United States | News & Politics

It’s almost like everyone here isn’t communicating with their Democratic representatives.

I've had face-to-face conversations with my House Reps on a number of occasions. Thanks to how gerrymandered my neighborhood gets, it's been alternately Dan Crenshaw and Liz Fletcher by turns. Even got to chat briefly with Beto O'Rourke on a couple of occasions.

I used to get very enthusiastic at the opportunity to be at a rally and get a handshake or sit at a GOTV kick-off meeting and get greeted by the candidate, even asked a few questions. Dan straight up went into "debate mode" with me, then sent his wife out as I was leaving to say how much he appreciated the chat.

But at the end of the day, what I always only ever get from these people is "Yeah I really hear you and I agree with what you're saying. It's really important and I value that." And then a mailer asking for money. And then... they do what their mega-donors tell them. My words are wind, if I'm not showing up with a five-figure check. Even then, the influence I see people buying is marginal - enough to get a special favor or access to a higher level official, but never anything that changes public policy.

I assure you that people are communicating with their representatives. People are marching in front of offices. People are bombarding their reps with phone calls - good and bad. People are answering polls. People are showing up to rallies. People are heckling and cheering in turns. But any individual is always read as "marginal". The mythology of "losing one activist and picking up two of the silent majority" is repeated day in and day out in campaign offices all over the country.

The only way to be heard is to speak as a really big crowd. Like, big enough to swing an election. And as soon as you're that big... what you become isn't necessarily even "influential". More often, you just become the scapegoat for why this or that candidate lost.