If you’re angry, frightened, fed up, and want to get politicians’ attention, NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) emphasizes the effectiveness of phone calls to your congressional representatives, no matter which side of the aisle. From her Instagram account:
“For the first few years that I was in office, Republicans flooded my phones. Do you think they really thought they were going to change my mind? No. But they constantly and consistently [called].
Republicans flood the phones far more than people who are not Republicans flood the phones. And it does have an effect, because you really start to understand the strength and the scale of what you are up against.
Republicans need to get that message too, because it skews our whole environment to the right when the constant pressure comes from one place. Like, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but people who watch Fox News all day and right-wing media all day call their members of Congress, and they tend to call members far more, and far more consistently and regularly than everybody else does. And that really matters because phone calls are one of the biggest ways that members measure, not just it’s not just numbers, it’s how they measure enthusiasm, it’s how they measure how much people are mobilizing around a certain issue. And the more they see them mobilizing, the more careful they will be in terms of not making those people more upset. And they will get pressured into acting, or hedging, what have you.”
If you want to pick up a script quickly for a call to representatives in DC, take a look at 5 Calls, a progressive issue website that provides short and sweet scripts for calls on a host of issues.
