What can I do?

What can I do besides signing online petitions? This feels like the 21st century version of sticking a note in a bottle and tossing it into the sea.

What can I do besides gather with likeminded souls and protest. It's STILL legal but do demonstrations without follow up solid action achieve anything meaningful?

What can I do besides writing post after post highlighting the incoming, electoral college/NOT popular vote elected prez and V.P.’s hypocrisy, racism, mysoginism, homophobia and spectacularly HUGE willful ignorance? And how much does this even accomplish beyond the necessary venting of my spleen?

I can try to talk sense into Republican, Trump voting friends and family….BUT none of my friends or close family are Republicans. The odds of me being in an actual face to face convo with someone who voted for the Orange Nightmare and Snow Nasty are spectacularly low. I count this as good and safe for me and my precious, delicate sanity BUT how will the overrepresented/under-informed come to understand that:

1. Trump will NOT be bringing back all those jobs lost through CEO greed-headed avarice to cheapo labor costs in China and Mexico. NO, Clownstick did NOT stop Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant from moving to Mexico. They were never planning to move at all! This was a con. Rilly. Honest and true.
2. Seeding his cabinet with war mongers means that YES, a vote for Trump was, in point of fact, a vote for war. Also, if he gets his way and reinstates the draft, it’s our children and grandchildren who will fight and die. People with wealth and connections, as uszh, will get to stay home. You know, just like Trump, Cheney, Giuliani, the Mittser, Newtie and, of course there’s the last pres who lost the popular vote, Bush.
3. Oh yeah and then there are all of Trumps lies and Pence’s astounding stupidity.

Over post-Turkey bevs, read John Scalzi’s post The Cinemax Theory of Racism to your friends and relatives who, in the face of an increasingly White Nationalist cabinet, still believe that their vote for the Polyester Cockwomble doesn’t make them racist/misogynistic/homophobic/etc. Scalzi explains it in language that even the most simple of souls can surely understand. They won’t like it but then, few enjoy seeing themselves as easy marks who've been suckered into enabling powerful, intolerant bullies.

The rest of that minority who voted for Armageddon-in-the-Wings reside in an echo chamber where only Fox, Breitbart, O’Reilly, etc. play. They get their news through an Orwellian filter which renders them deaf to reality.

Words that I see more and more these days and wish I only knew from reading Orwell? (all definitions from dictionary.com)

Oligarchy: a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
Autocracy: government in which one person has uncontrolled or unlimited authority over others; the government or power of an absolute monarch.
Demagogue: a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.  Former U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy was a classic demagogue.
Authoritarianism: favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom
Fascism: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
and the always popular
Patriarchy:  a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women.

 Besides learning new vocabulary words, what can I do?

VOTE! The midterms are two hopefully short years away.

I’m gonna try to become involved in local politics. Change grows from the bottom up. It almost never trickles down.

I’ll go to protest marches and demonstrations. I’ll take part in civil disobedience.

Emily Ellsworth, a former congressional staff member, tweeted advice on how to make a Congresscritter listen:

First, tweeting or writing on Facebook is largely ineffective. I never looked at those comments except to remove the harassing ones.

Second, writing a letter to the district office (state) is better than sending an email or writing a letter to DC.

 But, the most effective thing is to actually call them on the phone. At their district (state) office. They have to talk to you there.

We repped half a million people, it was impossible to read and respond personally to all letters. Impossible.
~~~~~
But, phone calls! That was a thing that shook up our office from time. One time, a radio host gave out our district office phone # on air.

He was against our immigration policy and told our constituents to call. And they did. All. Day. Long. All I did all day was answer phones.

If you want to talk to your rep, show up at town hall meetings. Get a huge group that they can't ignore. Pack that place and ask questions.

If we started getting a pattern of calls, I called up our DC office and asked if they were getting the same calls and we talked.

It was exhausting and you can bet my bosses heard about it. We had discussions because of that call to action.

There’s more – go read the whole business.

I can’t call (deaf here, don’cha know) BUT I can write letters and I will.

The NSSGA has more tips here at the linkie – go read. Let’s get involved and conbat the assholian hordes!

All images are from a Baltimore protest that Hillel and his daughter found themselves in when they were down visiting colleges.