On the final day of first action in the Women’s March 10 actions/ 100 days Campaign, I’m afraid that Action 1 “Send A Postcard” is already feeling quaintly out-of-touch with our political reality. I hosted a postcard party over the weekend. It was probably all I could muster, given my family commitments, but I still wish I’d been at LAX protesting instead. My parents and aunts and uncles and cousins all protested, and I am grateful to them for publicly representing my feelings about EO 13768.
At the postcard party, several people asked me if I thought writing to our solidly blue, democratic, and profoundly disempowered representatives would accomplish anything. While the word on the street is that every little bit counts, and that Feinstein needs to be able to say she’s been ‘avalanched’ when she does something like vote “no” on Jeff Sessions, it’s still not much more than a stall tactic. To Feinstein’s credit, she authored two bills over the weekend to address the executive order, and to limit presidential power i this area. But it’s likely these bills will never even be heard on the senate floor, since it’s republicans that control the agenda.
It’s dawned on us in the last few days that if we’re going to have any check on the insanity of Trump and Bannon, that it’s going to need to come from the courts, and from Republicans. Some articles suggest that Republicans are unhappy with how things are going. We need to encourage them to stand up to Trump, especially in the face of un-vetted policies that run the risk of instigating international violence like EO 13768.
So for the last day of postcards, I will not be writing to my own electeds. Instead I’m going to work through this list of republicans that are on the fence about Trump’s EO 13768. I will be printing and sending them respectful postcards, asking them to please stand up to Trump on this matter, and on his re-structuring of the Security Council to include Steve Bannon. (I seriously considered putting the illustration above on the cards– let me know if you think I should). I hope you’ll join me.
