Call your elected representatives. (If you think it won’t make a difference, read on.) Call them today and tomorrow and ask them to support delaying the electoral college vote and/or to support a full intelligence briefing for electors. It will take you 1 minute.
Yesterday news broke that Putin was personally involved in attempting to influence our election. At the very least, this issue deserves as much of an investigation as Hillary Clinton’s emails were subjected to.
If you’re horrified about Syria (please never forget that Putin is on Assad’s side and is complicit in this unthinkably violent genocide), call your reps and ask them to delay the vote/brief the electors.
If you believe that foreign governments should not interfere in our elections, call your reps and ask them to delay the vote/brief the electors.
If you believe that it’s important to at least try to stop this utterly disastrous administration before it starts, call your reps and ask them to delay the vote/brief the electors.
Look up senators here: http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/
Look up house reps here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Keep it simple: let your reps know that you’re a constituent, that you’re concerned that Russia’s interference in our election has not been fully investigated, and that electors cannot make an informed decision on Monday without a full briefing on the situation. Ask your rep to publicly support a delay in voting and/or a full intelligence briefing for electors. Give your name and number and ask them to follow up with you.
Call these three representatives, who have publicly spoken in favor of a briefing, to tell them you support them and commend their bravery: Don Beyer (Va.) (703) 658-5403; David Cicilline (R.I.) 401-729-5600; Jim Himes (Conn.) (866) 453-0028.
You may think that calling your reps is futile. Individual representatives certainly do not have the authority to make a delay or a briefing happen. But calling your reps now and later matters in a deep and fundamental way.
Those of us who voted for Hillary Clinton had our right to political representation stolen from us. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes. 2.8 MILLION. America clearly said we wanted Clinton to be our president, and a combination of gerrymandering and foreign interference and fake news/propaganda took our right to self-governance away.
But voting is only one way to speak in a representative democracy. Another is to pick up a phone and call your elected officials. Calling our representatives en masse today and tomorrow and next month and for the next four years lets them know how many of their constituents do not accept the legitimacy of this administration. That matters when it comes time to fight the awful policies Trump is going to try to push through. He’s going to keep lying and saying that he won decisively and eventually people are going to forget that this is a lie. Call and write now to let your reps know that you know it is a lie. Trump does not have the support of the majority of voters in this country. (Even people who voted for him didn’t actually vote for the policies he proposed.) We have to shout this from the rooftops now and throughout this presidency.
Yes, the system is broken in fundamental ways; lobbyists have most of the power when it comes to influencing our representatives. There is no guarantee that pressure from constituents will make a difference. But there is an absolute guarantee that silence from constituents will make it easy for Trump to dismantle the EPA, Roe v. Wade, religious freedom, the Affordable Care Act, the minimal banking regulations we have, along with basically everything else that keeps life from being completely miserable for your average American citizen. We cannot make it easy for this administration to do any of those things.
If a senator’s office fields calls all day about one issue, they have ammunition to fight for what their constituents want. If a representative can bring a stack of letters to the House or Senate floor and show how many of their constituents care about an issue, they have proof that they are working for the wishes of the people they represent (a staffer in Claire McCaskill’s office told me that letters can be more effective than phone calls because they can be logged and collected, and a stack of paper is a visible representation of constituent concern. Calls are also good, but ask for the office to follow up with you – make sure they take your phone number and/or address and contact them again if they don’t follow up). I’ve talked to people who have lobbied for LGBTQ+ rights in Missouri – reddest of the red state legislatures – and who have won significant victories because they have been able to amplify the voices of Missourians who believe that civil rights are for everyone. We cannot be silent if we’re going to preserve civil rights nationally. Every single one of us who believes passionately that Trump is going to destroy this country (and this planet) has to call or write our representatives every time damaging legislation is on the floor or there is a chance to contest his legitimacy. It has to become a regular practice and it has to start now.
Democratic leadership has failed us in the fight to have a thorough investigation of Russian involvement in this election, which is a travesty. There is no evidence that they’re going to do a better job in the future, and this puts the burden of resisting Trump on us. There is no other choice but to lift that burden. Ordinary people are now the last line of defense against a madman. Get loud. Be heard. CALL YOUR REPS. We cannot go down without a fight.
Practical resources: check out this sample script of an effective call, and check out this guide to effectively resisting Trump’s disastrous agenda.
