On April 5th, an estimated 2000 people flocked to Sayre Park in Glenwood Springs for the hands-off rally organized by Mountain Action Indivisible, a citizens' political reckoning group operating from Parachute to Aspen. The spike in protests in our region is a part of a national trend of grassroots organizing that went into hibernation during the Biden years and is reemerging to mobilize against the current administration.
Mountain Action Indivisible is the Roaring Fork Valley's local branch of the Nationwide Indivisible Project, a pro-democracy movement encouraging dissatisfied Americans to mobilize their communities and use their power as constituents. Indivisible started eight years ago with a Google doc written by Obama era congressional aids Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, who watched conservative grassroots movements turn constituents' ideas into real policy.
The updated document available on the Indivisible website provides a practical outline for regular Americans to understand their power as voters and advocate for their community’s wants and needs. Debbie Bruell, one of the founding members of Mountain Action Indivisible and former chairperson for the Garfield County Democrats, says that community is an important political resource.
Bruell: “What the guide is really about is understanding the power we have as constituents. That's what they witnessed with the Tea Party: People were really organizing at the local level. They were putting pressure on their representatives. They were realizing the importance of school boards and county commissioners, those elections at the very local level. So the guide was more about helping people understand the power that we have to influence our government.”
Another founding member of Mountain Action, Lori Brandon, emphasized that democratic government is a service to the people, not the other way around.
Brandon: “This really is a representative government that we live in. And that's what it's all about. The people who we elect are supposed to represent us, so they work for us. It's important for us to tell them what we want and how we feel.”
Bruell and Brandon stress that everyone is welcome at meetings no matter who you voted for or if you voted at all. Their idea is that no matter who you are, you may eventually feel the negative ramifications of the Trump administration.
Brandon: “It's the cost of living through the tariff problems, the inflation, as well as all the immigration problems and the lack of due process. Just think about your life, and you can find something that's going on in Washington that's problematic.”
Contrary to popular belief, Bruell says that the group is nonpartisan and focused around the goal of preserving democracy beyond party lines. Mountain Action Indivisible has subgroups from Aspen to Parachute. According to the National Indivisible website, there are over 2,200 local indivisible groups that cover more than 90% of US congressional districts.
Bruell: “We have a wide variety of people showing up. We know a lot of immigrant families are afraid to show up at these kinds of things, so we’re doing what we can. We definitely saw some Latino people at our April 5 rally, but I know a lot of people specifically told me they have family members who don't have the correct documentation, and they're afraid to show up at these things. That is definitely an issue.”
New Castle residents Michael Podmore and his wife Lisa Moretti have been Mountain Action Indivisible ambassadors for two months. Their goals are to keep people informed, introduce neighbors to each other, and help concerned citizens feel supported. Like Bruell, Podmore was politically active before Mountain Action and canvassed for the Democrats. Podmore says that most of the people he sees in meetings tend to be older and white.
Podmore: “I do wonder if the people who are over 50 kind of grew up in a time where they saw a lot of protests, and they saw the positive result of that. I think it seems normal to them. Younger people maybe haven't really seen that, and I think they're possibly a little more reluctant to take that step.”
It's a priority for Mountain Action to keep growing, in large part because their range is inside Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, which is represented by Republican freshmen Jeff Hurd.
Brandon: “We're putting a lot of pressure on him. The goal is, when the representatives in Congress who are supporting Trump start to feel more pressure from their constituents, they’ll fear that they're going to lose their election because their constituents have turned against them. When that fear becomes bigger and stronger than the fear they have from Trump and Elon Musk primarying them, that's when they're going to start to stand up and do what's right for all of us.”
Mountain Action’s member emails include both praise and criticism for moves by Colorado's Democratic Senators Bennett and Hickenlooper, as well as Congressman Hurd.
Bruell: “And they're pretending like all this pressure is not impacting them, and they don't care about getting flooded with phone calls or having these empty chair town halls. But we are seeing them shift a little bit, and we know it's in response this kind of pressure.”
Mountain Action. Indivisible has active members in Aspen, Silt, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, New Castle and Parachute.
Local leaders receive a weekly email and can tune into a weekly Zoom call with the national Indivisible for support and news updates. But apart from this, Indivisible chapters are locally led and are vocal about issues that matter to their area. Podmore says that the towns all work together to present a united voice locally.
Podmore: “We communicate by email, and also we started a Signal group where through group text and chat we can communicate. One of the ideas with that Signal group was to try to motivate each other to make calls to our Representatives each week.”
Additional topics of discussion in the local leaders Signal group chat include upcoming meetings, libraries, and national events.
Local interest and participation is important for another reason as well: funding. So far the only donations Mountain Action has received have been from individuals. Local leaders can apply for grants from the umbrella organization, but they haven't yet.
Bruell says the local chapter raised nearly $4,000. Since picking up operations in January, they have received a few big dollar donations, but most people are sending in under $100.
During the first Trump administration when Indivisible’s national organization formed, revenue totaled over $7 million. The majority of this came from major gifts and foundation grants, but a significant portion was raised from small dollar donations. The Indivisible Political Action Committee contributed over $145,000 to federal Democratic candidates. Indivisible email communications and newsletters do include a donate button. Some funding is available to local chapters through the national Indivisible organization, but so far Mountain Action is self-supporting.
Brandon: “They [national Indivisible] do reimburse some some general costs, like our website hosting costs and some room rentals, or some materials that we have to buy for flyers and things like that. But we haven't finished the process of going through applying for that.”
Mountain Action is entirely volunteer run. Because indivisible branches are grassroots and not beholden to marching orders from their parent organization, local leaders had the ability to pick up immediately after the election.
Bruell: “We didn't have the luxury of forming an organization and figuring out all the structures of how it would work before Trump came into power and started doing all these terrible things. So we just kind of jumped into action.”
A statement on the national Indivisible website details a peaceful nonviolent approach. The website says rejection of political violence is strategic, because leading with hope is more effective than motivating with fear.
Brandon: “Everybody is in agreement that nonviolent protesting is the American way, and it's the safest way, and it's the most effective way.”
While Indivisible chapters do receive news updates and some guidance from the national organization, they are locally led and focus on issues that matter to their area, according to Podmore.
Podmore: “These are uniting causes that reach across party lines. We need candidates who are going to put partisan stuff aside and have a priority of saving democracy and saving our freedoms. You know, that doesn't seem like a partisan issue to me. That seems like an American value that we all grew up with.”
