Highlights from Our All-In Call with Ezra Levin

On March 19, we hosted our quarterly All In Call, where we had the pleasure of speaking with Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible. Ezra shared why the April 5 mass mobilization matters and how Third Actors can make an impact.

Akaya: I want to remind [everyone] that it’s almost spring. Tomorrow is spring, and spring is a season for seedlings and new things. Even in this moment of important defense: the seasons continue. 

Bill: To help us get started on the right foot into spring is Ezra Levin, who probably most of you know because he’s been doing such great work at Indivisible. He’s done extraordinary work, beginning in the days of the first Trump administration, to rally national opposition. He and [his spouse] Leah Greenberg were described by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. We want to learn from him, [so] Third Act has been partnering with Indivisible to get some of this work done this year.

Akaya: I recently learned that April 5th is National Deep Dish Pizza Day, but something tells me that something else might be [happening] on April 5th as well. Can you tell us what it is?

Ezra: At Indivisible, we have a common goal with Third Act: we’re trying to empower people around the country to lead themselves, to organize themselves, to figure out ways to actually have impact themselves, wherever they are. And we’re in a wave moment right now: there are more people getting active right now in red, blue, purple, communities all over the country—rural, suburban, urban. 

As dark and dangerous as everything is, the silver lining right now is a lot of folks are looking around and saying, Well, I guess I’ve got to do something. And that’s exactly right. That is what we need in this moment. We’re made up of about 1,600 local, Indivisible groups all over the country. And one thing that we’ve been hearing since the election is: there’s so much energy out here. We’re going to congressional town halls. We’re going to congressional district offices. We’re showing up in our individual, local community events. When are we going to hit the streets? When is it going to be big? When are we really going to break through? 

Because right now, there are a lot of folks who are paying a lot of attention, who are organizing, but most of the time, most people are not paying attention. We are facing a constitutional crisis right now, and as important as it is for those of us who pay attention to politics every day to be active and show up, that’s not enough. We need people who normally don’t pay attention to be paying attention in this moment. We need to break through to folks who aren’t already with us. And so April 5 is that, in addition to Deep Dish Pizza Day.

April 5 is the first mass mobilization, and we’re calling it HandsOff! It will be in communities all over the country. You can go to [the Third Act] website and sign up to host your own HandsOff! event to tell Elon Musk, congressional Republicans, Donald Trump hand: hands off! Hands off our government, our democracy, our Social Security, Medicaid. We are partnering with brilliant union leaders like SEIU, Working Families Party, MoveOn, and more. 

Akaya: Ezra, what needs to happen between now and April 5 to make this actually work? What are you asking for?

Ezra: Great question. So what I’m not asking folks to do is hear this and say, Oh, that’s interesting. I’ll show up on April 5. I don’t want people just consuming politics. Politics is what we do together, and we all have a role to actually do this work. So what I would love people to do is start their own local HandsOff! mobilization—or, if there is one already, start recruiting. Start making it the thing that everybody does—your domino group, your book club, your social group, your neighbors. Ask: Oh, you’re going to the April 5 thing, right? 

I want everybody on this call. I trust y’all are going to show up. [But] we need everybody who is not on this call to show up as well. It’s very important that we all show up and be seen and be heard.

April 5 is the first mass mobilization, and we’re calling it HandsOff! It will be in communities all over the country. You can go to [the Third Act] website and sign up to host your own HandsOff! event to tell Elon Musk, congressional Republicans, Donald Trump hand: hands off!

Bill: Ezra, everybody else on this call, except you, is over the age of 60. Why is it important that older people show up for this kind of thing? What kind of message does that send?

Ezra: You have incredible political power. Politicians are most scared of those over 60. You know why? Because you vote. A group of folks over 60—a mass of people over 60—sends a message that this isn’t some marginal faction of the population. These are the core of the voting population, showing up and saying, hands off. That is an enormous opportunity. 

Bill: For everyone [here], we have links for you to sign up through Third Act to participate in April 5. It’s important to be doing this locally, on the ground. If you’re in DC, great, but this is a big country, and we need it to be echoing everywhere. 

Between now and April 5, there’s a few things you can do that really matter. We have an online Letter to the Editor tool. I’ve been starting all of mine by saying,“I’m 64 and I’ve never seen an attack on democracy like this.” [Third Actors] bring a long, long, long history that lets us say, this is very different. This is very weird. We also would be grateful if you could create and share a video about how and why you’re resisting and share it on whatever social media you’re on. When you do, tag Third Act. If you’re into hashtags, we’re using #eldersresist. 

This is, in part, how we spread courage to everybody else. Everybody’s a little nervous. We give each other courage when we show up. 

At the moment, they’ve kicked over a hornet’s nest with older Americans. The idea that they’re shutting down that helpline for Social Security is truly astonishing and Social Security itself is on the line clearly going forward. Co-President Musk referred to it as a Ponzi scheme. So the things that have made the things that we have spent our life building are absolutely on the line, and we need to be out there. We need to be out there as third actors. We need to be out there drawing attention to the fact that we’ve known about this for a long time. 

You don’t need to travel hours to do this. You can do it in your own backyard.

Akaya: Ezra, are you recommending that we go to the big cities? Or are you asking us to be take a more local stance as we think about April 5?

Ezra: I’m a former congressional staffer, and my member of Congress represented 13 counties: Austin, Texas, and then a whole bunch of rural counties. We saw protests in Austin regularly, and the thing that would make us take note of an Austin protest was if it was really big. And I hope the Austin HandsOff! is really big, but when we saw folks showing up in the rural counties, in the smaller cities, we were like, oh my gosh, it’s even happening there. That really caught our attention. 

I would rather 20 people out in your small, rural community, if that’s where you live, than traveling an hour to the big city. That’s going to send a better message, and you’re going to be talking to your own elected officials. And that’s what we’re trying to do, to show them that it’s in their backyard too. You don’t need to travel hours to do this. You can do it in your own backyard.