“My Republican Representatives Don’t Listen to Me.”

The importance of being a tiny bubble

There are three vital things to understand about American politics right now:

·      Republican legislators could have ended Trump’s presidency at literally any point by simply picking one of his many impeachable offenses and following through with consequences. But they have been so craven and lacking in basic principles that the entire line of Smuckers jellies have released a joint statement distancing themselves from Republican spines.

·      …However, Trump has made himself so repellent to average Americans that an insane number of GOP seats are in danger, which means Republicans are doing some hard thinking about whether it’s time to pivot against Trump. Not to show grit and principle, mind you. Just to be craven in line with popular sentiment.

·      As of this writing, only 27% of Americans approve of the strikes on Iran, the latest addition to the antipathy salad.

There has never been a better time to call your Republican representative and demand the impeachment of Donald Trump and his lurching cabinet full of white supremacists, grifters, and sociopathic dolts. The rats have never been closer to abandoning Trump’s sinking ship, and it’s the civic responsibility of everyone living in a red district to give them a firm kick overboard.

Unfortunately, every time there is a push to call your reps and urge them to pass the Affordable Care Act/stop letting secret police murder people in the streets/turn off the unregulated machines that mine Bitcoin by making puppies explode, I see dozens of social media posts along the lines of “My representatives are Republicans. They don’t want to hear it!” or “I wish I could help, but it won’t work with my GOP Senators! Oh, well!”

These people who have abandoned their hard-won right to give their reps a flaming earful are not bad people. Most of them aren’t even lazy people. The problem is that they are looking at a phone call to one’s rep in the wrong way: They think it’s only effective if they change the representative’s political stance during the course of that single phone call.

That won’t happen. Republican politicians have been huffing Fox News and Putin-funded Twitter trolls and “center-right” pundits for decades. Many of them genuinely believe the fact-free nonsense that conservative outlets have been spouting. They also—and this is key—believe that there is huge majority of “real” Americans out there who agree with them, and everyone else is a Soros-funded radical communist Jesus-mocking meth enthusiast.

(OK, yes, there seems to be a sprinkling of Republicans who know exactly how much damage they’re doing to the country and it’s making them physically sick. But they don’t do anything to stop it because they are vile cowards and/or are actively being blackmailed. They deserve every sleepless night coming to them.)

To harry your Republican reps effectively, make your peace with these ideas:

·      You will not change the position of your representative with that single phone call.

·      You also will not change the mind of the staffer who answers the phone.

OK, then. If those things won’t happen, what is supposed to happen when you call your Republican representatives? Why bother?

Your job is to be a bubble in a pot of water. One bubble. You let them know that you exist, that you are angry, and that you want President Trump impeached and removed. That’s it.

It may seem insignificant, but you are playing a crucial part in a long game.

You have probably heard political theorists talk about boiling the frog. The idea stems from the (Completely false! There is no need to ever try this!) idea that if you increase the heat under a pot of water with a live frog in it slowly enough, the frog won’t notice the gradual change in temperature. (Yes, just like we’re doing to the planet. Who knew that some of the frogs would refuse to notice?)

The myth (Myth!) goes that through gradual change, you can boil the frog without him putting up a struggle or hopping away. Nothing about that makes any sense, but there is a particular kind of political strategist who absolutely loves that metaphor.

When you call your Republican reps, you are doing the exact opposite of boiling the frog. We’ll call it boiling the hyena. The object of the game is to slam the heat right up and make it terrifyingly clear that this water is going to boil. You are giving the hyena an explicit warning that they are in trouble and had better make some changes fast.

At first, your Republican elected representatives and their staffers will be able to explain you, a single bubble in the pot, away. There will always be some crazy hippie radical liberals out there who don’t want our national secrets compromised by an elaborate blackmail network of ultrawealthy men who enjoy sexually assaulting children.

But if these politicians are even minimally competent, they are tallying the numbers on those calls. What you (and your loved ones, and anyone else you can noodge in your state or district) are doing is making them watch that number tick up and up and up some more until your Republican representative is sweating so hard that their pores demand overtime and back pay.

You are sticking The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in their heads, specifically the part where the apprentice chops the broom to bits, but then the bits just pick up more buckets and the brooms keep coming.

If you prefer, you are a single pebble being tossed at a window at night. Tick. And then comes another and another and all your Republican rep can hear now is tickticktickticktick faster and faster until it sounds like rain and then a hailstorm and then it is deafening, shaking the roof and the walls and making that house (and that House seat) feel like it isn’t so safe anymore.

The realization that they are screwed if they stick with Trump will never dawn without thousands of angry citizens telling them just that. You are the tiny twig snap that heralds the rockslide. You are the first fire ant in the swarm. You are doing your small, crucial part in putting the fear of God into them. Be sure to pick a god who doesn’t care for child predators.

Get in there. Call and keep calling. Tell them the water is boiling.