up the Epstein files, and since these weren't planned or budgeted for, they depend on this community's immediate grassroots support. If you can, chip in here to fund Epstein cover-up billboards and other efforts to toxify Trump.

Have you joined One Million Rising?
We’re in a period of “authoritarian breakthrough” -- when a would-be regime moves to rapidly consolidate power, eliminate checks on that power, and operate with total impunity. We see it every day in Trump’s deployment of the military in LA, mass firings of qualified federal employees, supercharging of ICE, and so much more.

The key to stopping authoritarian breakthrough isn’t attacking the would-be ruler, but chipping away at the vital institutions upholding their power -- causing the entire house of cards to collapse.

That’s why we launched One Million Rising, a push to train over a million Americans in how to identify, influence, and successfully move businesses, universities, local governments, and other vital institutions from appeasement to active non-cooperation.

Digital flier for One Million Rising virtual trainings on July 30, and August 13 -- Click to learn more and sign up

Over 100,000 Americans already signed up to lead their personal networks in the fight against fascism, and in our next call, on July 30, we’ll talk about how to get others on board with impeding Trump’s fascist tactics and hosting your first community resistance gathering.

Register for the One Million Rising virtual sessions on July 30 and August 13 to be one of 1,000,000+ Americans training to stop Trump’s power-grab!

We recommend that you register for all the One Million Rising sessions, even if you can’t attend them live. You can already watch a recording of the One Million Rising kickoff call here, and the best way to ensure you receive recordings of future sessions is by signing up on Mobilize.

Preach beyond the choir with our new social toolkit

Social media and online conversations are powerful tools to share vital truths and grow our movement, but too often, progressives find ourselves messaging specifically to the people who already agree with us!

To build the multi-racial, multi-generational movement needed to stop Trump’s power-grab, we have to bring new folks into the fold -- particularly those who might not share all our views or follow the same news sources. That’s why we’re launching TRUTH & SHARE: a new social toolkit featuring shareable news from across the web that’ll help toxify Trump and MAGA.

Digital flier link to TRUTH AND SHARE toolkit
TRUTH & SHARE includes news highlighting Trump’s most unpopular policies and biggest failures. It’s not about highlighting every Trump atrocity; it’s about calling attention to policies and actions that broad majorities would reject.

Click here to see TRUTH & SHARE and start conversations around Trump’s biggest failures -- the ones even MAGA Republicans can’t explain away -- on your favorite social platforms.

Get ready for Accountability August
Congress will soon head home for August recess, just weeks after Republicans approved Trump’s Big Bullshit Bill to take healthcare and meals from millions while funneling tax breaks to billionaires.

Congressional recess gives us an opportunity to tell representatives how their votes hurt our communities and organize to hold Republicans accountable. At the Accountability August info session this Wednesday, July 23, Congressman Greg Casar, Indivisible, and our partners will present the tools to make the most of that opportunity.