Indivisible is one of the leading organizations behind the No Kings events, which have opposed the Trump Administration’s abuses of power through mass peaceful protest and mobilization efforts. A new kind of No Kings event is planned for October 17th, but it won’t look like the marches we’ve seen from them before.
Ezra Levin joined Tim to talk about how American voters can reclaim their power this election season. While the first No Kings events were focused on sending a clear message to Donald Trump that his regime will not be tolerated, the October 17th No Kings Day will serve as a nationwide early voting campaign that’s about the power of the people. The pair discuss how this November will be a crucial turning point against authoritarian control of our elections.
Ezra Levin is the co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible. Prior to founding Indivisible, Ezra served as Associate Director of Federal Policy for Prosperity Now, a national anti-poverty nonprofit.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Tim Dickinson
Hey, this is Tim Dickinson for The Contrarian. Our guest today is Ezra Levin of Indivisible. Ezra, welcome back to The Contrarian.
Ezra Levin
Great to see you, Tim.
Tim Dickinson
So, I understand we’re talking about an early vote mobilization, so people get to mobilize to the polls. Talk to us about it.
Ezra Levin
Look, this is a pro-democracy mobilization. We had No Kings 1, No Kings 2, No Kings 3. We had 5 million people out, 7 million people out, more than 8 million people out, and the point of the first three No Kings was to send a message, a message to an authoritarian regime that we’re not afraid, that we’re willing to show up and exercise our constitutional rights. And look, that changed the vibe. That changed how people felt about the conditions in America in 2025. and in 2026, but No Kings in October, on October 17th. This last No Kings of 2026, it’s not about sending a message to him. We have sent that message loud and clear. This is about taking power back for the people. That is what this No Kings on October 17th is about. So half of that, as you said, is about boosting early vote to be the biggest early vote that we’ve seen in the history of the Republic, but the other half of it is preparing for the inevitable election sabotage that we know is coming. Trump is talking about it. He has been talking about it for months, plans are in action. He does not have the power to cancel the election. He does not have the power to change the results of the election. And the reason why he doesn’t have the power is because we’re going to organize. So we’re going to boost early turnout to make sure that it is an overwhelming election for this regime, and two, we’re going to recruit the kind of grassroots force that we need to push back against any sabotage that happens around the country.
Tim Dickinson
Well, so let’s break those off one by one. Let’s talk about the early vote aspect of this. I mean, this is exciting, right? People have been building up to show their displeasure, and they actually get to do it in a way that counts more than most times. So what does this look like granularly?
Ezra Levin
Look, it’s gonna look different depending on where you are. I would love it if we lived in a country where on October 17th, every single one of the 50 states had early voting in full swing. That’s not the reality. Several dozen states will have early voting already going, but if you live in a state where that’s happening, if you’re in Ohio and they’ve been early voting for a while, these will be events where people are showing up to boost the turnout. They’re getting out the vote, they’re making sure that people do turn out They’re making sure that people are registered directly right now, because you can go out and early vote. In a place like Michigan, they’re not going to have early voting going yet. In a place like Texas, it won’t start until a few days later. So, I know in Frisco, Texas, there’s already an event that’s being planned by a local group, an Indivisible group there, and they’re gonna be all showing up in their superhero costumes to make the point that Voting is your superpower, we’re gonna go and do it next week. So these are creative, local events that are gonna be fun, that are gonna be community-oriented, and there are going to be thousands upon thousands of them all over the country. So, in some ways, it will look like No Kings 1, 2, and the 3, in the sense that this is locally led, that this is gonna look different depending on where you are, and what’s happening in your area, but the key difference is, it’s not just focused on send that message, it’s focused on taking back that power for the people, using the tools available to us in a democracy, the right to vote, and the right to organize.
Tim Dickinson
And so then the election protection component of this. What is… what does that look like for this event?
Ezra Levin
I think it makes sense to try to delineate between these two, because they do sound like two different things, but I would make the argument that they’re quite closely connected, because the number one anti-election sabotage effort is showing up to vote early. That way, you both boost turnout, but also you identify there are problems ahead of time. So I don’t want to act as if these things are totally separate. I would love to see an outcome in November, like we saw in Turkey earlier this year. Orban, the 16-year-old authoritarian, certainly was planning to engage in some election sabotage, but the result was just so overwhelming. He got crushed. in the results of that election, and he couldn’t sabotage the results, so I would like that, but… Let’s hope for the best and plan for the worst. We see Trump is already attacking mail-in voting. We see that many in his cohort are trying to prepare for sending ICE agents, or National Guard agents or possibly military, out to election sites. We’ve seen him go and seize ballot boxes in Georgia already and threaten to do so elsewhere. We’ve seen him try to demand from states their voter rolls so the feds can interfere. There are a thousand different scenarios, and I don’t want to overcome complicate things, because it really all comes down to one thing. Are we going to allow it to happen? or are we going to organize to reject it? So whether or not any kind of election sabotage is successful depends on, are people organizing in communities where it’s happening and around the country to say, no, we are not going to accept this sabotage, we are going to respect the results of this election, and the people who are elected are going to be seated. That depends on organizing early, training up for what’s to come, and being prepared to hit the ground running as soon as and if there is any sabotage that we have. actually see.
Tim Dickinson
So what does that training look like? I know you have this sort of broader election protection program.
Ezra Levin
Yeah.
Tim Dickinson
What do people learn if they go and check that resource out?
Ezra Levin
Love it. Look, there are two broad groups of folks around the country. You are either in a state where election sabotage is very risky, so I’m looking at especially a state like Michigan, or Ohio, or Iowa, Alaska, North Carolina, Georgia, places where regime-affiliated members have control over election infrastructure, or where there are very high-intensity races that could determine who controls the House, who controls the Senate, or you live outside those places. You happen to live in a super blue district, and there’s not a competitive election there, and nobody’s coming at you. You have a rule regardless. You have a rule regardless. If it happens to be the case that your local board of elections is meeting and considering rule changes, or considering what to do in response to threats from the regime. You physically can show up with your group, and go and push back, and go and testify, and go and make some noise, and make sure that this doesn’t happen under… in private back rooms where nobody notices. If you’re outside those places. You might have a role in pushing your own elected officials, maybe your state attorney general, maybe your governor, to take action to make sure that we’re not just accepting the sabotage that is coming our way. Now, the reality is, the sabotage can look different in different places and in different scenarios, and so going through the training and getting acquainted with, who are the people who are watching the legal threats? Who am I connecting with at the state level and at the local level? The organizations that are actually working in this on the ground, who I should be connected to, so when it happens. I’m ready to plug into that. That’s what the training is about. It’s… we’re not going to be able to cover every single scenario. It’s not like we’re going to flip to page 78 and say, well, this is what’s happening, and now we all take this step. But it is about connecting with the community overall that’s preparing for election defense, because the only effective response in this moment is going to be mass, organized, spread across the country, and non-violent.
Tim Dickinson
Right. So it’s sort of locking arms and being prepared for a variety of scenarios, so that when one comes up, you’re not flat-footed, and you already have a community there to rely on and link arms with.
Ezra Levin
That’s right. Look, I understand people are worried about this. They should be worried about this. The President of the United States is directly talking about sabotaging the midterm elections. That’s scary stuff, but you don’t have to become an elections law expert suddenly overnight. You don’t have to be an expert in every single scenario that might come our way. You’ve just got to be connected with folks, because ultimately it comes down to our numbers.
Tim Dickinson
I live in a vote-by-mail state, so this… in Oregon, it would completely vote-by-mail, though we get to drop them off at drop boxes. Do you have any advice for how to navigate these threats that, you know, it’s… we’ve got the Postal Service potentially moving forward on plans, despite a court injunction to, you know, delay the delivery of ballots? What are the kinds of things that people could be thinking about to make sure that they get to exercise their vote in a vote-by-mail scenario?
Ezra Levin
Well, there are a couple kinds of threats, and I think they sometimes get conflated together. There’s the threat that, in some way, the Postal Service might choose not to mail ballots to people who are expecting them to have ballots. And then there’s another threat that maybe the ballots won’t be delivered, or they won’t be counted, or they’ll use the fact that the ballots come in after Election Day to delegitimize the vote and create some chaos in order to cause more damage. Currently, the maiden threat is on the government not sending ballots to people who are expecting them. So if you are somebody who is planning to vote by mail, by all means, vote by mail and do it as soon as possible. Do not wait until the last minute, bank that vote as soon as possible, so you know as soon as possible if there are any issues that come up. And if you are somebody who is waiting for the government to send you the ballot, there are, in every single state, a way to get that ballot yourself. If you are worried that it’s not coming in the mail soon enough, you can go through the process to get it, and you can work in your community to educate folks that that’s an option available to them. What you should not do is come to the conclusion that, well, Trump is going to attack mail-in voting, this is all BS, my vote’s not gonna be counted, so I shouldn’t show up, I shouldn’t vote. That is what they want. They want you to think. None of this matters, so I’m not even gonna try. Do not give in to that, and do not spread that misinformation and fear to the rest of your community. We have the right to vote, we are going to exercise that right to vote, and we are going to crush this regime electorally in November.
Tim Dickinson
I guess that is a bit of a tricky balance, you know, having our eyes wide open, right, that this is something that is likely to… they’re gonna try and figure out some shenanigans, but also believing and trusting and exercising that right to vote so that you put this outside of the margin of shenanigans.
Ezra Levin
It is so tricky, Tim, you are exactly right, because we don’t want to act as if it’s not an issue. And also, we don’t want to scare people off from participating and exercising their rights, because it is an issue. So you are right, the best we can do is confidently say, we’re going to exercise our right to vote, we’re going to exercise our right to protest, we’re going to exercise our right to organize, because those are American rights that are given to us, and we’re not going to let anybody dissuade us from using them, regardless of what threats they send our way. This is a moment to actually use our power. That is what we are doing together, and doing it confidently, doing it happily, doing it joyfully, doing it in community together will make this a successful October 17th event.
Tim Dickinson
And I imagine this work goes well beyond October 17th, as people’s got a book club, or a church group, or just being an ambassador for that message of, like, yeah, this is a scary time, yeah, there might be some hanky-panky with the elections, but we, you know, go out there and be a joyful voter for democracy.
Ezra Levin
Well, it goes far beyond just this election at all. Look, I believe that we are going to get through this as a country. We are going to get to the other side of this, but when we have a pro-democracy Congress, one that is not just fully in line, rubber-stamping everything this regime wants to do, it’s not going to be enough to just have gone… gotten through a midterm election, we’ve got to use the power that the people invest in that Congress to actually address the corruption that we’re seeing from this regime and regime affiliates. If we don’t do that, it will further delegitimize the political process. People will increasingly think it doesn’t matter. And I think people are voting this year on costs and corruption. They’re voting on affordability and accountability. That’s what they want to see. And if there is a major outcome in this election, and then Congress doesn’t do anything, it’s the same old, same old, it’s going to lead to so many more people thinking, we shouldn’t even participate. And whether or not Congress participates is not just based on what happens in November, it’s based on, are people organizing to push them? on January 3rd, when the new Congress is seated, to get them to use that power. So, running through the tape is not just getting through early vote, it’s not just getting through the election, it’s not just getting to Congress to be seated, it is getting Congress to use that power to make people believe in the political process.
Tim Dickinson
Now, I know you guys were playing in the primaries, and we’ve sort of come to the end of primary season, and the idea there was to get people who were not going to sit on the sidelines, or sort of, you know, you guys, things are complicated, I don’t want to stick my neck out. You wanted fighters and warriors, and I wonder how… just, what are your reflections on the… getting involved in the primary process, and what the lessons learned are there?
Ezra Levin
Look, I’m so proud of the Indivisible Movement for jumping headfirst in this. This was, the largest midterm primary that we’ve ever engaged in in Indivisible’s now nearly 10-year history, and it was entirely driven from the grassroots level. Indivisible National only got involved in races where the local Indivisible groups rallied around a candidate, some cases in an open seat, some cases in a challenging incumbent, and said, we’re behind this candidate. And Indivisible National then came in in those cases. And look, at the height of the Tea Party, they took down two incumbents. That’s it. I know there’s a lot of… that’s what they did. Look, we had a more than 70% win rate in the primaries that we got involved in, in both open races and challenging incumbents. And while there’s a fair amount of diversity among the candidates, ideologically and geographically, it’s from California to the West Coast, the East Coast, to the South, what we see among all these candidates is, one. None of them take AI money, none of them take crypto money, none of them take APAC money, none of them take corporate PAC money. All of them, all of them have committed to an aggressive oversight agenda. So when we get those gavels on January 3rd, we want to see subpoenas fly, we want to see hearings, we want to see testimony, we want to see investigations. And if you’re in the Senate, and you’re endorsed by Indivisible, it means you are for new leadership of the Democratic caucus in the Senate. And when we take the Senate. When we take the Senate, the candidates who will win in November and then ultimately make up that Senate majority are candidates who ran based on rejecting Chuck Schumer for leadership. We’re talking candidates in Maine, candidates in Michigan, candidates in Minnesota, candidates in Illinois. These are not candidates who are, running for election right now and saying, we gotta get Chuck Schumer to be Senate Majority Leader. They’re running on a change the party. That is great. That is how democracy should work, so… I think we are better situated now, having participated in the primary, to credibly make the case to voters that this isn’t the same Democratic Party that has failed them in the past. This is a new Democratic Party with new leadership and new commitment to actually meet the needs of voters where they are. I’m thrilled with how the primary season went. I think it set us up to take on this regime in November. I think it set us up to govern in a more effective way come January.
Tim Dickinson
Well, you are certainly fired up and ready to go. Do you have any closing thoughts you want to make sure our listeners and our viewers come away with?
Ezra Levin
None of this is a fait accompli. None of this is foreordained. None of this is just gonna happen. I believe that we will win, and the reason why I believe we will win is not because it’s written in the stars, but because there are people organizing everywhere. So if you are not yet connected to your local community. Go to NoKings.org, find your local No Kings event on October 17th. If there is not yet one, pull a few friends together and get it together. That’s how we save democracy, not by just having the right opinions, not just by listening to talking heads like me talk, but by doing the work in your own community. So NoKings.org, get ready, October 17th is where we start to make real change.
Tim Dickinson
All right, our power is in our solidarity. Thank you, Ezra, and great to always have you on The Contrarian.
Ezra Levin
Good talking to you.
