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In the last couple of months, a new political group has emerged in the Rochester area as part of a nationwide resistance movement.

Borrowing tactics once used by the Tea Party, Indivisible Rochester seeks to effect the same political earthquake as its conservative predecessor, but in a progressive direction.

Its handiwork can be seen locally in various ways: at town hall meetings where activists coordinate their questions in advance; on Facebook where daily action lists are posted to instruct activists which legislators and members of Congress to deluge with calls; in rallies held outside DFL lawmakers' Rochester offices at the Northgate Mall urging resistance to President Donald Trump's agenda and policies.

Many of these Indivisible Rochester activists describe themselves as casual or even indifferent observers of politics until the last several months. They indulged in the usual political rituals. They voted. They followed the news. But few imagined or saw themselves as activists until they were jolted out of their political passivity -- several said by the election of President Trump, whose policies and behavior they saw as an assault on their values.

At one Indivisible Rochester meeting, 80 percent of hands flew up when an Indivisible leader asked how many people had never been politically active before, one member said. There are more than 400 people listed on Indivisible Rochester Facebook.

They view the current moment as a historical turning point. They see the totality of Trump's and GOP lawmakers' agenda the Muslim travel ban, the crackdown on undocumented workers, the proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood, the cutting of Meals on Wheels and a health care proposal that would have led to millions losing their health insurance as a fundamental challenge to the way they see the country.

Laura Zumbrunnen, a Rochester entrepreneur who runs a biomedical startup company, said she was never an overtly political person until she joined Indivisible. Today, she attends forums and rushes to legislative hearings in St. Paul. She confesses to being scared at the prospect of being labeled an activist, "yet, I'm willing to do that," she said. Indivisible appealed to her because she saw it more as offering a plan of action than an ideological platform.

"For me, it was important that it wasn't an extreme group because I'm someone who hasn't been active, and I'm leery of that kind of thing," Zumbrunnen said. "The fact that this was so practical and not particularly ideological appealed to me a lot."

Agitated and fearful, uncertain what to do next, several said they gravitated to Indivisible because it offered a guide, a step-by-step manual crafted by former congressional staffers who had observed the Tea Party and distilled its lessons.

These staffers gleaned two strategic lessons from the the Tea Party's rise and success in thwarting former President Barack Obama's agenda. One was that small, locally based groups could be powerful agents for change.

And two, their efforts were almost entirely defensive. They avoided any attempts at policy development that might fracture their ranks. And instead they focused on resistance.

Practical knowledge, combined with Facebook's ability to connect, has allowed Indivisible to grow, as well as coordinate and mobilize.

That action plan is what drew people such as Suzanne Peterson, a Rochester attorney, to Indivisible.

"Some of us were itching to do something," Peterson said. "We didn't want to just post, not just Facebook and commiserate. We wanted to be active."

It's difficult to say how many Indivisible chapters there are, but Rochester activists believe they are part of a growing nationwide groundswell. They describe Indivisible as loosely organized, a work still in its infancy. Its lack of structure allows people to gravitate to the issues and concerns that interest them.

For some, the cause has become all-consuming.

"I gave up my life, really," said Deb Duffy-Smet, a Rochester mother and grandmother. "It's like a full-time job. The thing is for me: I have five kids spread across the U.S. I have four grandkids and growing. And I'm scared to death what kind of world that we're leaving for my children."

Indivisible members believe the group's efforts have begun to pay off. They cite the failure of House Republicans to pass legislation last week that would have repealed and replaced Obamacare as one sign of the movement's impact.

The conservative Freedom Caucus has been assigned much of the blame for torpedoing the bill, but moderate Republicans opposed the bill, too. And that moderate opposition, they argue, was stiffened and reinforced by Indivisible members and other activist groups, who flooded Washington switchboards.

At the state level, an Indivisible Rochester group has focused on tracking bills at the state Legislature. For most of these Indivisible members new to the legislative process, following the progress of a bill is like peering into tea leaves.

"I have to say: Anyone who wants to track these bills, they could not make it any more difficult," one Indivisible Rochester member said at a recent meeting.

Of particular concern to the group have been redistricting bills authored by GOP Rep. Sarah Anderson and Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer.

Indivisible members say the bills would lead to gerrymandered districts and an unfair playing field because they would disallow an independent commission or the state Supreme Court from drawing congressional and state legislative districts.

On Feb. 24, after a 24-hour Facebook notice went out, Indivisible activists and other opponents of the bill packed a hearing room in St. Paul to oppose the bills.

Recently, it was discovered that a Senate omnibus bill had been changed. It no longer containing language that confined redistricting to the state Legislature only.

"This is indeed a HUGE victory!" DFL Rep. Jennifer Schultz, of Duluth, wrote in an email. Shultz is authoring a bill that would delegate redistricting to a nonpartisan independent commission. "I think the activists did play a role, with so many testifiers, emails and phone calls."

But she noted the redistricting language still could be introduced in conference committee, "so we are a long way from over."

Asked if she was aware of Indivisible at the Legislature, Sen. Carla Nelson, a Rochester Republican, said she has held five town hall meetings since the legislative session started, all of them well-attended.

"As in the past, I receive a high volume of emails daily," she wrote in an email. "I read them all and try to respond to as many constituents as possible. While there have been more town halls than usual, the volume of email is usual hundreds per day."

Activists point out that Indivisible is not the only resistance movement in Southeast Minnesota. Other groups include Minnesota Southeast Progressives and Stand Up, Minnesota. Given the welter of such groups, concerns have been raised by some that the groups overlap to the point of redundancy. The groups have been talking among themselves about ways in which to better differentiate themselves.

Sarah Hocker, a member of Indivisible Rochester and chair of Rochester United Now, another grassroots group, sees value in the diversity of activist groups.

"I've heard that concern from a lot of different people. 'Why are there so many groups?" Hocker said. "I tend to strongly disagree. I think people need to work where they are and where they feel most comfortable. These different groups have formed for a reason, and it also makes it more grassroots."

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Local progressive group adopts Tea Party tactics - Post-Bulletin