By Sally Zelikovsky www.americanthinker.com
Political action comes in various forms: from nonviolent direct action (protests, rallies, sit-ins, boycotts, marches, the Tea Party) to its ugly step-sister violent direct action (everything BLM and Antifa do). Civil disobedience is generally nonviolent direct action focused on potential arrest to make a point (the arrest of Democrats who protested the eviction moratorium cancellation; parents ignoring school mask mandates).
Conservatives are well organized when it comes to getting out the vote, campaigns, and voting; and adept at organizing as local issues arise. We are not and never have been organized regarding what I call “Armchair Activism” (nonviolent direct action where thousands write, email, call, fax, petition, and lobby officeholders, agency heads, the President or AG, etc., in a coordinated and carefully orchestrated manner).
In the wake of Election 2020, the Year of COVID Hell, and the Torquemada-like response to January 6th, conservatives were left shell-shocked and politically paralyzed. But 75 million people have tremendous untapped power! So, in late January 2021 I started 75M & Rising, an email list of conservatives dedicated to armchair activism.
For one to five minutes a few days a week, I provide canned emails, letters, and phone scripts that members copy and paste into provided links. In addition to the officeholders above, we’ve targeted RNC/NRCC/NRSC chairs, AFT’s Randi Weingarten, CEOs of Coke and Bed Bath & Beyond, and the MLB Commissioner. Some action items require more time, as when we bombarded President FUBAR and AG Garland for a week about January 6th and contacted the 19 Republican Sellouts on the Infrastructure bill. Sometimes weeks pass with nothing to do.
The left has aggregated massive email lists from their vast network of organizations, allowing them to coordinate political action among hundreds of thousands from their armchairs. These voices are consequential: supportive communications embolden Democrat officeholders to vote one way; disapproval convinces them otherwise.
Left-wingers have a virtual monopoly on this kind of agitation. Republican voices are virtually nonexistent; conservatives do not have organized activists who persistently “lobby” Republican officeholders. If there were, we’d have more influence on more Republicans. Cynics might gripe that this won’t work, but we don’t know since this is virgin territory.
One thing is certain: Democrats and Republicans view silence from conservatives as tacit approval and that empowers them to proceed as they see fit, constituents be damned.
While it is true that elected Republicans -- especially RINOs -- often ignore their conservative constituents, conservatives are partially to blame by failing to badger them about our expectations, as does the left.
A letter here or a call there has little impact. But thousands with the same message over a few days, will raise the eyebrows of Republicans who care and embolden them to vote as directed by their loudest constituents.
Will this influence the most ardent Democrat or stubborn RINO? Unlikely. But that isn’t necessarily the goal. We want them to know we are here, have strong views we wholeheartedly defend, and will never be silenced.
Even more important is hammering them on issues week after week, televising the unexpected: that conservatives are organized. Whether the Reagan Revolution, Tea Party, or MAGA, the left fears nothing more than organized right-wingers.
They outflank us not because of their ideas, but because their organizational skills produce committed supporters who do as asked -- even break a few eggs as when SoCal Antifa roused members to violently disrupt a peaceful anti-mask protest in L.A., dog whistling that it “directly puts the unhoused communities who live in the area in danger” despite having nothing to do with Antifa or the homeless.
From your neighbor to the most crazed radical, Democrats attend meetings and vote, they harangue in person and riot, petition, email and call by the hundreds of thousands, threaten and destroy. They relish being painful thorns in the side of darn near everyone. They are obstreperous, intransigent, and dangerous.
They understand the power of organization and the necessity of crushing any inkling of it among conservatives -- which is precisely why the Democrat-Media Complex and schools censor conservative voices; AG Merrick Garland indefinitely incarcerates January 6th protesters and vows to hunt down similar “domestic terrorists”; Obama’s IRS targeted Tea Party groups; and Democrats exploited COVID in the hopes of cancelling Trump rallies.
These tactics serve only to silence conservatives and it gets increasingly vexatious by the day.
Nearly every constitutionally protected avenue for expression or participation in our governance has been commandeered by Big Government in cahoots with Big Tech, Big Media and any other institution that wants to hop aboard.
The media have long abrogated their role as a check on government and are more fox watching the hen house.
The left has oft tried, but failed, to squelch talk radio, recognizing it as the lifeline for conservatives that it is; but, has been wildly successful curtailing speech on the internet by allowing pusillanimous, 20-something tech snowflakes to burrow into the safe spaces of their algorithms and decree who shall speak and who shall be banned.
President FUBAR bombastically telegraphs his administration’s collusion with Big Tech to silence what it deems is “misinformation.”
Wokism continues its pestilential sweep across the continent, silencing individuals in the public arena as well as in their homes as threats of intrafamilial cancellation nudge parents to progressive enlightenment.
As if it wasn’t enough to mischaracterize January 6th as an “armed insurrection” and persecute the participants, murder Ashli Babbitt and close the case without resolution, surround the Capitol with barbed-wire fencing and National Guardsmen, and define “domestic terrorists” so broadly as to include little old Tea Party ladies waving flags and wearing MAGA hats, the message is indisputable: America’s justice system will criminally target Trump supporters and conservatives no matter how legitimate their grievances.
The icing on the cake is manipulating COVID to squelch our civil rights of speech, assembly, worship, work, travel, and free and fair elections.
In the midst of this silencing, I chose armchair activism for 75M & Rising not only because it is an overlooked tactic that conveniently fosters participation, but also because it has yet to be nullified.
Conservatives are being called to service and must change their ways. Is it too much to copy an email and paste it into a link? Make a phone call? Join an email list that will facilitate future communications and coordination?
Is it too much to give a few minutes of your time to, if nothing else, unnerve a bunch of Democrats and let RINOs and Republicans know we will not be silenced? People spend more time with click bait!
Politicians respond to pressure and will do what is necessary to survive. We drive that response by our participation. We shouldn't hesitate to use this power. It is our birthright.
At some point, 75 million people will need to be organized in order to take action to save America. Imagine if it was so easy, even a Neanderthal could do it.
If you are interested in joining my 75M & Rising email list, please email me at sallyzel@yahoo.com.
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