What Matters Now
Last post of the year folks.
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Whenever I mention calling your Representative or Senators in Congress, I inevitably get a variation on the same response from both people represented by Republicans and those represented by Democrats - why bother, it won’t matter.
And of course, there is a version of that statement that is true. There are a whole lot of issues where calling your legislators won’t change the outcome of legislation or confirmation hearings. There’s a reason our elections always come down to the same four to seven states, the same thirty Congressional districts, the same Senate races. Much of the country is baked in. In 2017 when Republicans in Congress were attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act we flat out bombarded members of Congress with phone calls, protests in their offices and on the Mall, in the airports they flew in and out of, at their events, etc., and at the end of the day 49 of them still voted to strip health care from millions of people.
In that particular case, we won anyway, because three Republican Senators did listen to their constituents, did respond to all those calls and protests and meetings. Sometimes our calls do matter, and they do make an immediate and tangible difference. But sometimes we’re going to make those phone calls, and it’s not going to change our Senators’ (or Representative’s) minds. So in the end, what does it matter?
I can give you the practical reason: we don’t actually know that it won’t work. I can talk about the mechanisms: that calling people who are already on your side gives positive reinforcement that makes it easier to hold the line, and gives them leverage when talking to colleagues. I can remind you that typically the people that legislators hear from are older, whiter, and richer - people with time in the middle of the day who don’t need to be convinced that their opinion is important - and if we want Congress to make decisions based on our needs, they need to hear our perspective.
But that’s not what I say. Okay, I do say some version of we don’t know if we don’t try. But it’s not necessarily my focus. My focus is this: the job of legislators is to respond to the needs of their constituents. You are their job. And you deserve to be heard. Whether or not you change their mind, whether or not they already agree with you, whether or not they need your vote to win an election. This is the whole point of democracy - that all of our voices matter, that we all deserve to have a say, and that it is all those voices coming together that decides the future. And the democracy we have has always been flawed and exclusionary, and it has not lived up to this promise, yet. But that doesn’t mean we give up - it means we have to get louder.
There has been a torrent of scary and depressing bullshit coming from the Trump transition team and Republicans in Congress of late, from suing the Des Moines Register and Anne Seltzer because they published a poll unfavorable to Trump in the days before the election, to recommending Liz Cheney for investigation and prosecution for actions taken during the January 6 hearings. Elon Musk is bullying Congress into shutting down the government just days before Christmas, and is already taking aim at the regulations that keep us safe by preventing corporations from cutting corners to make themselves richer, never mind that no one fucking elected him president, all while tweeting “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (the voice of the people is the voice of the Gods) because he has actually confused each one of his billions of dollars with a person. 1
And while seemingly disparate, these actions all come together under the same chilling goal - to shut us up. To the incoming Trump administration, to Elon Musk, and to many Republicans in Congress, government is not a mechanism by which we all come together to make decisions about our future. Instead, government is a mechanism solely of power, one where those who have power can pay false homage to democracy while suppressing the voices of those they claim to represent. They want to use the government to go after their enemies, to make themselves richer at our expense, and perhaps even more importantly they don’t want us to know about it. They don’t want us to talk about it. And they certainly don’t want us to call them about it.
We’re going to lose some fights - in fact we may even lose most of them. But the one thing we’re not going to do is lose the ability to fight at all. We can be a thorn in their sides, we can slow them down, we can throw wrench after wrench in their plans. When they want to have a nice peaceful day at work, we can keep their phones ringing off the hook. When they go to check their voicemail they’ll find all of us, one after the other, demanding better. When they open the newspaper they’ll see us, when they turn on the TV they’ll see us. Their social media managers will have nothing but ratios to report.
We can, and must, and will be heard.
I know you’re tired - I’m tired too. And I’m sad, and scared, and numb, and uncertain. I swing wildly between wanting to know everything that’s going on and wanting to bury myself in the garden and become flowers. I have a burst of energy and then I lie on my bed and play stupid phone games for hours. We all desperately need rest, to spend time mourning and comforting each other and soothing ourselves. But I hope we’ll also keep talking, to each other, to our friends and family, and yes, to our members of Congress. I hope we’ll make sure that people know what’s going on, that their voices matter, and that even when we don’t win, what we do matters.
I don’t hope, I know we’ll keep fighting.
I’ve written about this a lot this year, about how it matters what we do, even when we lose. About living through turmoil and figuring out tomorrow. And you all have read and commented and shared, and been with me in the darkness and in the light. And I am so grateful, I don’t have words. I wish only the best for you, your friends and family, and all your loved ones, through this holiday season, the next four years, and beyond.
As I’ve been writing this I’ve been listening to the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack, which is in my opinion one of the greatest scores of all time. Much like the music, my goal is to head into 2025 with the courage, curiosity, generosity and love that Hiccup channels in the movie. And I hope you’ll all join me. See you next year.
At the time of writing (I scheduled this on Friday before I left for vacation) the government was on the verge of shutdown. While I’m typing this I don’t know if it shut down or not, but its sort of immaterial to my point.