Two groups that receive a significant amount of their funding from left-of-center dark money networks have helped inspire House Republicans to call off public town halls following a string of protests the groups helped to organize.
Indivisible and MoveOn both disseminated information to their networks of activists showing them where Republican members of Congress would be holding town hall meetings and encouraging them to show up and voice their displeasure with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. The tactic seemingly worked, with viral clips of enraged constituents criticizing Republican lawmakers circulating online. The House GOP’s campaign arm advised representatives on Tuesday to cease in-person town halls.
This apparent victory over Republicans by Indivisible and MoveOn was made possible by the millions of dollars in funding they have received from dark money sources over the years, according to a Washington Examiner review of tax filings.
Indivisible and MoveOn are funded by organizations linked to the institutional Left, including millions of dollars from the Soros philanthropic network, according to multiple reports. A Washington Examiner review of records showed that a significant amount of funding to these groups also came from dark money sources. Dark money is a term typically used to describe the process through which contributions from large-dollar donors filter into politics anonymously. Transparency advocates have long argued that dark money is both a vector for foreign influence and serves to obscure key information from the public.
The Tides network, a financial nexus used by moneyed liberal donors to inject funds anonymously into a range of advocacy groups, was among the largest donors to both Indivisible and MoveOn, granting the former over $4 million and the latter nearly $1 million in recent years. Tides is no stranger to funding mass protest movements, having provided financial support to many of the groups involved in the pro-Palestinian protests that swept the United States following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.
Fund for a Better Future, a 501(c)(4) organization funded by anonymous donors, was one of the largest donors to Indivisible, having granted the group over $3 million.
Before Republicans axed their town hall meetings, Indivisible was planning on running their protest playbook again to target members of Congress as they returned to their districts for March recess. Activists aligned with the organization were invited to share their email addresses and zip codes so they could be informed of events near them to attend. MoveOn employs a similar strategy, publicizing a webpage where protesters can input their zip codes and view events near them on a map.
“This isn’t grassroots — it’s manufactured productions, orchestrated to distract voters from the Democrats’ failed and out of touch record,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement denouncing the town hall protests. “As President Trump said, it’s not going to work for them.”
Indivisible frames the problem differently, arguing that voters did not elect Elon Musk and that he is asserting undue influence on policy in ways that will affect ordinary people.
Similar to what Marinella claimed, some groups with explicit ties to the Democratic Party were responsible for bankrolling the town hall protests. Nonprofit organizations managed by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors collectively poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Indivisible and MoveOn. Arabella Advisors network is an active part of the Democratic financial machine, churning out tens of millions of dollars in checks every election cycle to fund liberal ballot measures, left-wing super PACs, and get-out-the-vote efforts tailored toward Democratic constituencies.
The Working Families Party, which frequently allies with the Democrats and funds their candidates, also organized anti-DOGE protests. Their demonstrations consisted of gathering like-minded activists to picket outside the district offices of multiple swing district Republicans, reportedly drawing over 100 protesters in some cases.
FOREIGN-FUNDED DARK MONEY ORG PUMPED MILLIONS INTO LEFT-WING GROUPS DURING 2024 ELECTIONS
Both parties have long accused each other of staging artificial protests to embarrass each other, making the operations conducted by Indivisible and MoveOn nothing new in American politics.
The NRCC did not respond to a request for comment.
