‘Let’s make these folks famous’: the leftwing push to raise 18 Republicans’ profiles

They are all, in fact, Republican members of Congress. And progressive activists argue that their fate is more crucial to the future of American democracy than more high-profile rightwing political figures such as Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Indivisible, a leftwing political umbrella movement founded in response to Donald Trump's election as president in 2016, has launched a campaign to unseat 18 Republican members of the House of Representatives from districts that Joe Biden won in the election of 2020.

The "Unrepresentatives" initiative is based on the premise that these 18 districts - not the safe, deep red ones of Gaetz and Greene - will determine if Republicans maintain control of the US lower chamber next year. They are the "Achilles heel" of the Maga (Make America great again) House.

"These are folks who are not in the headlines," said Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, acknowledging that the sole exception is Congressman George Santos because of his outlandish lies. "But the other 17, I would guess practically no Americans have ever heard of and are not hearing of right now because they have a different pathway to re-election. They understand this. They're not dummies."

Although the 18 are in swing districts, they are not really moderates. They are under pressure to raise money for their next election campaign. That means they have to make commitments to donors about how they will vote in Congress - which is in line with Greene and the Maga wing of the party about 95% of the time.

Speaking from Austin, Texas, Levin explained: "They are basically Marjorie Taylor Greenes in how they vote. But then that gets to the third step: they've got to convince the constituents in their own districts that, while Congress is messed up and there's a lot of dysfunction there, they're normal, everyday folks who just want the best for their constituents."

"It's tricky to do that when you have a voting record that looks like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But that is the strategy. The way you accomplish that is by keeping your head down, by not making a lot of headlines, by not advertising every vote you take that looks like Marjorie Taylor Greene's vote."