monkinetic the blog

I took a step today I’ve never taken before: I called the offices of my 3 Republican representatives in Congress (John McCain and Jeff Flake in the Senate and Representative Matt Salmon in the House) and asked them to speak out against the appointment of known white nationalists to the Whitehouse staff and Cabinet.

I was nervous - I’ve generally been a lackadaisical citizen (to my shame) and this was a first step at real engagement. I used Who Is My Representative (kudos to the creators for a dead-simple single-purpose site) to find the names and contact information for each.

I also wrote a quick script for myself to help with nerves. I didn’t use it verbatim but writing it out really helped:

> Hi, my name is Steve Ivy and I live in the [district, state].

> I’m calling to ask [member] to speak out against the President-Elect’s appointment of white-nationalists like Steve Bannon to his staff and cabinet. This is not what our country should be about. I believe [member] has our [district, state]’s best interest at heart, and silence on this issue sends the wrong message to residents and members of marginalized groups here that he isn’t watching out for their best interests.

I made sure to “click-through” to a staff member (the three I talked to sounded pretty harried) rather than leave messages. Senator Flake’s staff person was clear that the Senator has received significant feedback on this issue from his constituents, so - go AZ.