Small Political Actions to Take Each Week — No Matter What Party You’re In
Whether or not the current issue of separating immigrant families at the border has contributed to your outrage fatigue or spurred you into taking action (and/or brought you to tears, as it did even for an on-the-air Rachel Maddow), you may be looking for small political actions to take each week to make your voice heard — no matter what party you're in.
In the meantime, you might find it helpful to read our posts on the benefits of meditation, how to relax after a stressful day, how to take a partial social media break, how to focus on work (when other things are going on) … and, for very simple stress relief in general: coloring books for adults. If you want to get even more involved, check out our resources for women running for office.
Here are four websites that make it easy to learn about small political actions to take each week — plus one bonus site that helps you make a difference in other ways. If you know of any other groups with small political actions to take weekly or daily, we'd love to hear about them!
Daily Action
This site, which was created by the Creative Majority PAC (which is run by artists, musicians, and writers and assisted by MoveOn.org) sends daily action alerts by text to its subscribers — and they aren't solely requests to call your representative. To start receiving them, text the word DAILY to 228466 (or just sign up on the site). One recent example: Call a company that's in the position to profit from the separation of immigrant children from their families and tell them you won't support them until they stop contributing to ICE's actions.
Americans of Conscience Checklist
Writer Jennifer Hofmann puts together a non-partisan weekly email with actions to take on issues such as voting access, equality for all Americans, respectful treatment of immigrants, and so on — with the philosophy that “We're Americans first and party second.” This week's email suggests actions like asking your elected officials to hold town halls in July, or thanking the five Democratic and Republican senators who “mov[ed] to curb executive branch overreach by limiting President Trump's authority on tariffs ” — along with many other things to do.
5 Calls
This site is an open-source project made by volunteers that encourages people to go beyond easy online efforts (retweeting, etc.) and call their representatives. You can sign up to get weekly email alerts that give you a phone number and short script regarding key issues such as “Demand Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen's Resignation” and “Protect the Affordable Care Act and Its Protections for Preexisting Conditions.” You don't have to sign up to get information on actions like these, though — just check the site and click on a particular issue that's important to you.
My Civic Workout
I really like the mission of this site (which is run by a small team): “to help those feeling overwhelmed, daunted, and disheartened to engage in meaningful civic activism.” (Really, how many of us does that apply to?) You can sign up to receive a few emails a week that offer 5-minute, 10-minute, and 30-minute activism “workouts,” meaning you may be encouraged to educate yourself on a key issue, call your representative, attend a political rally, etc. Here's a recent example.
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator's tagline is “Your Guide to Intelligent Giving,” and we linked to it in our post on how to help charities by donating money, time, or something else. If you want to take action but your time and/or mental energy is significantly limited, you can use this site to help you decide where to donate (according to an organization's financial health, accountability, and transparency). Find a particular charity's score or use the site's Giving Basket tool, which allows you to donate to multiple charities at once, give anonymously (if you prefer), and get a single tax receipt. This is a good option if you want to make a donation without ending up with piles of unsolicited mail (really, who needs more return address labels?), because you can choose how much personal information, if any, to share with each charity. (Here's a general donation tip: Money given to a 501(c)(3) is tax-deductible on your federal return, while money given to a 501(c)(4) is not.) By the way, you can also try GuideStar, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, and CharityWatch.
Have you found a good way to learn about small political actions to take each week? Have you signed up for email or text alerts that share them? Have you limited your consumption of news or stopped using social media because of outrage fatigue or other reasons? What are your favorite non-partisan organizations that are taking political and community action in ways you admire?
Interesting… you present this as non-partisan, but all your suggestions are leftwing. I can’t be the only conservative who reads your blog! Disappointing, but I already take action.
2 of the 5 examples provided are nonpartisan and Kate is welcoming suggestions from readers of all viewpoints. As I’m sure we both know it’s hard to find truly nonpartisan sources that can remain that way and also direct people to act– I appreciate an article that can serve as a jumping off point for readers that are less politically savvy.
I’m generally pretty openly liberal and left of center but I agree with this criticism somewhat – except it’s not org suggestions as much as the examples used. This whole post could have been written without using “key issues such as “Demand Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen’s Resignation” and “Protect the Affordable Care Act and Its Protections for Preexisting Conditions” as an example.
This is also ignoring the fact that not everyone’s reaction to current events is either outrage fatigue or tears; some people may actually support a zero tolerance policy even if they feel bad about its consequences. I’m not one of them, but they do exist.
Also, just to clarify, I don’t have a specific issue with a political post. I would welcome a post that was about what you can do as an “overachieving chick” in response to recent current events. I just don’t think you should have a post that’s presented as “either party” when from the first sentence makes pretty clear that’s not how it’s going to be received.
Thanks, AIMS. I 100% agree with you.
I disagree. As others have said, if you have alternative resources you want to share go ahead. However, others will appreciate the aforesaid examples. Is there a “target those with preexisting conditions for extra suffering” link you’d like to post?
So I fully support the preexisting conditions protections and called my representatives about this and rallied people I know in red districts to do the same and donate(d) to organizations that work on these kinds of issues, but do you sincerely think that the opposite of that viewpoint is “target those with preexisting conditions for extra suffering?” Are you genuinely incapable of seeing how someone may believe in a different policy that, for example, has cheaper baseline coverage for everyone that happens to exclude pre-existing conditions protection? I happen to disagree with that viewpoint because I think the net effect will, in fact, be that more people suffer but I can believe that without thinking that all the people who’ve come to a different conclusion have evil motives. I’m genuinely curious. Are you just being pithy? Because I think this kind of shorthand is never going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you so it seems like a very poor strategy from a political/policy perspective.
I find this issue heart wrenching (and I have some very serious preexisting conditions, as do children in my family), but even I don’t understand how it can be considered “insurance” when you already have the thing insured against. If there’s a better or more cost effective solution to healthcare costs, I would welcome it. I know I am very privileged to be able to afford health insurance at this time, but I also spend a great deal of time and effort fighting my insurance company when it rejects completely straightforward “standard of care” type claims, and I always check whether cash-pay or co-pay will be cheaper when purchasing my meds each month. I could also save my monthly rent in $ if I were willing to technically break the law and get my meds from Canada. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore, except that it’s a complex issue, and the ACA was so far from ideal, and I don’t know what is going to happen to people I care about if pre-existing conditions become exclusions again.
Please provide resources yourself then if you already take action. It is difficult to find nonpartisan support sites, and easier to find ones that lean to your side (which possibly the author of the post has done in an effort to give a round number of examples).
As we all know in working environments it is much more palatable to provide critique with a solution. Right now you’re just feeding into what the left leaning wolves got on conservatives about this morning.
I am a very politically active conservative. If a fellow conservative would like suggestions for how to get involved, please let me know what issue(s), location (if relevant, eg a state issue), and I will try to point you in the right direction.
I find that I can never make my conservative relatives believe anything is non partisan. They believe Snopes and PolitiFact are partisan.
They are partisan. Calling themselves “non partisan” doesn’t make them so. Learn to see bias.
Q.E.D.
Like I said, partisan. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/
in response to that Forbes link – sorry but there is nothing there to prove that Snopes is biased. I was curious, so I read both this article and the original Dailymail tabloid piece that this is based on. The founders of Snopes were having an ugly divorce in 2016, and two conservative media outlets focused heavily on the sex lives of the people involved to smear Snopes (seriously, how is it relevant where the divorced guy took his new wife for honeymoon?). The new wife, who works for Snopes(as an administrator!), ran for the Libertarian party once in 2004, with no funding. There was also one fact checker, who privately blogs about issues like sexual preferences and pot. Based on this, the Forbes article dreams up scenarios of a newsroom full of climate change deniers, and muses how objective their fact checking might be.
The Forbes writer contacted Snopes and didn’t receive detailed information about their fact-checking procedures, hiring policies, appeals process or quality control, which he correctly points out you would expect to get from an organization focused on transparency and objectivity. As far as I can see, these issues are addressed on their website now.
Other fact checking sites and academics have analyzed Snopes repeatedly, finding their coverage unbiased (check wikipedia for more). The article you link to tries to imply that the people working at Snopes might be flawed people, but it provides zero examples of when coverage has actually been partisan.
The great thing is that Corporette doesn’t really need to be politics-neutral. If Kat wants to shill for liberal / Democratic causes, she can. It’s her blog. And if people don’t like it, they can go elsewhere.
Huh…today I learned Charity Navigator is left wing!
FYI – Thompson Reutuers is providing info to ICE. A friend just noted on FB that Westlaw is no longer safe for research re immigration.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tech-companies-quietly-work-ice-border-crisis-continues-n885176
Eye roll
Uh, that is not what that article says.
I guess Kat’s been reading this week’s comments
Where are the resources for supporting a zero tolerance policy at the border? I’m a conservative that’s sick of getting shamed this week for supporting a strong stance at our borders.
Why don’t we just melt down the Statue of Liberty while we are at it? America isn’t America anymore.
Do you need resources? You have the presidency?
Totally agree with Faith2014 above. Though a couple of the sources are labeled as being non-partisian, the referenced articles appear to be very one-sided.
I live on the Texas-Mexico border and the majority of the children being shown in the national media are in fact those that arrived in the U.S. ALONE, without any parent or adult. Our area has been dealing with the issue of these illegal unaccompanied minors and also mothers with children coming in to our city/area for AT LEAST the last four years….this is NOT something new or created by the current administration. Regardless of your politics and how you feel about the overall immigration issue, no one wants to see children alone or with parent(s) in these type situations. It’s important to remember, the minority of the children being held in the centers seen on the national news, who were separated from their parents were separated for the same reason any child is separated from a parent sent to prison.
Our city has been incredible in the way we have handled and worked to help these people. Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley established a Respite Center at a Catholic church a few blocks from the bus station used by the Border Patrol to send these folks on to family elsewhere in the U.S. and this is where many of the families have received meals, clothes, shoes, and comfort until they are bused elsewhere in the U.S. Most of them arrived in Texas with only the clothes on their back and may not have eaten in days. The City of McAllen, Texas has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of its’ money helping the Respite Center – by providing many city services, including additional/overtime police to assist with traffic and other issues, portable showers and restrooms, etc. The rest of the costs have been covered by donations and volunteers from across the area – from all faiths, walks of life, and socio-economic backgrounds. Many other houses of worship of MANY faiths have been actively involved and helped with all aspects of the Respite Center – the number of volunteers who have showed up daily and the lines of traffic of local citizens going to donate clothing, food, and supplies has been incredible and it’s been going on for YEARS – AGAIN THIS IS NOT NEW and HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUMP’S POLICIES – IT’S WHAT WAS IN PLACE. While the City has applied for some reimbursement and has received some money from the State of Texas, and a little from the federal government, it has not begun to cover all the out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the city. But, that’s what we as both Americans and citizens of McAllen and the valley do and it makes me proud to be a part of this community – I’m sure your communities would do the same.
Melania Trump was here today visiting one of the smaller facilities housing the unaccompanied minors so you’ve may have already seen us in the news today. Again, it’s important to note the MAJORITY of these children, even extremely young, came to the U.S. ALONE.
If you want to donate to an on-the-ground organization helping these refugees, checkout Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. See their FB page and some of the pix dating to June 2014 – those are the Respite Center. Originally it was set up in one of the church buildings and surrounding parking lots – they are now in the process of building a permanent building. If you want to donate to help, this is a valid organization and you will know your donation goes to directly impact those who need it. Sister Norma Pimental, the head of the organization, has been honored countless times across the county over the last few years, most recently by Norte Dame, and has also met with the pope and many U.S. officials.
Sorry I’ve been venting but it’s annoying to see some of the inaccurate rhetoric in the national news when I live here and see what is really happening with my own eyes. Until President Bush 43 brought it to the national attention, most of the immigration issues we Americans along the border have been living with was ignored. And, not really until now has the attention been so heavy on the children. Yes, it’s time to fix the situation – but without pointing fingers at either party – EVERYONE has been part of the problem and EVERYONE must help fix it.
By the way, our city is one of the safest in the U.S. Our crime rate is extremely low and this is a wonderful place to live, raise a family and visit. Ya’ll are all welcome here!
Yeah, no thanks.
Ditto
I appreciate the info.
Lefty here.
Thanks for posting.
Thank you for your post. It is very informative.
*Y’all
Thank you for posting this, I’ve already signed up for two of the newsletters! Whatever the political affiliation, I like the focus on actually calling our representatives rather than simply re-posting on Facebook and expecting things to change.