Playing the Long Game
I receive a lot of emails and texts with questions. Happy to answer, but if you put them in the comments, other people could see the answers, too. Just sayin’.
One group of questions that pop up regularly relate to contacting elected officials. Some of them are along the lines of:
“I’m really busy, I don’t have time to call or write. Is it really that important?”
YESSSSSSSSSSS It’s really important!
Similar:
“My Senator/Rep is a Rethuglican. Why bother?”
Because it matters.
Whether they admit it or not, publish or not, even whisper about it, every single office keeps track of calls, emails, texts1, letters2 and postcards. THEY KNOW where their constituency stands.
Currently, a lot of MAGA cultists wouldn’t dare publicly cross the Orange Menace. But one of the things that got the fascist regime to rescind the order pausing funding last week was because a lot of GOP Senators heard from their constituents and they quietly made their objections known to the White House. Really.
I have heard that people are calling and getting “mailbox full” when they try to leave a message. *IF* an office is completely overwhelmed with calls, they may not pull the messages. There’s nothing we can do about that, except to realize that US Senators have multiple offices around the state, you can try a different office. Congressmen/women will generally only have two offices: one in DC and on in the district, but you can try both numbers.
A good fall back is Resistbot.
KEEP TRYING! Remember, we are playing the long game. We keep it up!
Remember, phone calls are imperative for “quick action” like a vote that is coming up in the next several days, but for things on the horizon, sending emails is something to consider. In a lot of cases, emails get read.
I sent an email through John Fetterman’s website. For all elected officials, they make you choose a topic from their list, and often they don’t have my topic. Therefore, I pick something (often “agriculture”) to see if I’ll get a form letter back on the selected topic. My email was about confirmations, and I received a response ABOUT confirmations, and not agriculture, which indicated they actually read it3.
If you’re interested in finding “forward thinking” topics on which to call out your elected reps, courtesy of Politico, here are the list of cuts that the Senate and the House are going to consider. BEFORE they’re looking at legislation and it’s time to rally the troops, it pays to understand what they’re going to do, and write in opposition to specific proposals. When you read the lists, there’s a possibility that you will be unfamiliar with the underlying legislation. Put questions in the comments and I’ll help you out.
If you are a member of Indivisible, and attended the Sunday night call, you know about the upcoming visits this Wednesday and Thursday to some Senators’ offices. If you’re not a member of Indivisible, you should join. You can join the national organization here. You can find your local Indivisible group here. If you live in my area, Chester County, PA, please join us at this direct link, and consider signing up for one of our local teams.
Deportation Long Game
There is no stopping the current deportation actions, but remember, we are playing the long game, and it’s going to take a certain amount of time for the country to see the impacts of this ill-designed initiative.
Right now, most Americans support deportation in general, and especially of criminals. There were three major polls in the field in January, and you can read all the deets here4. So long as there is enough support, the deportations will continue.
But let’s look ahead.
A Times analysis indicates that undocumented immigrants paid $3.1 billion (with a b) in NY state and local taxes in 2022. The same source for that data tidbit points out that nationwide, a third of the taxes paid by undocumented immigrants goes to payroll taxes. “Payroll taxes” include FICA, which funds Medicare and Social Security. These folks pay in, but cannot collect. In 2024, 80% of undocumented NYC residents were in the workforce, compared to about 66% of American-born NYC residents. The same analysis dug down into the impacts of deportation on the restaurant/food industry, childcare and construction. Not pretty. Link.
In DC, the Restaurant Association has put together a set of fact sheets not just about immigrant rights, and what to do if ICE shows up at your restaurant, but also about overall preparedness. They see the coming problem.
Playing the long game means that in likely 6 months, there will be huge problems to local and state governments, decreased remittances to the Federal government, plus closed restaurants, even more unaffordable childcare, problems throughout both the healthcare and hospitality industries, and a decrease in the ability to undertake construction of houses and businesses. And that doesn’t even include the huge increase in prices of fruits, vegetables, poultry, pork and beef. I wrote about the dairy impacts back in October, in case you missed it.
IF they can deport the number of humans they dream of deporting, the impacts are unavoidable. Since the fascist regime doesn’t think things through, they will be in a big pickle trying to solve the economic and logistical problems, not to mention people complaining constantly that they can’t afford food, and other horrors.
The Legal Long Game
A while back (actually only about a week, but doesn’t it feel like dog years?) I dedicated part of the Friday Potpourri to lawsuits.
These lawsuits AND OTHERS! are still ongoing. For example, the spending freeze was paused by the fascist regime after huge blowback, but 22 state Attorneys General plus DC, (led by the inimitable Tish James) filed a suit asking a judge to invalidate the OMB freeze. It’s one of two suits, and it looks like they’ve got standing, AND Judge John McConnell indicated that he’s inclined to concur. GUARDRAIL HOLDING!
Remember for ALLLLL the lawsuits, first the side of truth and light goes for a temporary restraining order (TRO), which can often be achieved quickly, and then for a preliminary injunction while the cases progress. That takes a few months as the sides submit documentation (or in the case of the fascist regime, utter nonsense) and the TRO normally stays in place while the preliminary injunction is being adjudicated.
This happened last night, when Judge Loren Alikhan of the DC District Court issued a TRO so that even though the fascist regime said they were pausing the OMB freeze of Federal grants, now they cannot go back on that. Statement from Democracy Forward (which filed the suit) here. Full TRO here. Most fun quote:
ORDERED that Defendants are enjoined from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in OMB Memorandum M-25-13 with respect to the disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards; it is further
ORDERED that Defendants must provide written notice of the court’s temporary restraining order to all agencies to which OMB Memorandum M-25-13 was addressed. The written notice shall instruct those agencies that they may not take any steps to implement, give effect to, or reinstate under a different name the directives in OMB Memorandum M-25-13 with respect to the disbursement of Federal Funds under all open awards. It shall also instruct those agencies to release any disbursements on open awards that were paused due to OMB Memorandum M-25-13
Then, what we mere mortals consider “the court case” is undertaken. Possibly with delays. You know, discovery, findings, trials, appeals and eventually to SCOTUS. This is a LONG long game.
Yes, I know that every day is a new insanity. My best advice is to think small. That is, what small action can you take today, or participate in this week, that will make a difference. Trying to keep up with everything is overwhelming, it’s like that dog who doesn’t know which squirrel to chase first. Step by step, we play the long game, and it’s made up of small actions that eventually snowball.
Sometimes, you can get the cell phone number of your Representative or Senator. As an aside, this is often easier with state elected officials, and best accomplished during an election when you are working on the campaign.
LEAST EFFECTIVE is to mail a letter because they go in a box until they can be opened, often outside, by someone wearing gloves, a mask and goggles, just in case there is anthrax or some other poison in the envelope.
The actual email was pablum complete bulls**t, but at least it was on topic.
If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know my take on CANDIDATE polling is that it’s close to useless. However, issue polling tends to be a reasonable proximity to what the population is feeling, provided the questions are asked properly. In the provided link, you’ll see that there are small changes predicated on how questions are asked, but the overall opinion is that “deportation” is still selling well amoungst the masses.
I downloaded the 5 Calls App on my phone. You type in your town and you are plugged in to your Senators and Congressperson. There are relevant topics to pick from, it dials for you and gives you a script. Literally no reason not to use it, most convenient app.
Yesterday I called the PA AG at 717-787-3391. They are taking names, phone and zipcode and sending the list to the AG. They got ALOT of calls over the weekend. I've been told that the Rep AG is not maga...guess we will find out. I've also called my elected officials. It's worth the time.
"Since the fascist regime doesn’t think things through, they will be in a big pickle trying to solve the economic and logistical problems, not to mention people complaining constantly that they can’t afford food, and other horrors."
You make the assumption that the fascists care about the economy, etc. They don't. The idea is to destroy the US as we know it so they can be supreme rulers and we the serfs.