Washtenaw Alliance 2026+

These slides come from Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
You can follow Timothy Snyder on Substack here, and watch John Lithgow read the Twenty Lessons here.

Purpose

We invite you to join us in a series of monthly community potlucks bringing together Washtenaw County residents to collectively combat the threats we face to our democracy and our well-being. 

These potlucks are intended to gather leaders and members of multiple organizations to support collective action, as well as to serve as an entry point for people who haven’t been involved and are looking for a way in.

Our vision is that these gatherings will include social bonding time, information-sharing, self-care, development of strategies and tactics, training in effective techniques to build a resilient pro-democracy movement, and opportunities to support direct action.

We know that a key component of successful anti-authoritarian movements is sustained mobilization of a broad coalition of people. We aim to begin building and equipping that coalition here in Washtenaw County now.

The specific dates are:

In 2025, September 14, October 12, November 9, December 14
In 2026, January 11, February 8, March 8, April 12, May 17, June 14, July 12, August 9, September 13, and October 11

Location will be provided with registration at WashtenawDems.org/potluck-signup

Coalition allies so far:

Do you want to join the coalition?

Let us know.

Monthly program and materials:

Take Action:

MIvoter.org is the source of all the current information you need to find actions to help preserve our democracy. Here are things you can do today, just by entering your street address (which is never stored):

1. See the list of protests in your county or submit new ones!
2. Ballot petitions are circulating!  Sign the good ones and avoid the bad ones.  See which is which.
3. Read how Trump’s “big beautiful bill” hurts Michiganders — and tell your friends!
4. Need more ideas?  See a detailed list of other actions you can take.
5. Find your county’s Democratic parties & clubs & get their newsletters.  Learn about events and opportunities to help, in your area.
6. Follow MIvoter to receive a monthly email about other actions.  And Share MIvoter with your friends!

(And it’s worth remembering some good news from the November election, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.)

Stay Informed:

Harvard Constitution course (audit for free, or take for Harvard credit) 

There are many outstanding resources available to us. Here are all training materials from Indivisible’s One Million Rising series.

Here are writers on Substack whom we find essential:

Chris Armitage, The Existential Republic

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid

Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

Scot Nakagawa, The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook 

Timothy Snyder, Thinking About . . . (and John Lithgow performing Snyder’s 20 Lessons on Tyranny)