About the National Convergence for Democracy
The National Convergence for Democracy is a three-day gathering in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) designed to bring together base building organizers, movement leaders, labor, faith leaders, direct action practitioners, free radicals, political educators, legal advocates, academics, culture workers, artists, students, and community responders to learn, plan, design, and coordinate the next iteration of democracy defense in the United States.
CORE GOALS
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Be prepared for authoritarian escalation around elections and other threats to civil society.
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Document, share, and analyze learnings from both recent resistance to authoritarianism. Offer anti-authoritarian political education rooted in historic and global examples of successful mass resistance.
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Develop shared political frameworks and strategic orientation toward actions such as noncooperation and coordinated and decentralized rapid response. If the elections are stolen - we need to be ready to respond together.
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Deepen practical skills in rapid mobilization, safety, legal strategy, communications, mutual aid, and security.
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Provide a space for finding your people, building across differences and strengthening relationships of individuals and groups.
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Create structured space for grief processing, and rebuilding trust across networks strained by repression, burnout, and interpersonal rupture.
OUTCOMES
By the end of the gathering, participants will have:
Stronger alignment around the strategic use of coordinated mass non-compliance, including corporate actions, strikes, shutdowns, and collective refusal for the purpose of winning concrete victories and stopping the rise of authoritarianism.
Strengthened cross-regional relationships capable of supporting future coordinated action.
Greater readiness to respond collectively and strategically under conditions of repression. ex: election defense when they try to steal it.
Shared stories and lived experiences from Minnesota’s resistance and community defense response. A grounded analysis of what worked, what was a struggle, and what must evolve in future moments of escalation.
Expanded tactical capacity in rapid mobilization, patrols, mutual aid, safety culture, legal strategy, communications, digital tools, and movement infrastructure. Exchanged practical skills, tactical innovations, songs, and hard-earned lessons across regions and movements.
Deeper political clarity rooted in historic and global examples of successful resistance to authoritarianism.
PROGRAM
This will be a three-day gathering structured around plenaries, panels, hands-on trainings, mass tabling, and open space. There will be constituency track, including:
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More coming soon!
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Multiple simultaneous sessions across issue areas, tactics, and regions. The event will be intentionally too large for everyone to be in the same space at once. Regional meetups, caucuses, and strategy labs will allow participants to self-organize around shared priorities.
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More coming soon!
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More coming soon!
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More coming soon!
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Investment
To make this ambitious and necessary convening happen we estimate a budget of $1,000,000. That will fund project management, venue(s), audio/visual, security, travel scholarships for people with roles, facilitator honoraria, interpretation and accessibility, childcare, food, legal, and documentation, and materials.