~20 hours ago I wrote…

I’m really shocked they didn’t cave [within the first week or two]. I was nearly 100% certain they would.

I’ll work on my Nostradamus more.

  • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Yet they cling to some kind of phone call cargo cult thing where if enough people like them make phone calls - the senators will hear them. It’s like “Field of Dreams” I guess.

    a fuckload of phone calls and physical mail does make a difference if they start doing the math and get worried about not having votes when they want to get re-elected, it’s just really hard to actually get that much political engagement from burgerlanders in a non-election year. it’s a little cargo-culty but it’s not as feckless as the no kings shit.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOP
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      14 days ago

      By having the vote on Sunday - Schumer made phone calls 100% irrelevant. But I guess if panicked dem voters had been calling for weeks - maybe that would slightly worry the DC dems. In this bifurcated sportsball reality - I don’t think the DC dems care very much about angry voters.

        • ClathrateG [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          14 days ago

          mmmm sopapilla

          is there anything that says letters and calls specifically influenced decisions? I would have thought the physical protests and even the wikipedia blackout would be much larger factors

          • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            14 days ago

            i’m not sure how possible to know that is. i do know that liberal in-person protesting has never accomplished anything without a lingering threat of violence, and that the dinosaurs in congress don’t know what wikipedia or the internet are.

            • ClathrateG [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              14 days ago

              Yeah I guess actual hard evidence wouldn’t exsist I was thinking like a statement from a politician like ‘the amount of calls my office received from citizens on X issue made me revaluate my stance on it’

              Err are you saying calls and letters are only effective if the include threats of violence?

              • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                14 days ago

                Err are you saying calls and letters are only effective if the include threats of violence?

                no i mean like why the 1960s civil rights movement worked (for a few decades anyway) but shit like no kings, occupy wallstreet, or the 2000s anti-war protests in the US didn’t do anything