Either way your message is "just" making it up to the member as a spreadsheet column, but text vs email vs letter might not actually make the difference you think. Some members might see letters as more serious, others might take texts as "oh my younger and more savvy constituents think X."
At the state level, this probably varies widely.
Do you have personal experience with how these are calculated or used? Good to know that some reps are actually using data haha.
Really? is there even a slight chance that Rep. XYZ actually reads my letter and it doesn't get filtered out by an aide as "spam"? And furthermore, once read does my letter actually hold any weight against moneyed interests? It feels like an utterly futile and pointless exercise to pretend democracy still works.
Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting [1]. This should be a concern for any American citizen with the right to vote; don’t turn this into some politicized drama.
Let me be clear; this is the very foundation of our democracy. I find it simply appalling that there would be proponents for this.
[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...
It is a politicized drama. Voter id laws are reasonable, the majority of Americans think so, and calling them "restricted access to voting" is literally true but dishonest.
"Resistbot" (from "the resistance") is kitsch, especially since the left controls the government.
Right around the 70s iirc. That's roughly when the modern progressive wing of the democratic party started to coalesce, and they've always had a big focus on it.
Though it's a little weird how much heat it generates given that it's only a "top 5" issue for about 6% of people. [0] If that few people people even bring it up on polls, I'd expect any attempts to create drama out of it to fall flat much more than they do.
[0] https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/AP-NORC-Decemb...
It has always been an issue of deep division in the USA.
Since at least the fifteenth amendment (1870).
While there are some topics where I agree with both major parties, and many issues where both are near equally bad, I have yet to come across a national policy issue where Republicans are better than Democrats (even if the Democrats' policy is still not great). So yeah, I don't agree with one party 100% of the time, but I will support them 100% of the time over the alternative.
> Create Your Own Campaigns
> Go beyond writing to your officials and learn how to organize powerful text campaigns that drive action.
Asking nicely or many times won't do much because the people who run a society are the ones who control production, not the ones who mediate policies. In short, this is not the root of the problem.
If you are only willing to contact your elected officials using this bot and prior methods like letter writing and email were too much for you, then there is a decent chance that you are too lazy to take any other action.
Imagine if you had a manager who was only willing to tell you to work hard with a Slack bot. Messaging each employee individually would be too much work for them. Would you take that manager all that seriously?
The political system this claims to help was not created by and for the working class, it was thought out, designed and implemented by and for the bourgeoisie. It can't serve the majority even if it tried. There are no mechanisms for it, and, not only that, the whole system will prevent their creation. It's not about adding plugins, it's about changing the system.
This app was probably funded by the democrats to seem more radical and progressive, but is just a tool for aesthetics. They use these to gather well meaning non conforming professionals and citizens around actions that are ultimately inconsequential and also wont waste the opportunity to trigger conservatives while they're at it, adding kindling the useless culture war that owns the US.
If you had a team where the manager didn't ever do anything except send copy/pasted messages out via Slackbot and where the workers were in high demand from another manager who could offer them a lot more (as well as threaten their jobs a lot more), would you really expect those workers to be working in the interests of their manager?
As that is the state of American politics today.
Complain about Congress all you want, but fundamentally the people chose them and decide whether or not they get fired. Most people are just absentee managers.
I get form letters loosely related to the issue I complained about, and sometimes not even remotely related.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(American_polit...
Tools like this just make all modes of contacting officials less effective. Zeynep handled this really clearly years ago: https://www.twitterandteargas.org/
How do I know this company won't leak my information? This is especially a concern for people they would not consider political allies. Is there a more anon way to use it than giving your phone number?
I wonder about this part near the top:
'“Resistbot is the smartest technology to emerge from the disaster that was the 2016 election. No one else even comes close.”
Debra Cleaver, Founder, Vote.org '
Is this meant to imply that the site or/and vote.org is anti-trump or anti-republican - or imply something else?
If a rep suddenly starts getting a thousand messages a day all supporting/opposing issue X, that's going to get noticed.
Generally a handful of messages is fruitless, but a persistent big batch can change policies, especially if it's between multiple alternatives the member is already OK with.
The important part is not the message, but rather the amount of effort put into the message. Someone using this bot puts in 2 minutes of effort and no money. Someone writing a letter puts in 20 minutes of time and a dollar for envelope and stamp. Someone who flies to D.C. and protests cares a lot more.
Why? The flying protester will remember in two years. The 2 minute texter will not. The flying protestor will vote and probably work on a campaign and donate money. The 2 minute texter might vote and probably will not do much else.
Your preferred candidate losing is a "disaster"?
That said, I don't see how this text widget is going to do anything.
2016 was an own goal.
https://resist.bot/news/2017/09/13/the-robot-of-the-resistan...
