What I did to fight Trumpism this week

Every Friday I fight Trumpism. I start by donating to a cause that advocates for good. I then contact government representatives to urge them to either oppose or support policies I consider important.

This week I donated to Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Attorney General Jeff Sessions just issued an edict to all prosecutors to roll back policies implemented during the Obama administration that would reduce mandatory drug sentences. These sentences have, for decades, been disproportionately applied to black men, tearing families apart while perpetuating the systemic racism that has made our justice system fundamentally unjust. You can donate to FAMM over here.

I also contacted the office of Senator Roy Blunt, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, to urge him to call for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Senator Blunt,

I’m writing to urge you to call for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate any and all collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. Trump admitted on national TV last night that he fired FBI director Comey as a direct result of Comey’s independent investigation. This is a blatant and brazen example of obstruction of justice, and it can only be remedied if the Senate refuses to confirm a new FBI director until a special prosecutor is named. I’m calling on you to put country above party and uphold the very institutions that allow us to remain a functioning democracy.

Thank you,
Simon

Want to help fight Trumpism too?

Here are the steps you can follow:

1. Pick a day of the week as your Fight Trumpism Day. That way, you always have a day set aside so you have no excuses to put it off. At most you’ll need to devote an hour a week to fighting Trumpism. My day is Friday.
2. Create a spreadsheet with two tabs. The first tab is for your donations. The second is for contacting your representatives. For the donations tag, track the organization, the issue it stands for, the donation amount, and the date you donated. On the contact your representatives tab, track the issue you’re contacting about, the representative you’re contacting (often it’ll be your local representative or the head of a congressional committee), and the date you contacted them.
3. For every Fight Trumpism Day, make your donation and contact your representative and then record it in the spreadsheet. I’d say you should donate the same amount every week. Even if it’s only $10, it will add up to $2,000 by the end of Trump’s four years. You will have also contacted your representatives 200 times.
4. After you’ve done these things, post about it on social media (like I’m doing here) in order to inspire others. Let’s say we got 10,000 other people to do this who weren’t doing it before; that would mean $20 million in donations and 2 million phone calls to representatives during Trump’s term. That kind of impact would be yuuggee. Get to it!