How Progressives will attack Donald Trump using the Tea Party Playbook

The Progressive left is at it again. President-Elect Trump hasn’t even been sworn in and they’ve already committed to undercutting him at any turn. On January 2nd, three former congressional staff published a piece of free advertising column in the New York Times promoting their effort to copy Tea Party strategies to attack conservative policies. They explain:

The Tea Party’s success was a disaster for President Obama’s agenda and for our country, but that success should give us hope today. It proved the power that local, defensive organizing can have.

With this in mind, we coordinated a group of former congressional staffers and advocates to develop “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda.” It takes a few pages from the Tea Party playbook, focusing on its strategic choices and tactics, while dispensing with its viciousness. It’s the Tea Party inverted: locally driven advocacy built on inclusion, fairness and respect. It’s playing defense, not to obstruct, but to protect.

Once you get past the leftists talking points, slander, trigger warnings, calls for diversity, and reminders to check your gender/race/class/wealth privileges, the document is a well composed, insightful guide to influencing your representatives. I suggest you download the pdf and read the entire thing, but here are the 5 best insights from their guide and how you can undermine  their strategies to promote conservative solutions to our country’s problems.

1. Understand the incentives of your representatives

MoCs want their constituents to think well of them and they want good, local press. They hate surprises, wasted time, and most of all, bad press that makes them look weak, unlikable, and vulnerable.

Throughout the Indivisible Guide, the authors constantly remind you to focus on the incentives and priorities or your representatives. As they state Members of Congress (MoCs) “functionally speaking, MoCs are always either running for office or getting ready for their next election” no matter if they’re up for election or not. Everything they do is viewed through the lens of how this will affect them when campaign season comes around. They run their office and host events to ensure constituents think their “MoC cares about me, shares my values, and is working hard for me”. Breaking that facade will drive your MoC towards actions you want.

It’s worth understanding the structure of MoC’s offices as well. The Indivisible Guide does a nice job of breaking down what the state and D.C. offices do, which helps you understand how to interact with them.

2. Organize locally

Do NOT switch to targeting other MoCs who don’t represent you. They don’t represent you, and they don’t care what you have to say. Stick with your own local MoCs.

While it might feel cathartic to call Senator Boxer’s office and let them know what you think about her latest gun control scheme, it won’t do much especially if you aren’t from California. It’s more important to show up to your local congressman’s event or office and talk to him directly because your vote and influence actually matters in their district. Not only are phone calls, tweets, form-emails, and the like more easily ignored, they’re just not that impactful compared to a small group of confirmed voters showing up to events.

Grab a few of your friends from your district who feel the same way about politics and bring them with you to a town hall or any event your MoC is attending. It doesn’t even need to be related to the issue you’re concerned about, in fact changing the topic at events can frustrate and fluster those representatives into responding to your questions and presence.

3. Conduct yourself honorably

“We do not yet know how Trump supporters will respond to organized shows of opposition, but we have seen enough to be very concerned that minorities will be targeted or singled out…If you are concerned about potential law enforcement intimidation, consider downloading your state’s version of the ACLU Mobile Justice app to ensure that any intimidating behavior is captured on film.”

The left is looking for any opportunity to smear conservatives as racists, sexists, and jerks. Don’t give them ammunition. The Indivisible Guide makes specific note of how to leverage confrontations progressives might have with others. Don’t fall into this trap. Keep your cool if you are confronted, use your cell phone to record the interactions, and be respectful. They have just as much of a right to disagree with you as you do for them. That’s the point of our republic, to have disagreements and conflicting views. Enjoy that conversational fray, but don’t get personal.

Don’t use foul language, keep a neutral, calm tone of voice, and keep your volume reasonable. In the end, you’ll look like the adult in the room, not the hysterical child. If someone from your side is taking it too far, making personal attacks, or getting aggressive, be a peacemaker. Help cool them off and keep conversation civil. We know that the media would love to report stories about violent conservatives, so don’t make it easy for them by playing into the left’s narrative.

4. Play nice with the Media

If there’s media at the town hall, the people who asked questions should approach them afterwards and offer to speak about their concerns. When the event is over, you should engage local reporters on Twitter or by email and offer to provide an in-person account of what happened, as well as the video footage you collected.

The national media might have serious problems with bias, which often, but that doesn’t always, translate to your local reporters. Don’t assume they’ll be adversarial or unhelpful immediately or you might burn a bridge for no reason. You should understand their incentives too. They have writing deadlines to hit and you can help by pointing them to stories they might be interested in covering with content that can be helpful. As the guide suggests:

Research on Google News (https://news.google.com/news) what local reporters have written about your MoCs. Find and follow them on Twitter, and build relationships.

You’re wasting time if you’re talking to the wrong reporters who don’t cover the beats your MoC cares about. Building a working relationship with local media doesn’t guarantee they’ll cover your positively or even fairly, but you’ll attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

5. Create your own media coverage

Advertise what you’re doing. Communicate on social media and with the local reporters you follow what is happening. Take and send pictures and videos with your group.

Use social media socially as the guide states “email your contacts and post a message on your Facebook, on any local Facebook groups that you’re a member of, and/or other social media channels you use regularly.” Use this tool to reach out to your network. From there, build an email list of like minded people, using free tools like MailChimp to manage your lists. Send out event announcements, important flyers, and action alerts to this network.

Of course, you can use social media to amplify your message. The media isn’t the gatekeeper it was 5 years ago, much less 20. You can create your own media coverage with blogs, social media, and video. Write up a recap of an event or protest for your blog. Follow and tweet at reporters covering your representative. Use your cell phone to broadcast videos with Facebook Live. These tools at your fingertips right now can be used to affect the political process. If you’d like to learn more, we’ve detailed previously how to get letters to the editor published and offer training courses on how to be effective with social media.

But most importantly

While the Indivisible Guide provides some insight and helpful tips, the most important message it has is obvious: you have to get started right now. The Left is in motion. They were shocked by the results in November and are terrified conservatives will undo their legacy of overreaching executive action, costly regulations, and uncontrolled spending. They’re doing everything they can to undermine conservative solutions to these problems.

So what are you going to do about it?