ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to blend insights from network theory and social movement theory to appreciate the conceptual value of an argument network. It provides a brief description of the organizing of “Indivisible” groups to resist President Donald Trump’s political agenda. Traditionally, a rhetorical perspective on argumentation attends to the “symbolic means by which people try to influence one another’s beliefs, values, and actions”. From a materialist perspective, since the communicative labor of argumentation finds itself dispersed across different social processes, argumentation scholars may find added benefit from a focus on argument’s role in contentious politics rather than the normative assumptions of public theory. Argument networks are forms of networked power that are stronger or weaker depending on their composition, political opportunities, and their ability to mobilize action to “enable a particular end”. The communicative labor of building local indivisible groups is then put to the purpose of contentious politics in an effort to block the Trump agenda.
