There were eight people in Pat Page’s living room in Port Ludlow on Jan. 18 for a meeting of a new group called Indivisible Port Ludlow. There were 46 people crammed into her living room on Monday, Jan. 30.

“And if we get many more, we’ll have to move to the development’s club house,” said Page of a new grassroots group that was started to resist President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Page and her husband, Bob, got together with neighbors Janette Hammond and Deric Hammond to start a local Indivisible chapter after Rachel Maddow touted the national grassroots advocacy program on her TV show, Page said.

“Her endorsement of it led to a huge expansion across the country,” said Page of a program that was started to serve as a guide for showing people how to advocate.

According to the Indivisible website, the Port Ludlow chapter is not the only chapter in Jefferson County. There also is a chapter called MI Resistance (Marrowstone Island), based in Nordland with 39 members, and another based in Port Townsend, with 177 members.

LIKE THE TEA PARTY

“You may be upset with the current administration or something that’s going on in the government, but the most effective way to facilitate change is through your local senators and congressmen,” Page said.

“It’s actually modeled after the very highly effective methods of the Tea Party, without the bad behavior,” Page added.

“We wanted to be sure that we were forming a group that had a legal, positive, peaceful way to resist the Trump agenda of racism. He has a very noninclusive agenda,” Page said.

Toward that, Page said she believes it will be a bumpy road for sometime to come with Trump.

“The best we can do is to slow things down and stay on our congressional representatives to embolden them and make sure whatever they do, we’ll be behind them 100 percent, as long as they are resisting that agenda,” she said.

Issues of concern are the future of Social Security and Medicare, issued that would impact the retirement communities of Port Ludlow.

Page said she expects to host regular meetings of the Indivisible chapter. The national organization is also working with Move On, which recently gave a teleconference to encourage people to head to their representatives’ offices.

Page and others from Port Ludlow met Jan. 24 with U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer’s representatives in Tacoma as well representatives for Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell.

“Kilmer is very in touch with his constituency,” Page said.

“We are part of the national Indivisible movement promoting a peaceful, rational, legal confrontation with the Trump administration,” said cofounder Eric Hammond.

Page said representatives asked for stories about what it meant to have health care.

“We’re planning on expanding our membership and when we get the call, we want to implement it and do whatever they ask,” Page said.

Page is no newcomer to activism. She was part of the National Association of Music Merchants, which was founded to keep music in local schools.