Northfield Indivisible

Local Actions Matter: Safeguarding Democracy at the Community Level

July 7, 2026

Good morning, Everyone!

I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend!

Now that we’ve passed that milestone, it’s time to turn our attention to another, critical one — the midterm election.

As we all know, the MAGA regime will continue to push it’s white supremacist, Christian Nationalist, Klepto-Oligarchic Cult of Personality onto the American people.

They are announcing that they will do everything they can, regardless of legality, to deny us our voice.

We will not let that happen. This is the defining fight of our time, and we must rise to it.

In that spirit, there are a number of practical workshops, organizations and information sources where you can get involved and do something practical.

I am continually amazed at the power that one local MAGA judge, sheriff, council person, or auditor has to deny our vote and silence our voice. It’s up to each of us, and all of us, to make democracy work at the local level. It is the foundation of our power, and freedom, in a democracy. The madness that we are experiencing now has it’s roots in a conscious effort to control local governance.

We can do something about that.

This past week I joined in on an online webinar sponsored by WE CHOOSE US, which focused on county-level action (and city-level) to protect our right to vote, and have our vote counted. I strongly recommend you sit in on one if you can, and if you can’t, check out their resources to protect the vote.

The League of Women Voters is also sponsoring workshops, seminars and webinars on protecting our vote.

And of course, National Indivisible has some great resources for this.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve updated this website a bit, mostly the front page, and have several links in there that you can use to empower us as fight forward.

Don’t give up! Keep fighting! This really is the most important election of our lifetime.

(Oh, to live in “precedented” times!)

Stay strong!

Steve

July 3rd, 2026

So, I know it’s been a while, but we’re coming back. We’ve done some introspection, some strategizing, a lot of research, and enough rest to carry on the fight.

We’ll have more after the holiday, but on this weekend, I thought I’d just leave this here….

Enjoy the weekend!

“…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security….

The history of the present King … is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distancefrom the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

— United States Delclaration of Independence, 1776

April 20, 2026

Tonight is our monthly, in-person meeting at the Cannon Valley Friends Meeting house, here in Northfield.

I neglected to post last week, but I’m trying to start off this week a little better!

So here’s a post of what I plan on saying in my allocated 5 minutes tonight.

So if you plan on being there, 6:30-8 pm tonight, 4/20, you’re likely to hear me say this in person! 🙂

Good evening everyone.

Welcome.  Tonight we’ve got a few things to cover, so I want to keep it moving. 

We’ve got Kaela Berg here to talk with us about her views and positions on things as she runs for Angie Craig’s seat in Congress.

We did No Kings 3 almost a month ago, now, and we’ve got May Day coming up, Friday, May 1^st, 3-4 at Bridge Square, so we’ll cover some of the details on those shortly.

And we’re (finally) going to break into groups to discuss how (or if) we move forward as Northfield Indivisible.

But I’ve got 5 minutes to speak my piece here at the top, so I’ll share some thoughts with that opportunity.

We are living under a Mad King. A mad king who’s been put in place by a concerted effort by a political party whose plan has always been to take away our democracy, do away with our government and its duty to represent the people.  To put in place a new feudal system.  One that would place the president as the unaccountable king, and the oligarchs and corporate CEOs as the nobles and gentry class, with the rest of us merely fodder for their profits.

This concerted effort has stacked the courts, demolished our education and healthcare systems, sold off our natural resources and treasures, destroyed our environmental protections and social safety net.  It has sent masked, unidentified, heavily-armed gangs of thugs into the streets of American cities and towns to harass, detain, and kill US citizens – all without accountability.

It has enabled the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of our country to the top <1%. And in what is likely the greatest scale of corruption this country has ever seen, the president and his family have enriched themselves by over $4 BILLION dollars in bribes and sweetheart deals directly related to his election.

(and suing us, the taxpayers, for $10B because the IRS accidently released some information about his tax returns.)

He now says that we need to give his Dept. of “War” $1.5 TRILLION, plus another $200 BILLION to fund his illegal war of choice, (at a cost of nearly $2B per day), while cutting all social programs and aid, because “we can’t afford it”.  

(In September 2025 alone, Pete “Kegsbreath” spent approximately $22 million for high-end food items used for military dining facilities and morale-boosting “deployment meals” including: 

• Ribeye Steaks: $15.1 million
• Lobster Tails: $6.9 million
• Alaskan King Crab: $2.0 million
• Miscellaneous: $139,224 on donuts and $124,000 on ice cream machines.)

We are fighting against an enormous machine that has been working for the last 40 years (at least) to rig our system and our economy so that we can’t fight back.

The cruelty, the chaos, the corruption, the incessant lies and threats, the secret deals and corporate control of our access to information – our move towards “Idiocracy” has been planned, implemented and structured around us to prevent our ability to control our own lives. 

It can feel overwhelming. And it is intentional.

We are all just trying to get by. To manage our lives and families, our work and our home in the midst of this seemingly unending storm.

Our politicians have failed us.

Our courts (especially SCOTUS) have failed us.

“Business” and Corporate America have failed us.

Academia have failed us.

We, the people are the last line of defense.

It is exhausting, and relentless, and it often feels, as one person put it: “It’s like wetting yourself in dark pants.  You get a nice warm feeling, but no one really notices.”

But it does matter.

It does have an impact.

Contacting your representatives, local, state and national, matters.

Boycotts matter.

Mutual Aid matters.

Showing up matters.

Getting involved matters.

It makes a difference.

We have shown that here in MN.

And Hungary showed that to the world last weekend.

One of the key things we’re asking you all tonight is to be involved, to stay involved, to lead where you can, and support where you’re able.

So this is your opportunity tonight, to step up and give us not only your ideas for what we could do to, but for how we can do it, and with whom.

We know the king is faltering now, and it will get worse before it gets better.  But now is our time to push even harder and not relent.  We must keep pushing back until they are gone. Hungary has shown us how.  Minnesota knows how, too!

Thank you!

Steve