The GOP-led Congress opened for business this week with a major stumble that initially obscured much of the budding little shop of horrors Republicans are already fostering. But nonetheless, it was a victory for the people, who collectively shamed GOP lawmakers into backing away from granting themselves a Get Out of Jail Free Card on ethics violations by de-clawing an independent review panel.
The GOP's quick reversal from approving the change Monday to scrapping it Tuesday was both largely and falsely credited to two tweets from Donald Trump, who questioned whether the change should really be their "number one act and priority."
But the furor had begun long before Trump weighed in. Google analytics released data showing that searches for "Who is my representative?" spiked during the fiasco. Congressional leaders were reportedly besieged with messages from outraged voters.
And therein lies the power of the people—a lesson that should be lost on no one at this perilous moment in history. We are our first, last, and best defense, collectively more powerful than any single elected official or institution. And certainly, left to their own devices, GOP lawmakers have quickly proven they are congenitally incapable of serving as a reasonable check on their power. In fact, even as the public outcry over their ethics antics raged, the House approved rule changes that substantially increase their ability to harass and intimidate anyone who runs afoul of their agenda, including private citizens and civil servants.
And so, while we know that we cannot stop everything, we also know that we can stop some things, and that's markedly better than being powerless. Given the GOP's shameful disrespect for the government that has been entrusted to them and the Constitution on which it is founded, it is incumbent upon us to use every tool at our disposal to blunt the impact of a party already gorging on its limitless potential.
Fortunately, those tools do exist and in some cases they are as close as the device with which you are reading this. In others, they require a commitment to show up in person, but not necessarily to bring any other special skills other than your conviction.
As my colleague Jen Hayden pointed out this week, your phone—that thing that is permanently attached to you and ever at your fingertips—is perhaps the fastest and simplest way to have impact. She cited former congressional aide Emily Ellsworth who tweeted a series about the best ways to influence members of Congress. "The most effective thing is to actually call them on the phone," wrote Ellsworth. She added that reaching lawmakers or staffers at their district office (or state office in the case of senators) is preferable because "they have to talk to you there."
The other resource that hit my radar this week came from three former Democratic congressional staffers who witnessed the early and corrosive impact of tea party activists on President Obama's progressive agenda. Together, the former aides authored a playbook called, "Indivisible: A practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda," detailing how to recreate that model on the left.
Here’s the good news: It's not super complicated. Although it does require the commitment to sometimes show up in person, particularly when your congressional member is holding town halls or meetings in your district.
When I posted about it earlier this week, a number of commenters dismissed tea party activism as an astroturf movement and wondered, "But who will fund it?" (since we don't have the Koch brothers on our side). That critique speaks to what the movement became but not to where it started, and it definitely doesn’t preclude us from harnessing the grassroots energy that clearly does exist to resist Trump.
Here's what's struck me from the playbook:
•The movement was not massive at first; it was small but included some very dedicated individuals.
•The groups stayed locally focused, training their sights specifically on their congressional members.
•Everything was about reelection and whether members could survive their next race in the face of withering criticism.
•They focused almost exclusively on defense—vehemently opposing Obama's agenda while never worrying about solutions; their sole goal was to block progress.
Though the situation isn’t perfectly parallel to my own experience covering the successful work of LGBTQ activists during President Obama's first term, the basic tenets ring very true to me. While lots of grassroots energy existed nationally to push LGBTQ issues at the outset of Obama's presidency (mainly due to Proposition 8’s passage), much of the real trouble was caused by a smaller group of very dedicated individuals. In their case, (especially in the first two years) they chose to focus most of their energy on prodding the president, which in a sense was like targeting one elected official even if he wasn't "local," per se. And their biggest threat came in the form of potentially undermining the president's reelection in 2012: that's what got the press uniquely interested in their story and it's also what forced the White House to pay attention.
As Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, and Angel Padilla noted in "Indivisible," the tea party began with groups that were small, local, dedicated and relatively few in number.
The Tea Party was not hundreds of thousands of people spending every waking hour focused on advocacy. Rather, the efforts were somewhat modest. Only 1 in 5 self-identified Tea Partiers contributed money or attended events. On any given day in 2009 or 2010, only twenty local events — meetings, trainings, town halls, etc. — were scheduled nationwide. In short, a relatively small number of groups were having a big impact on the national debate.
My takeaway: This stuff isn't rocket science, it's just very precise in its aim—rattle Congressional members and oppose everything Trump.
A lot of you will be reading this from a blue state and I want to stress that you are just as important as any red stater. Think about senators with safe seats like Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein, both of whom command a fair amount of power as minority members but have all the worst instincts of someone who’s been in Washington a long time. They will need pressure and that must be provided by constituents. Call them. Call them. Call them. For example, as the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Feinstein will be leading the Democrats’ inquiry at the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions' for Attorney General. That’s not looking good:
The new top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, declined to take a hard line against Sessions despite their divergent views. She said the GOP senator will go through a "full and fair process."
So our work is cut out for us, but it's there for the taking. There's no time to be solutions-oriented right now. Oppose Trump. Focus locally. And give whatever time or energy you have. Influence is only a phone call away.
Kerry Eleveld is the author of “Don’t Tell Me To Wait: How the fight for gay rights changed America and transformed Obama’s presidency.”