by Jake Carmin
Politically, last week was exhausting. Last Friday, President Trump signed a poorly-written executive order that placed a 90-day ban on immigration from seven majority Muslim countries, leading volunteer lawyers around the nation to spend days at airports preparing to sue the White House. Additionally, visa holders returning to the United States found that their visas had been canceled, stranding people in airports and dividing families.
Later, protests at UC Berkeley, originally peaceful, devolved (with the help of anarchists), into violence that caused nearly $100,000 in property damages. Across the country, protests have gathered at Congressional offices (mostly against Trump appointees Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions) and on the steps of the Supreme Court (against nominee Neil Gorsuch).
Given this turmoil, it is hardly surprising that Congress is being inundated by calls numbering in the tens of thousands. Senator Diane Feinstein’s spokesman claimed that their office had received more than 145,000 calls this week alone.
These calls aren’t falling on deaf ears. Senator Lisa Murkowski, a republican from Alaska, told The Hill that because of thousands of calls from constituents, she would not vote for Betsy DeVos, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, who most of her party supports. Likewise, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota republican, will also vote no because 95 percent of calls she received opposed DeVos.
My point is this: Contacting Congress works. And our generation, famous for being highly apathetic, should begin to use this tool. Protests, while valuable, are broader, and it is often hard for legislators to interpret from a march which policies to advance. Calling, on the other hand, is targeted; it takes a zip code and your particular opinion, and even better, you can discuss multiple issues.
2017 is the perfect year for millennials to start calling Congress en masse. Why? Because regardless of your place on the political spectrum, it is hard to ignore the damage that Donald Trump is doing to our Republic. This isn’t a policy gripe as much as it is an institutional one; Trump’s actions damage the fabric of the Constitution by calling into question the legitimacy of our American institutions. This, in the future, will be our generation’s problem.
The immigration order, for example, was questionably constitutional when Trump suggested it a year ago. Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the president had told him to “show [Trump] how to do it legally,” which suggests that the new White House considers the Constitution to be a barrier to power, not a protection for the public.
Then, after a federal judge ordered the ban lifted, Trump went to Twitter to call him a “so-called judge,” an insult that calls into question the well-established powers of federal courts. The following Saturday, another Trump tweet called into question the ability of judges to halt his executive orders.
Additionally, the president has asked the Senate to remove the filibuster on nominees, a procedure that has for decades been one of the only avenues for minority parties to protect their interests. This was an awful move when the democrats did it in 2009, and there has been resistance in the Senate majority to do the same. Yet Trump openly encourages Congress to shut his opponents up for the sake of convenience.
All of these steps are bad for republicans and democrats; if Trump continues to stretch the boundaries of the Constitution, to break down faith in the justice system, and to restrict the voice of minority parties, the United States will begin down a path that only brings us closer to authoritarianism. Our generation will inherit a broken Congress and a broken judiciary and will have to rely on the whims of those in power to receive the treatment our government owes us.
All of this is bad, but we can stop it. In the Senate, the republicans only have a two-seat majority, meaning it takes only two defectors to stop even the least controversial measures (more controversial issues require a 60 vote threshold to pass). To my delight, republican Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham and even Colorado’s own Cory Gardner have shown willingness to reject Trump’s most damaging appointments and policies and to hold him accountable.
This is where calling Congress is essential. Though I have an abiding faith in many in Congress to listen to the better voices inside them, if a republican is to defect this term, they need to know that the public has their back. Otherwise, they may lose both votes and political capital among their colleagues. This means that readers hoping to stop Trump should call republicans even if they do not belong to the party (democrats opposing Trump will not be hard to find, but call them, too). Next, asking friends and family to call these legislators is key. And finally, if a Congress member votes in a favorable way, call back to reaffirm the support, again regardless of party. There is no law against rewarding legislators who you largely disagree with when they make the right choice.
