Traverse Indivisible and Leelanau Indivisible, the co-hosts of a Jack Bergman town hall event scheduled to take place this Saturday at Milliken Auditorium, have issued a joint public response to claims a Bergman staffer made about their event in a recent Ticker article.

As The Ticker reported last week, Traverse Indivisible and Leelanau Indivisible have been leading local protests and resistance efforts ever since President Donald Trump took office in January. Among those efforts has been a push to get northern Michigan’s Congressional officials – particularly Jack Bergman, the Republican who represents Michigan’s 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives – to visit Traverse City for in-person events.

This Saturday, March 22, Traverse Indivisible and Leelanau Indivisible will host a “Jack Bergman Town Hall” to give constituents a forum to voice their concerns. While Bergman has been invited to that event, though, he is not expected to attend.

“The Congressman will not now, or ever, attend a George Soros-funded so-called town hall,” James Hogge, Bergman’s communications director, told The Ticker when asked whether his boss was planning to be there for this weekend’s Indivisible event. 

Soros, a 94-year-old billionaire philanthropist, is widely vilified by Republicans for his support of left-leaning causes and organizations. Hogge’s message included a link showing the $9.475 million in grants that Open Society Foundations (OSF), the grantmaking network founded by Soros, has given to the national Indivisible Project since 2017. The Indivisible Project is a grassroots movement founded in 2016 “to resist the Trump agenda.” Local chapters have since sprung up in many places throughout the country, including in northern Michigan.

Now, the local Indivisible groups have issued a joint statement refuting Hogge’s claim that their March 22 event is in any way paid for by Soros.

“To be clear, this March 22 town hall is being funded entirely by hundreds of individual donors,” the statement reads. “There has been a tremendous surge in donations and membership out of heightened concerns that the incoming administration is directly threatening our safety, our security, the economy, and the very rule of law. We remind Representative Bergman and his communications director that, as crowds of voters often chant at our events, ‘This is what democracy looks like.’”

Per the statement, most local Indivisible actions – such as a recent string of protests and demonstrations around Traverse City – are also funded by local donations.

“None of thousands of people that have turned out have received a dime from us or from Indivisible National,” the groups write, a response to claims from Republican leadership that recent public backlash against Trump has been the work of paid protesters. “They are speaking out publicly because they are deeply concerned about the harsh impacts of the new administration. They are exercising their First Amendment right of free speech.”

“Jack Bergman would like to think that outsiders are funding the groundswell of opposition to his unquestioning support for Trump, [Elon] Musk, and MAGA,” the statement concludes. “But voters around his district are fed up with him, and they want him to know it. It's sad that he can't accept the fact that these are real people with real concerns and real stories to tell about how their lives have already been harmed by the reckless and vindictive actions of the Trump administration. Our invitation to Rep. Bergman to meet with the people of his district on March 22 still stands.”