Soon after the election, people were clamoring for ways to take action to resist the incoming administration. Those days were full of angst, with hightened emotions, confusion, feelings of being overwhlmed and not knowing what to do. There were good summary articles about what to do to resist, like this one from the New York Times and this from Huffington Post. There were also suggestions just to take the time to grieve before finding a way to act.
I remember being completely overwhelmed, not knowing where to turn, how to help. Luckily, organizers came together quickly.
One of the first things I saw was on November 14, when Emily Ellsworth, a former congressional staffer, outlined in a series of tweets the best way to contact your Members of Congress.
Soon after, other former congressional staffers took to twitter and and tweeted a general course of action that they knew was effective. They had witnessed the Tea Party's tactics and learned what worked. They started with a google doc and it boomed into a guide and finally a nationwide organization, with local groups coast-to-cost, called Indivisible. Santa Barbara has an Indivisible group. Check the website to see if there's a group in your community.
Since then, a few other organizations that have popped up to facilitate action by resisters. These organizations are a boon! They do the legwork and make it easy to take part in Democracy by making phone calls.
One is Daily Action. You can sign up for a daily text notification. Your text will outline an issue and suggest an action. You can call their number, put in your zip code, and they will patch you through to your representative or the correct department to which you can make comments. I have used this one and I like it.
Find more information here: https://dailyaction.org/
Antoher option is 5 Calls. This one lets you choose an issue that is most important to you, outlines the issue of the day, and provides a sample script. You can log the call on their site as well. My Big Sister Resister has used it throughout the last few weeks and has made her voice heard.
Learn more and subscribe at: https://5calls.org/
3/27/17 Edited to add: Resistbot is a great app that lets you enter a letter to your MoCs via text. They will format it into a fax and fax it for you. It works great!
Learn more here: https://resistbot.io
Once resisitbot made me aware that faxing is a good way to contact MoCs, I've been using my personal fax service (it uses email) to fax my representatives and also to contact Committees. Look up the committee you are interested in contacting. There are fax and phone numbers listed. I've written the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, as well as the House Committee on Ways and Means. Learn about the issues and tell them what they should do. They work for US!
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There are other sites and groups that can help navigate this huge web of issues. Here is a good compliation of various sources. There are a lot! You can sort by category. I haven't explored all of these, but you may want to. Please check in with a comment below if you have experience with other online resistance action groups.f
And if you want to learn more about the bills that Congress is introducing you can go straight to the source. Congress.gov has a good search tool to explore current and past legislation.
Please join us in taking action. Go in! Make a call. Make just one phone call on an issue that is important to you. Just one. Add your voice. All the voices added together are impossible to ignore!
