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Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | October 31, 2018
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With 8,000 postcards, ‘Indivisibles’ aim to sway midterms their way By Karen Chaffraix Times Staff Writer
The walls cast a pink glow at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the back room at McMahon’s Irish Pub in Warrenton. The tables were full. Heads were down, and pens danced across little white cards. Meet the folks who comprise Fauquier Indivisible, on this last postcard-writing night before the mid-term elections. Tonight’s postcards urge voters in Virginia’s 8th District to choose Democrat Carter Turner, and in the 1st District, Democrat Vangie Williams. On Thursday, Oct. 28, between those collected from the Upperville Progressives, an arm of the Fauquier Indivisibles, and this Warrenton group, 8,000 postcards were carried to the post office. “It took two bins and three shopping bags to get them there,” Upperville group member Pat Reilly said from her place in Marshall. “We get the addresses from an online site.” Reilly first heard of the merits of postcard-writing at “the Women’s Summit,” a progressive political-strategy and team-building event held in Herndon last July sponsored Network NOVA. “I was skeptical, but there’s a study that says postcards are as effective as canvassing. Women went into postcard-writing particularly strongly, because calling is harder.”
Cecilia Carr (in blue sweater) started the Fauquier Indivisibles, then passed the baton to Donna Cywinski. TIMES STAFF PHOTO/ KAREN CHAFFRAIX
visible, Cywinski piloting its Facebook page, “the group’s main hub,” now up to 668 members. Cywinski, 63, an attorney by training, teaches history at Lord Fairfax Community College. The Catlett resident said she was “traumatized” after President Trump was elected. “I couldn’t underTimeline stand how people could vote for such a man. I The Warrenton group that morphed into Fauqui- kept thinking, ‘How am I going to get through the er Indivisible was begun in January 2017 by Cecil- next four years?’” ia Carr, a Prince William County English teacher. That lasted until the Women’s March in WashPolitically involved “in small ways,” prior to Pres- ington, D.C. in January 2017, she said. “We realident Donald Trump’s election, things now felt ur- ized how many felt the same way, and that people gent, she said. Personal reasons caused her to move needed a way to get involved.” decisively. The week after the Women’s March, Cywinski A Warrenton resident for 17 years, Carr, 52, is attended the Rally for Unity in Warrenton. “[State among tonight’s post-card writers. She’s wearing Del.] Elizabeth Guzman was one of the speakers, a blue sweater, and her running in my district. I smile lights up her face. had been heavily involved Carr started the group to “The good old boys deciding in the Hillary Clinton distract herself from an legislation — that’s done with.” campaign, but hadn’t done impending medical diaganything since. I wanted DONNA CYWINSKI to get involved.” nosis. Calling it, “Straight Fauquier Indivisible Outta Warrenton — FauHearing about a local quier Resistance,” Carr arm of the Indivisibles registered the group with starting up, Cywinski went to the gathering at Indivisibles.org (a national progressive “how-to” Deja Brew where she met Carr. “Every day there site, itself a reaction to Trump’s election), created were more shenanigans coming from the White a Gmail address, bought a domain name and start- House. I signed up.” ed spreading the word. The genesis of the “Indivisible” movement was The group’s first event was the Rally for Unity a Google-doc full of typos uploaded to a group of in Warrenton in February 2017. “We were pro- progressives by a young husband and wife team, testing the President’s Muslim travel ban and congressional staffers upset by the results of the demonstrating that there are plenty of people in 2016 election. Tea party tactics had routed Leah Fauquier who think differently. After the rally, we Greenberg’s boss, Democrat Tom Perriello, from held our first meeting at Deja Brew. It was stand- Congress in 2010, so she and husband Ezra Levin ing-room-only and overflow out the door.” Ten understood the effectiveness of tea-party activdays later Carr got a positive diagnosis. ism. Contact with legislators at the local level “Many people stepped up to help, and eventu- was imperative. They titled their 23-page how-to ally, I handed the whole group off to the amazing for progressive activism, “Indivisible: A Practical Donna Cywinski and headed to NYC to have sur- Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.” gery,” Carr said. This coming summer she faces Within days of its internet upload, former U.S. another. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, among others, Cywinski took over in April 2017, eventual- were praising its tenets and the whole thing took ly appointing four additional “administrators,” off. Profiled by magazines from The Nation to the Miggy Strano, Kim Gibson, Mara Seaforest and New Yorker, Invisibles is now a movement with Carolyn Darrow. Together they run Fauquier Indi- “at least two groups in every congressional dis-
trict in the country, and more than 900 groups in California alone,” according to one article. Locally, Fauquier Indivisible’s activism has already born fruit. At Sheriff Bob Mosier’s Vint Hill town hall in April 2017, held after he announced he would pursue an agreement to detain undocumented immigrants in cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a crowd of 150 rallied for a voice vote of “yea” or “nay.” The resounding response was “nay.” Mosier later decided the agreement was unnecessary. Today, Fauquier Indivisibles work with other local groups such as the Fauquier Democrats; Indivisible Nova West, in Manassas; Indivisible Alexandria; Indivisible Fairfax; Service Employees International Union; the Interfaith Council; and the Virginia Civic Engagement Table. The Indivisibles’ platform is progressive but not partisan, Cywinski said. It stresses the idea that everybody in the country is entitled to liberty and justice, and that means everyone. “We support a lot of Democrats because today you can’t find a Republican who will put a check on Trump’s power,” Cywinski said.
Making waves
When Virginia’s General Assembly returns to Richmond in January, Indivisibles will be in the gallery just as they were last summer when Medicaid expansion passed and when Republicans put the kibosh on bringing the Equal Rights Amendment to the floor for a vote. “Take a vote. You need to take a vote,” the activists chanted, lapsing into singing “We Shall Overcome.” The old boys voted against it, but video of them doing so came to life on the internet. Should Virginia pass the Equal Rights Amendment, it will be the 38th state to do so and the last vote needed for it to become the law of the land. State legislators promise to try again this year. “We will be shining a light on what our lawmakers are doing,” Cywinski said. “From the first day, they will know we are there. The good old boys deciding on legislation — that’s done with.” Reach Karen Chaffraix at kchaffraix@fauquier.com
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