Take Action: According to Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda, tackle one issue at a time. The more trouble it takes you to contact your politicians, the more they pay attention. So when you can manage the time and effort, put your body out there. Face-to-face or protest march > calling > faxing if you can’t get through on regular phone > writing letters (because they may arrive too late) > personal email > petition or group email.
But we are in this for the long haul, so pace yourselves. Do whatever level you can do. We will be here once a week with the latest.
To write your letter then fax it for free: FaxZero: Create and send faxes for free to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada
New easy resource found: The AARP has an action site, Advocacy - Legislative Action Center - AARP. I know AARP isn’t perfect, but it has a nifty feature for everyone: Look down to the right, where it says “find your state legislators”. Put in your zip code. It returns federal, state AND local politicians, NOT just legislators. Federal, for example, includes contact information for Trump, Pence, your two Senators, and your Congressional representative. It has phone numbers, email addresses, and clickable links to their web pages, which should have up-to-date contact information including fax numbers, street addresses, appearance schedule, how to schedule appointments, and constituent services. This worked extremely well for me. Please try it and let me know how it works for you.
If you want to call Trump and the White House line is still blocked: Call Trump properties! Until he divests, he is in touch with them. If you have time, consider telling them you have concerns, ask to speak with a manager so you don’t make the low-level employees do all the work. Tell them this is about security, you might consider staying there but not if they might be a terrorist target, ask when he will divest and when they will change the name away from Trump for a lower profile.
Then whoever you speak with there, ask them to leave Trump a message, such as this sample phone script (please feel free to modify to state in your own words and/or for meetings or written communications):
“Who am I speaking with? Thank you, _______. Please pass along this message to Mr. Trump and tell him that we need him to open the White House phone line so we can urge him to keep his promises to save Social Security and Medicare. Benefits need to be expanded and we can afford it by lifting the Social Security tax cap so that the wealthy pay their fair share.”
Optional: “We also would like to urge him to improve Obamacare by offering Medicare for All as the default option for all Americans. He can call it Trumpcare. Alternative/supplemental policies can be offered so private insurance companies still have a place in the health insurance market, but default Medicare provides a much less expensive public option and relieves people of having to make decisions, if they have trouble with that or are too busy. It will provide coverage for not just 20 or 30 million more, but everyone, with no necessity to enroll. This will be such a benefit for the American people that it is bound to greatly improve his suffering reputation.”
“I appreciate you passing that along. Please read the message back to me so I can make sure you were able to write it down accurately. Thank you for your time.”
For this purpose, I prefer Mar-a-Lago: "The Crown Jewel of Palm Beach" (click for contact information), current phone number 561-832-2600, but you can choose any Trump property, just Google them. Or you can go to White House Inc and they will set you up with a random Trump property anywhere in the world. His properties cannot shut down their phone lines, they have to be able to take reservations. Every Trump property is getting called, so they may change their numbers. Please let us know if they do, especially if you ferret out the new one!
Remember no matter what staff you contact: They probably are not happy about working for Repugnants either. So please try not to direct your understandable anger and frustration at them, be polite but firm, try not to swear or otherwise get abusive. They probably are only there temporarily because they have not been able to find other jobs yet. Even if not, they listen better when you sound professional.
If Medicare, Social Security or other elder issues are your top issues: You can sign up at the AARP location above to have action alerts emailed to you. They also have petitions on their site that you can sign. You can join as a member, but membership is not required for activism.
Please feel free to share and/or reprint this diary in whole or in part with attribution far and wide, other websites or newspapers, I give it freely. Our aim is for millions to take action.
Each week: The week’s cartoon will post shortly after press time at the TeePublic elenacarlena store if you’d like to pick up a shirt, mug, or other items with any cartoon in the series, to help spread the word and support these efforts.
Thank you for taking action!
Hat tip (heh) to Jan4Insight for the jaunty pussy hat in pussycat-compatible colors. Message Jan, www.dailykos.com/…, if you’d like a pussy hat, she’s crocheting them to help keep LuvLee in her meds and special foods!
References:
Trump's Budget Chief Backs Overhaul of "Entitlements"
Read His Lips: Donald Trump repeatedly promised to save Social Security and Medicare