On Saturday afternoon, as the vote for the USSC was coming to a close, an individual posted a message to local indivisible and PSN groups. I had seen similar thoughts before, but, it resonated with me how it must feel.
Dear Fellow Resisters: Please do not ask me to call or write my senators anymore. I'm done. It is clearly an exercise in futility and not worth my time.
Similar messages are heard in forum after forum that I attend. Why, oh why, are we spending so much time writing heartfelt letters to people who, it is obvious, have no intent of ever listening to us if we are asking people to invest their time, why invest it in an effort with so little reward, and so much heartbreak?
What if we could change that? There is an answer. Don’t write the senators. Don’t send your notes to congress people. Send a letter, a warm note, good feelings, to someone you don’t know — but who needs to hear from you. That’s right — write a letter to a constituent in their district, a registered Democrat who doesn’t always vote, and tell them, as a FRIEND, how important it is for them to turn out.
In third grade, like all students in my school, I was part of a penpal program. I traded letters with another student in a different area of the state. Through the school year, I learned about his community, likes and dislikes, and I wrote back what I thought. Seeing a hand-addressed envelope in my mailbox to me meant a lot.
As an adult, the majority of the mail I receive looks like a box full of credit card offers, mortgage brokers, sells fliers for the local stores, bills, and political mail. When I see a handwritten envelope in my box, it is the first thing I open. Period. It means someone took time to write. Sometimes they are thank you notes for a donation. No matter what it is, a handwritten letter gets read. Political mail and other mail? Sometimes it gets stacked up by my door in a giant box… until winter when I can use it for kindling.
And that’s where Vote Forward comes in. You can spend your time and effort writing congressmen and Senators who don’t listen to you — or you can write to their boss. Sending that personal letter to the person who doesn’t normally vote, but if they DID vote could help change who is in office.
You can join us by clicking here, and just filling out a form, and quickly, you can put in some work talking to people who will listen.
If you can canvass, please do. If you can donate, please do that too. If you struggle with either or both, or if you just feel willing to do whatever it takes, send a few letters.
Reminding these voters that you are counting on them can help get them to the polls. And isn’t that what it is all about?
I included this last week, but it may become a staple for a while — so you’ll have to tolerate it for a while!
What are you working on in your local area
to move our progressive agenda along?