Have I Got A Long Way To Run in Distress

So. Here we are. What next?

Some of you have expressed a bit of concern. You want to join the Rebellion against the Empire but fuck-it-all if you can find an X-wing just sitting around for you to pilot. You’re not trained in the ways of the Force. Not a single old wizard or little green dude who talks funny has offered to show you how to lift rocks with your mind.

You want in! But how? What? We get it hoops, we have to fight. Now, how, exactly, do we go about doing that?

Have no fear. I may not be as old as Obi-Wan or as green as Yoda, but I’ve been trained in the ways of the Force. I’ve got a sweet brown robe (I often don’t wear anything underneath). I can’t really go posting on the interwebs to teach you how to levitate rocks. But I can get you in shape so that if you ever meet Donald Trump, he’ll point at you with his tiny little finger and say, “You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor!”

And, sweetheart…that’s something.

First things first. This is a marathon, not a sprint. I fully approve of the Women’s March and think it’s a great start, but that’s all it was–a start. If you weren’t able to get to one of the protest sites, I can imagine how you might feel a bit left out. Worry not.

If, by the end of Trump’s term, that was the largest or best protest, we’ll all have been failures. In typical fashion, the ladies have led the way and shown us what Play One in the Dump Trump Playbook should be. Trump understands yuge. We have to go even more yuge or we have to go home.

If he’s going to deny Climate Change and ruin this planet for the kids, then maybe we need to mobilize and take our children to the next march, the Kids March. Let’s get them on board right now and teach them to control their government instead of letting it control them.

Ever had a cold? Ever been in the hospital or gone to a doctor? Ever been denied the ability to do so because you couldn’t afford it and didn’t have insurance? Ever ponied up a few bucks for a friend on Facebook to help them cover a procedure or medications as they try to beat some disease? Ever had to ask for that money? Do you look at our neighbors to the North and at other democracies all over the world who are able to manage making health a right instead of a privilege? The Right To Live and Be Healthy March should bring us all together.

We should protest again on Tax Day to show this besuited Cheeto that we DO still want to see his tax returns. We should not, as some will suggest, refuse to pay our own taxes until he does. Taking money from the government is all the excuse they’ll need to cut out the programs that WE care about most.

Look at the electoral map. We own the cities. We own the metropolitan areas. We own the places that get the most news coverage. We own the places where it’s easiest to assemble. We own the places where its easiest to get attention.

This is a war. We have to fight for land. We have the advantage in this regard. We can use it to poke the bear. We can u-miliate him. We can contradict him. We can take the spotlight off of him–where he wants it–and put it on us, who he hates.

But I’ll tell you this: The Women’s March and these others I’ve suggested and more…they should become annual events during this presidency. We must remain this angry and this engaged and SHOW UP. We have to laugh at him as he and his puppets claim that there were tens of us when there were thousands.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Let’s really get to know our elected officials, shall we? More importantly, let’s make sure they get to know US. If you don’t know, there are plenty of websites you can go to and enter your zip code to find out who represents you in Washington D.C.

You should email them about every issue that matters to you. Not long rambling emails that they’ll TL;DR. Brief, quick hitters on the current agenda:

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am a registered voter in your constituency. I want you to know that the issue of _ is extremely important to me. If you do not vote for _ you will not get my vote on (Month/Date/Year) when you are, once again, on the ballot for re-election.

My loyalty will not be to a party, but to the person who represents my interests in government. I hope that will be you. I will hold you accountable if it’s not.

All my best,
Hoops P. Schopencawk

But emails are easy. It’s easy for us to write them and it’s easy for them to ignore them. I mean, let’s say we can really get a movement going and get the kind of involvement for this facet of our rebellion as we got for the Women’s March. It’s still just a full email box. It’s a number and numbers can be important–which is why I suggest the email–but it has no width and no depth. It has no height and no weight. Emails are not tangible.

Which is why for every email you send, you need to send an honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned, paper and ink letter, via the postal service. Let’s have our mail persons show up with sacks of mail instead of handfuls.

Do you have time? Are you an organizer? Then reach out to the people of your community. Use a free resource to start a web site (or get the collaboration of a local web designer who might want some free publicity) Then get a list of likeminded people and be the one who emails them to remind them when an issue is up for vote, give them a template to send.

Keep score of when your representatives vote and how they vote so that you can call them on their records when election time comes.

Organize mini-marches. Your representative has an office. Find it. Find 100/500/1000 friends and stand outside to let them know when they have angered you.

They aren’t afraid of you. Yes. That’s good. They will be. They will be.

I saw a great site on Twitter. It’s called SwingLeft.org. You can put in your zip code and find out what the closest “swing districts” are to you. We can take back the house in the midterm elections as soon as 2018 (as the Republicans did to Obama, which allowed them to take away quite a bit of his power).

Find your closest swing district and find out how you can help to change hearts and minds there. Find those who are registered to vote and get them registered. Find those who are registered and think their votes don’t matter–explain to them why their votes mean more than most others.

This is just the beginning. These are just a few of the tools we have at our disposal. Much of what we do will need to be in reaction to what he’s doing. But we cannot simply play Defense. We have to play Offense too. That’s why these things are so important.

Defense comes naturally. He’ll provoke our defense. And yes, defense wins championships, but not alone, it doesn’t. For any real change, for any effective change, we need to change the way our elected officials feel about us.

They don’t fear us now. They must be made to do so. We need the support of elected Republicans right now. They will not break from what they are told to do and told to vote for unless we can make them more afraid of us than they are of the big money backers who now pull their strings.

Stop thinking about party and start thinking about power. The right elected official is the one who represents the opinions of his or her constituents. If a Republican proves that he or she will do as told by the people–keep them in place. Give them your vote. If they refuse? Remove them.

They have cushy, easy, simple jobs. They get great paychecks and amazing benefits. Everything they do is to make sure they don’t lose what they have. If you can make them afraid of losing it, you’ll make them YOUR representatives. Until then, they are their own representatives.

The moral of the story is this: If you didn’t make it out to the march, don’t feel like you missed your chance. Your chance happens every day. If the people out at that march never assemble again, then they were just wasting their time yesterday.

It’s up to us to make each successive march bigger and better.

It’s up to us to control our representatives.

It’s up to us…to tweet, retweet, repost, share, like—this fucking idiot cares about that stuff. If he cares. If he sees it. If he notices it. If he is bothered by skits on SNL then we have to make sure SNL gets great ratings. That’s what I mean by being a mosquito. Every little prick of the Prick counts. Each one drives him a little more over the edge.

And more than anything, know that these are just a few things we can do. There are a lot of smart people out there who hate what has happened and want to make sure it’s only a 4 year mistake and not an 8 year mistake.

You’re not responsible for coming up with ideas—though it’s fucking awesome if you do! It’s up to you to find the ones that make most sense for you to be a part of and join.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourselves for the long run. It’s okay if you’re not as far out ahead as those who were a part of the march this weekend. You’ll have time to catch them. But make a point to catch them. There are two kinds of winning when it comes to marathons. The first kind is the kind who finishes–there is pride to be taken from making it all the way. But there is also pride to be taken from finishing first.

American needs to finish first. We will if enough of us run the whole race and don’t give up until it’s done.

Run, Forrest, run!

Last updated January 23, 2017