You Should Know

Do not call a congressperson that isn’t your own. They are not required to listen to you, you are not their constituent.

Unless they happen to be chairing a committee that you have an opinion on.

Then it's fair game.

Counterpoint: call them anyway. Gum up the works. Change the mind of their interns. Send enough letters that it becomes a waste disposal problem.

Be annoying and difficult and make them work for every inch.

But also be nice. The interns are people too.

Totally agree it's important to engage all levels of government. But only the US Senate has the authority over nominations

Gotta love that this needs to be explained to American adults.

I tell you, they really love the uneducated here, folks.

I've tried nothing and it hasn't worked. I'm all out of ideas.

They don't have to take away your power if you stop yourself from using it first. Don't willingly give up your voice.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. While we all hate the outcome, we can't argue they were effective in getting what they wanted.

Are you implying that this doomerism is of no use to anyone?

why am I expected to believe you’ll be the hardest antifa soldier there ever was when the revolution comes (which, conveniently, is never)?

Are people here claiming to be that? Don't conscript me to your make believe army.

The real power of the NRA is their membership is mostly reliable voters.

Less than you would think, but it also depends on how you contact them. A physical call is way more powerful than an email. 10 people passionate enough to call can easily translate to 1k people passionate enough to vote about it.

It's highly variable, and yes I absolutely agree money in politics is a big problem. I do have a direct experience where reaching out to my Senators led to them aggressively and successfully opposing a provision in a law that would have had a big impact on me. Don't want to dox myself, but this real change to a bill made a huge difference to me and many others. So it is possible to make an impact.

Awesome!

This is exactly why the OP exists! My state has been solid blue for a decade now. I trust my senators not to vote to confirm AG Gaetz, but they NEED a few Republicans to join them. It looks like Collins and Murkowski have come out against him. We need a few more, and OP is saying that calling is one of the few things that may influence them. Certainly more likely than bitching on Lemmy.

The one tradeoff to having Democrats representing me in Congress (both house district and Senate) is that I don't have anyone to call over stuff like this because they're already on my side... Although for some reason my governor (who has been awesome otherwise) has been praising RFK for HHS, so maybe I'll need to call his office and my senators about that one. Anyway, PLEASE don't fall into the opposite trap and give his office a call!

They actually do care believe it or not. When our city council was voting on municipal fiber we showed up to petition our conservative city council representative to vote in favor. Guess who also attended, a representative from our federal senator’s office. Oh man the look on his face when only 3 members of the public showed up, two of them major supporters of municipal broadband, and the third spoke up to agree with us. Mmmm priceless. The city council man and conservative rep were so damn flustered. The senator’s rep took notes the whole time and we got to talk to him one on one. These outreach events do way more than you would think, this is how they gauge what they can get away with. Don’t let them discourage you, show up and bitch!

A self-fulfilling prophecy if his constituents don't try to make him care

These tactics are not always a guarantee to have things go your way, but they increase the chances. For phone calling, numbers of people calling in matter the most, particularly at strategic times, including: right after big announcements, right before a committee vote, right before a floor vote. It's also more effective before dominant narratives have arisen around a topic and there is uncertainty on how things could shake out.