Archive: Year: 2021

In January 2017, in the middle of a blizzard, 50 people crammed into a Yonkers, NY living-room to launch NYCD16-Indivisible, one of thousands of similar groups born at the same moment across the US.On Saturday, December 12th, as part of the annual RootsCamp conference, I had the pleasure of convening a conversation about movement organizing in the Trump years focused on the experience of Indivisible, one of the biggest examples of grassroots Democratic activism that arose after the 2016 election, and one where the potential and challenges of building a national, decentralized movement with vibrant chapters in blue, purple and red districts have played out in vivid and important ways. What follows is the edited transcript of our hour-long panel discussion — an...

Photo by Glen Carrie on UnsplashThree out of four Americans visit Facebook at least once a day, according to Pew Research. Two-thirds visit Instagram at least once a day. Half visit Youtube. This is not because we are addicted to social media, a claim that is thrown around too lightly. As journalist Maia Szalavitz points out, addiction is a compulsive behavior like drug use that continues despite harm. Dependence is when we need a drug to function. We are dependent on these social media platforms because so much of our personal and public lives are conducted through them.While the lion’s share of attention to how platforms affect our lives goes to Big Questions like, “Should Donald Trump be allowed to come...