Your Representative Isn't Listening. Here's Why.

And where you can focus your efforts for better results.

Jul 16, 2025

An old telephone switchboard, unused. Credit: Freepik

Dear friends

A few of you have mentioned your frustration that your calls to representatives aren't making a dent. Some of you are calling members of Congress. Others are reaching out to state-level officials, like senators, governors, or attorneys general. Across the board, the experience is often the same: no reply, no shift, no sign that it mattered.

So what’s actually going on here? Why is it that even when thousands of people flood phone lines or submit public comments, the response is silence — or, at best, a form letter?

The answer isn’t simple, because not all representatives operate in the same structure. A Democratic governor in a blue state faces different pressures than a Republican senator in a gerrymandered district — or a state assembly member trying to keep their seat in a purple state. But the deeper pattern is the same: many of the channels that used to connect public pressure to political action have been deliberately weakened, bypassed, or ignored.

Calls that once moved the dial are now absorbed into a system that’s either too insulated to hear them — or too captured to care.

To understand why your calls aren’t landing, we need to look at what’s changed. Not just in terms of who holds power, but how that power is now structured, insulated, and reinforced. Because once you see that clearly, it becomes easier to stop blaming yourself — and start shifting your energy to where it can still have impact.

Why Your Calls Aren’t Landing

1. The call-and-response model assumed representative accountability.

The idea behind calling your member of Congress is rooted in a belief that elected officials respond to constituent pressure. That system only functions when lawmakers feel vulnerable to being voted out, there are functioning checks and balances, and there's a shared commitment to constitutional norms.

That belief still holds in some places, but at the federal level, it’s wearing thin.

It’s evident that many Republican lawmakers no longer see their role as responsive representatives. Instead, they’ve repositioned themselves inside a loyalty hierarchy: their allegiance is to Trump, not the people who elected them. Their political survival depends more on staying in his favour — or avoiding becoming his target — than on reflecting the will of their district.

But it’s not only Republicans who’ve shifted. Many Democrats, too, are no longer operating under the old norms of civic engagement. Some remain responsive and principled. Others, especially in safe blue seats, have grown comfortable and risk-averse. If they think your outrage is baked in — that you’ll vote for them no matter what — they may not feel any urgency to respond or act. A few seem to have become more symbolic than strategic: issuing strong statements but hesitating to use the tools at their disposal.

So even when you call someone who agrees with you, you may not be met with meaningful action. And when you call someone who doesn’t, you’re often just left unheard.

2. Gerrymandering and voter suppression have broken representational incentives.

When districts are so heavily gerrymandered that elections are effectively decided in closed primaries — or when new state laws restrict access to the ballot or dilute representation — lawmakers stop needing a broad coalition to stay in office. Instead, they focus on pleasing a narrow ideological base, or the donor class.

For Republicans, this often means catering to the MAGA right and ignoring any dissenting voices. For Democrats, it can mean tuning out the left or activist base if it’s seen as politically inconvenient.

So your call might be heartfelt, principled, even one of thousands — but if they don’t see it as threatening their electoral security, many won’t listen. The structure itself rewards insulation.

3. Some Republicans fear Trump more than they fear voters. Some Democrats fear being punished for acting.

Trump has shown, again and again, that he can destroy a political career with a single social media post or an offhand comment at a rally. For Republican lawmakers, that’s a powerful deterrent. Even those who disagree with him privately will often stay silent — because your phone call, no matter how compelling, doesn’t outweigh the threat of public humiliation or a primary challenge from the right.

For Democrats, the fear takes a different shape. It’s often not fear of Trump himself, but perhaps fear of losing the illusion of control. Some may be afraid to be labelled radical or reckless. Some are wary of taking bold legal or constitutional steps that might provoke a backlash. They may agree with you in private, but hesitate to act in public — especially if they think the press or the courts won’t back them up.

This creates a strange paralysis on both sides. And your call, while sincere, gets absorbed into a political culture of self-preservation.

4. The executive branch is increasingly bypassing Congress.

Much of what Trump is doing now — whether it’s surveillance expansion, protest repression, deportation escalations, or military deployments — is happening through executive orders, agency rule changes, and backdoor deals. Congress often doesn’t vote on these things. They’re not legislated in the open.

That limits the scope of what any lawmaker, red or blue, can do in response. And it limits what your call can move. Even the most willing representative might only be able to issue a statement, demand a hearing, or introduce a bill that never reaches the floor. When the centre of power has shifted away from the legislature, the leverage of constituent calls shifts with it.

5. We’re in a post-norm, power-consolidated era.

This is the hardest part to name, but the most important. Calls to Congress are a tactic designed for democratic conditions. And right now, those conditions are deteriorating. The guardrails are not holding. The assumptions we once had about how power works — about how to get our voices heard — don’t all apply.

This doesn’t mean every tactic has failed. Calls still have a role in certain moments — especially when a vote is tight, or when a lawmaker is genuinely on the fence. But the era of “call your representative and stop the madness” seems to have passed. It was never enough on its own, and now, in many cases, it’s no longer even reaching the gears of power.

If you’ve been calling and calling and you feel like shouting into the void: you’re not wrong. You're running into a system that’s not broken so much as deliberately restructured. It’s not you — it’s that the channel itself has been narrowed, or closed.

The work now is not just to keep calling. It’s to recognise where the call isn’t being received — and to find new ways to be heard, to protect each other, and to push back.

1. Local and state-level action still has traction.

While the federal government may be captured, many local and state governments are still operating with some degree of integrity — and they’re far more accessible than Washington. City councils, school boards, state legislatures, sheriffs, and district attorneys all have the power to block, slow, or refuse participation in federal initiatives.They can refuse to cooperate with federal enforcement, introduce protections for protestors, and even declare sanctuary policies that limit local participation in federal crackdowns.

Some governors are still fighting back against federal overreach, especially on abortion access, LGBTQ+ protections, and education censorship. They may not win every battle, but local pushback creates breathing room and sets legal precedent. It also gives people on the ground something vital: a sense of community support, and a base to organise from.

You might not be able to move your member of Congress, but you can elect a new city councillor. You can show up at a school board meeting. You can shape what's happening on your own street.

That may feel small, but it's not — it’s how movements grow.

2. Courts are shaky — but still a lever.

It’s blatantly apparent that we’re no longer in an era where the courts can be fully trusted to uphold democratic norms. Some rulings have been deeply compromised by ideology or partisan appointments. But even now, legal action is one of the few mechanisms that can delay or complicate Trump’s plans.

Civil rights organisations, immigrant defence networks, state attorneys general, and even individual plaintiffs have successfully filed lawsuits that temporarily halt executive orders, expose abuses, or trigger congressional investigations. These lawsuits rarely produce sweeping victories, but they buy time. They surface key information, and force bad actors to defend their actions in public. They create legal record, which may be vital down the line. And sometimes, they win.

If you’ve got the capacity to donate, legal defence funds are a powerful place to put your money. If you’ve got storytelling skills, help amplify the legal fight. If you’re a lawyer — or studying to be one — you’re in a position to do serious good.

Even when the courts are unreliable, they can still block the worst, or at least slow the avalanche. The courts remain part of the terrain, and one of the only channels through which the regime still occasionally has to answer for itself.

3. Whistleblower exposure has real impact.

Trump’s government is increasingly opaque, with many of its most dangerous plans unfolding behind closed doors. That secrecy makes it more vulnerable to exposure — especially if the revelations come from within. Whistleblowers have disrupted plans by leaking internal memos, exposing surveillance contracts, or capturing data from private meetings — often forcing a pivot or public denial.

Whistleblower disclosures don’t always spark immediate change, but they can shift the public narrative, trigger media coverage, and force private companies to backpedal or distance themselves from controversial partnerships. Sometimes, exposure leads to resignations or investigations. Other times, it simply denies the government the cover of silence.

These exposures don’t need to cause a scandal to have an effect, and you don’t need to be the one leaking information to play a role — sometimes, just pulling something into the light is enough to slow it down or block its implementation. Spreading credible leaks, protecting sources, and keeping attention on what’s uncovered all contribute to the pressure.

4. Targeted corporate pressure can still work.

Many of the companies now enabling Trump’s agenda are beyond the reach of public pressure — but not all of them. Some remain sensitive to brand reputation, especially those that sell directly to consumers or operate internationally. Companies involved in facial recognition tech, border surveillance, data mining, or protest repression have all shifted course in the past after sustained pressure, especially when that pressure affected their bottom line or invited regulatory scrutiny abroad.

Going forward, the kind of pressure needed isn’t mass outrage. Focused boycotts, shareholder activism, and public campaigns — especially if they're well-documented and strategically timed — still carry weight, especially when highly targeted.

It’s about choosing pressure points carefully and making collaboration with authoritarianism more costly than it’s worth. Corporate power helped build this system, but it also has vulnerabilities — and those can be exploited.

5. Mutual aid and community organising build parallel power.

When the traditional levers of power stop working, people build new ones. Mutual aid isn’t a feel-good sideline — it’s the backbone of resistance under repressive conditions. Communities that care for each other are not only more resilient — they become harder to control. When neighbours organise legal aid, jail support, food distribution, or safety patrols, they reduce their reliance on compromised institutions and protect each other in ways the state no longer will.

Organising doesn’t always look dramatic, and it rarely produces instant results. But it protects the vulnerable, keeps movements alive, and builds trust in a time of fracture. It’s one of the most grounded, durable forms of resistance we have, and it scales — building real security, real trust, and real power in the face of systems designed to divide and isolate. Authoritarian regimes thrive on fear, suspicion, and loneliness. Mutual aid answers with solidarity, consistency, and care.

When I lived in Zimbabwe under Mugabe, mutual aid didn’t come with labels. It looked like opening our doors and our hearts. We shared what we had — water when the taps ran dry, food when shelves were bare, fuel siphoned carefully to get someone to hospital, a bit of cash passed quietly to tide someone over. There was no system behind it, no organisation. Just a shared understanding that survival is collective.

That kind of care wasn’t just about meeting basic needs. It was how we stayed human under conditions designed to strip that away. It created a quiet, everyday form of protection — not from the regime itself, but from the breakdown it produced. And it meant that even when the state stopped functioning, we didn’t collapse in on ourselves — we reached outward.

The state may ignore your call, but it can’t stop you from feeding your neighbours or showing up for someone who’s been targeted. And over time, communities that organise together change the political landscape from the ground up.

If you’ve been doing what we’ve always done — calling, writing, showing up — and finding that nothing moves, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means the system has changed. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It means the tools we reach for need to change too.

There are still ways to push back, still levers that work, still people and places where our energy makes a difference. And the more we recognise where power can still be moved — and where it’s being hoarded or hidden — the stronger we become, together.

The landscape has shifted, yes. But we’re still here. And that counts, even now.

— Lori

📌 I’ve been reflecting on how to add meaningful value for those of you who support this work — especially paid subscribers, whose quiet backing makes more possible than you probably realise. One small thing I thought I’d try is signal boosting.

There’s a lot of noise out there, and it can be hard to find writing that genuinely informs, strengthens, or steadies. But many of you are writers yourselves — thoughtful, attentive, and engaged with the world in ways that might really serve others here. So if you’ve written something that speaks to the themes in this post, and you think fellow readers might benefit from it, you’re warmly invited to share a link below, along with a few lines on how it may help others reading here.

If this ends up feeling extractive or noisy, I won’t carry it forward — so I’m trusting your discernment. But if it works, I hope to make it a quietly recurring practice: a way to lift each other up while keeping this space rooted and real.