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The extremely American experience of writing a letter to your congressional rep with a 0% chance of it ending up anywhere other than the trash, unread.
Letters to congress critters, like all correspondence, is looked at by the aides. Letters carry more weight than phone calls,etc. They can see by the postmark if you are part of their voting block, and there is an assumption that if you took time to write them there are at least 10 others that feel the same way you do. Doesn't mean the Congressman will agree with you, though.
I've received numerous fuckoff letters back from aides, signed by my (dem) reps. I don't see the difference between that and my original letter ending up in the trash.
The difference is that your point of view is kept track of, somewhere. They make the decision that they don't care, because their re-election does not depend on your vote. But they still track it.
If they start getting a lot of letters on a particular topic, it will prompt some sort of response.
I've been doing plenty of antiwar organizing, the routine is you organize getting hundreds of letters sent, working hard to make sure it's actual constituents, I've even gone to hand off in person to the aides. You always get a letter like 6 months later with a non-response, vowing to keep doing what they've been doing.
They are not tracking anything for anything more than PR management, it takes actual leverage to influence their decisions.
No, they are tracking it, the sad truth though is that even with all your work, they have made the dara-driven decision that your anti-war cause doesn't matter to their re-election chances.
And that's why I voted Uncommitted and am urging everyone I know to withhold their votes from these people
Like I said, it doesn't mean they will agree with you.
It's why I encourage everyone to vote Uncommitted downballot as well
That is throwing your vote away. Consequences are on you.
It's not like it does anything, the president literally gets picked by a system designed to ignore the popular vote