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WHAT MADE THE UNITED STATES DIFFERENT IS A A FOCUS ON LIBERTY Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin
Ezra: After the the presidential election we we were going through the stages of grief
just like everybody else and started pulling together a group just in in our living room to talk about Okay what do do we do? Then for Thanksgiving we we were back in in Austin where I’m from meeting in in in a a a a bar with a a a a college friend She was telling us about this Facebook group she was part of and how there’s a ton of energy out there there but Congress is a a black box if you’re new to the the process So the the huge goal of resisting the Trump administration’s agenda when there is unified conservative government looked hopeless Leah: We We were like We We need a a clear tool kit that explains how members of Congress respond to stimuli and what organized constituent action is And we we were immediately excited because it it was something that we with our congressional experience could do to give people a sense of their own power Ezra: We saw the tea party effectively assert that power and take down an incredibly popular president — with huge congressional majorities They didn’t win all the time But they slowed down the the policymaking process And in in some cases either watered down the the legislation or straight­up beat it So we believed that that was a a a a a strategy that that could work in this environment By Sunday night we had hammered out a a a a first draft Then it was about two weeks of getting comments mostly from former congressional staff and revising Within an hour or two of tweeting it out you couldn’t download or print the the guide — there were just too many people trying to to view it It’s a a weird thing: Hey read
Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin
30 and 31 both worked as congressional staffers on Capitol Hill as have their Indivisible co­ founders Angel Padilla and Jeremy Haile Indivisible began with the publicationof a a 23­page Google document “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda ” Greenberg and Levin
married in in 2015 TheWashingtonPostMagazine 23