Watch out! Here comes the donkey!

Small social gathering becoming a recruitment center for community volunteers

Full Disclosure: The author of this post inspired the formation of the Donkey Club and its naming the day after the 2022 elections. However, since that day, he has been just another member attending the luncheons. Super volunteer coordinators Shirley Grossman and Roz Luther have made Donkey Club their personal mission from its beginning to what it is today. It’s been theirs since its first meeting.

The Donkey Club¹ started out as 15-20 Spokane County Democratic Party volunteers who wanted to stay in touch after the 2022 elections. They had formed friendships they wanted to maintain in between elections. Getting together for a monthly lunch gathering, maybe having a speaker from the community, seemed like a good idea for volunteer coordinators Shirley Grossman and Roz Luther.

They found a small banquet room at a local restaurant, invited a guest speaker, and called everyone to meet for lunch on the third Tuesday of each month. At first, the gathering was small, but as word got out that a group of experienced political campaign volunteers was continuing to convene every month, more political coordinators began to show up, as did more volunteers.

Two years and several months later, Shirley and Roz's small social gathering has had to change venues to accommodate a growing crowd. The speakers have become more prominent. Donkey Club still has an intimate, family feel. It’s just a much bigger family now.

On Tuesday, Feb. 18th at the Donkey Club’s 11:30 gathering, now at Darcy’s Restaurant and Spirits in Spokane Valley, the room was packed by more than 80 volunteers and community organizers. They all came together on this cold winter day to share their concerns about the Trump/Musk administration’s aggressive implementation of the Project 2025 agenda² and to explore what they and this community can do to respond effectively.

Former President Joe Biden called out in his farewell remarks on Jan. 15, 2025.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom," Biden warned.

Donkey Club members have taken that warning to heart, and they want to fight back every way they can. So, Donkey Club invited a few key community organizers to lunch this month to help them learn how they can join others to fight the Trump/Musk agenda in maybe small, but still effective ways.

Guest speakers Sami Perry of Indivisible Spokane, Jeff DeBray of FuseWashington, and Naida Spencer of Spokane County Democrats briefed Donkey Club members and guests on the rise of a resistance movement composed of a new alliance of community activist organizations. They also offered Club members and guests some options for action.

In fact, Perry from Indivisible Spokane, led the group in a flash action. Under her instructions, everyone broke out their cell phones and used a code number Indivisible had set up previously to simultaneously text every Republican member of the U.S. Senate a simple two-word message: “Fire Musk.”

Perry pointed out that there are 10 Indivisible groups in the Spokane area, organizing actions, getting information out to voters, and tracking the activities of our politicians and advocacy work. These 10 Indivisible groups are all over the county, including in Deer Park, Mead, and Medical Lake, Perry noted.

She told the Donkey Club diners, “At the time of the election, we had about 500 Indivisible members in Spokane. Since the inauguration, our group has exploded. We now have eleven hundred.” She invited those attending to join any Indivisible group of their choosing. (See the contact information at the end of this article).

Perry also encouraged the Donkey Club attendees to pay one or more personal visits to Michael Baumgartner’s office, 528 E. Spokane Falls Blvd #115, the old Schade Brewery Building, to let him hear your concerns. You don’t have to make an appointment. Take a friend. Go as often as you can, and carry a consistent message that will more likely strike home with Rep. Baumgartner.

“They don’t care anything about social issues, Perry said, “but the farmers are in trouble so naturally, so are all the businesses that support them. It’s just a domino effect. Talk to him (Baumgartner or his local staffer) about that. Make your voices heard. Make sure you’re talking about two things, the economy and Musk,” Perry advised.

She also encouraged listeners to call Baumgartner’s Spokane office at (509) 353-2374, to voice their concerns, especially about economic issues and Musk’s “auditors” accessing their personal information. She stressed that being relentless is a key to making this strategy work.

Wrapping up, Perry reported the late-breaking news that school districts are no longer being reimbursed for school lunches in Spokane’s schools, where 65 percent of the students qualify for free lunches.

Perry said, “Last week the funding was cut for the school lunches. Last week in Spokane School District, as they do every week, they fed the children, but when they went to send in their reimbursement request (to the Department of Education), as they always do at the end of the week, it came back ‘no address found.’”

“So the school district, not having the funds to cover the student meals, had to send invoices home to the parents with their kids,” Perry added, “This is dire, but Baumgarner doesn’t want to hear about it.”

“It’s going to get ugly,” Perry said, “These things are gonna happen; but we just need to stand up against it. I think they’ve forgotten who their bosses are. They work for us, and we need to remind them.”

Jeff DeBray, Eastern Washington director for FuseWashington, a group that lobbies for progressive policies and causes, briefed the audience on FuseWashington's efforts to host summit meetings for organizations seeking to join forces as a resistance movement fighting against the Trump administration’s Project 2025 agenda.

Debray reminded everyone that FuseWashington is hosting a Resist Summit on Saturday, April 5, 2025, from 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM at the Spokane Public Library’s Hive meetings facility at 2904 E. Sprague Ave. The purpose is to coordinate meaningful resistance actions with multiple community groups in the Spokane area. The event is co-sponsored by the Spokane County Democratic Party. Check either organization’s Web site (below) for details as the event date gets closer. Members of the public can donate to support the costs of organizing the summit at the FuseWashington Web site.

FuseWashington has played a prominent role in lobbying legislators to support key pieces of progressive legislation, especially when it comes to the state’s regressive tax system, and lending support to environmental justice being an integral part of any climate legislation. They have also occasionally weighed into political candidates’ campaigns with independent expenditures where they see an influx of outside money coming in to tilt a race to a conservative MAGA-friendly candidate and away from a more progressive one.

On this point, Debray says FuseWashington is, indeed, paying attention to the influx of outside, often dark money into previously unnotable local elections. Races for county commissions, school, and library boards are drawing in sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars from national political action committees that do not disclose their funders. Debray says FuseWashington is very much aware of how this trend since the Citizen’s United ruling of the Roberts Supreme Court is posing a threat to local control. “We’re going to be there when we need to be. We will be watching local races more closely as part of our growing alliance with local groups,” Debray said.

Naida Spencer, chair of Spokane County Democrats, who by their charter focus on local elections, invited those in the room to attend any or all of several upcoming trainings that will help volunteers to be more effective, informed campaign volunteers. Details can be found on the Spokane County Democrats website.

While she was unable to make this month’s Donkey Club, long-time activist and leader of Be the Change 509 Gladiators, Petra Hoy also had a representative of her Gladiators group at the lunch meeting to distribute a written list of upcoming volunteer action events, including postcarding and postcard parties.

The Gladiators offer opportunities to make a difference from the kitchen table by taking the simple act of sending a postcard. Hoy’s postcard parties allow volunteers who may have mobility challenges or are uncomfortable with phone banking to participate in making change by mailing thousands of targeted postcards to voters all over the country. They put their pens to work in support of candidates and legislation in states all over the country. Win some. Lose some. The bottom line is that everyone gets a chance to participate in working for progressive change.

If you think you or someone you know would be interested in some of the activities Hoy has put together for her Gladiators, check out their Facebook page below or email Petra at Be the Change… and tell her you’d like to pitch in. She can set you right up.

The Gladiators also are continuing their Tesla Tuesday protests against Elon Musk at the Liberty Lake Tesla dealership, 5:00 – 7:00 PM. Make a sign and bring it to protest Musk’s actions against citizens and the federal government, Hoy tells her Gladiators.

It was clear from the survey offered by community organizers at the Donkey Club luncheon that a full-throated pushback against the Project 2025 campaign to destroy democracy is growing right here in Spokane County.

Here’s a list of some of the organizations forming the new alliance as well as others that are encouraging and facilitating contact with elected representatives, as well as some actions and events in which concerned citizens can choose to participate:

FuseWashington
Indivisible in Spokane
Latinos en Spokane
Spokane County Democrats - Events
VoteVets-DOGE Tipline
24-hour Economic Blackout Event (Feb. 28th, Amazon Blackout March 7-14, National Strike call for March 14)
Be the Change 509 - Eastside Gladiators (Check out Tesla Tuesdays, a weekly protest of the Gladiators against Musk and DOGE at the Liberty Lake Tesla Deaership)
5Calls.org
Retired Public Employees Council

A CLOSING APPEAL: If you are a federal worker facing dismissal for the offense of simply not being in your job long enough to qualify for the civil service appeal process, or you are a family member of one of these targeted employees, I’d like to talk to you. Your identity will not be shared without your specific, express permission. Drop me a line at jimvw2@pm.me, an encrypted email service, and let me know how to reach you.

1. NOTE: The Donkey Club is an independent, unincorporated group that is not affiliated with the Spokane County Democrats or any other organization.

2. Project 2025 is a blueprint prepared by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, for a massive takeover of the federal government by the executive branch, particularly the President’s Office. The Project 2025 plan is a large volume of Constitutionally questionable proposed actions that evolved over decades from conventional conservative government recommendations, mostly to lower taxes and reduce regulation through model legislation, to this year’s version, which is much more assertive and detailed and proposes a radical takeover of the entire government within 100 days, a blitzkrieg of executive order that disregards the Constitutional roles of the legislative and judicial branches, under their theory of a “unitary executive” branch. The actions of DOGE, as well as other executive orders by Trump can be traced almost directly back to this document.