These were the words of almost nightly calls from my friend and brother-in-law whose grief and sadness at the state of the Nation he loved dearly came to an end a few years ago, may he Rest in Peace. In those conversations I would try to answer as best I could with all of the standard bromides such as “call your Congressman” (at that time, now-Sen. Bill Cassidy, in response to which I regularly received letters of such inanity as one thanking me for my inquiry about agricultural allotments), “express your opinions loud and clear” (never a problem for either of us! ) , “write letters to the Editor” (in our hometown at that time, an almost total waste of time unless you were writing to praise Obama or the latest programming on MSNBC), etc., etc. Our commiserations always ended in total frustration with the admission that there was little or nothing we could do as lowly little Proles, in the terminology of 1984, just trying to be heard even to the slightest degree.
Scene shift to the current time and our new home in the Florida Panhandle, in which our Representative is Matt Gaetz, whose assistant once informed me that “the Congressman does not return phone calls from constituents” but my guess is that he would get right back to a caller if he or she was a booker for Fox News or Newsmax as he truly is an accomplished performer. Letters to the Editor of the major newspaper in our area voicing anything even hinting at a conservative viewpoint have about as much chance of being published as the survival rate of a snowball in Hell.
However, in our new home area, I did take one step to try to make some tiny little contribution by working as a poll worker, a most rewarding service I would highly ecommend to anyone trying to “do something” to help out in our perilous situation. Not much, but it is something of a contribution and one I personally wish more would consider making.
I have just summed up what dedicated American citizens, actively looking for opportunities to serve their country, are faced with when they try to find ways to “do something” and not only has nothing changed since “Bro” was with us but have gotten exponentially worse in so many ways it is difficult to catalogue them.
However, I just saw an excellent column this morning on this very subject which gives me some renewed hope and which I can recommend highly for your reading. It is Scared for Your Country? What You Cand and Must Do it contains a number of solid suggestions on ways we can all help in various ways - assuming we are not overwhelmed with a feeling of hopelessness and depression at the direction the Marxists are taking the country today. Here for your consideration is the opening and the first list he presents:
With crackdowns on speech and religious exercise, and brazen indictments against a past president and likely presidential nominee — by powers that previously tried to frame him for conspiring with a hostile foreign power but which have, themselves, colluded with the enemy — ordinary Americans watch helplessly as they see their republic slipping away before their eyes.
But they're not helpless. Not at all.
"What can I do?" a young relative recently asked me as we grieved the goings-on.
Plenty, I discovered on reflection. Here's just a partial list of what we concerned citizens can do to rescue and revive the republic:
Educate yourself — which today means finding alternate sources of news and information, particularly with the odd ebb of Fox News as a reliable counterweight to the ubiquitous liberal media. (You may want to start with sites such as this.)
Become a tireless advocate for truth, justice, and government accountability.
Be vocal on social media and among acquaintances about your beliefs and what needs to happen.
Back up those beliefs with solid evidence.
Run for office.
Support only candidates who pursue policies that uphold the Constitution, rule of law, national security, prosperity, public safety, healthy choices, and orderly society. (It's not healthy, civil or compassionate, for instance, to allow or even encourage people to destroy themselves with drugs on public sidewalks or public parks.)
Agree on a written set of personal and family values, then act on them every day.
Support alternatives to public education failure and indoctrination. (See American Federation for Children, EdChoice, and more.)
Have the courage to stand up to a misguided mob pushing policies and values you know to be harmful.
Monitor what your elected officials at every level are doing, and hold them accountable.
Join with other people in like-minded organizations to safeguard civil society, individual freedom, and the constitutional republic (Moms For Liberty, Parents Defending Education, and more).
Support public-interest nonprofits and law firms that protect freedom of speech, religion, and other liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights (Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty Institute, and more).
Work to create and preserve election integrity (voter ID, no ballot-harvesting, no drop boxes, no mass mailings of ballots or ballot applications).
Sign up to be a poll worker or a poll observer.
Don't be fooled by ad hominem, unsupported, irrelevant personal attacks against political rivals ("they're a danger to democracy," etc.).
Don't get fooled into thinking elections or the republic's future is about personalities instead of policies
I would understand if some reading this would consider many of those ideas “pie in the sky”, for want of a better description. For example, when I read “monitor what your elected officals at every level are doing, and hold them accountable” I recalled my experiences in trying to get a single word of response from my “elected officials” and was, to put it mildly, just a tad skeptical. I hasten to note so as not to paint with too broad a brush that I have found our local authorities quite responsive and amenable to suggestions, a most refreshing approach when trying to “hold accountable” my representative to the National Legislature whose official policy is to “not return phone calls”!
There is a lot more to the article and it offers much food for thought as we head into a maelstrom of indictments, trials, filthy, rotten, corrupt National “leaders”, campaigning, scandals, bribes, payoffs, and concern about questioning any of it for fear that Jack Smith, Fani Willis, or any number of their minions will knock your door down at 6 am for the crime of expressing your First Amendment rights.
Let me pose a question or two, considering the fact that we have a little over a year to save our beloved Nation:
What other suggestions do you have as to what we can do to help our Republic survive this storm?
What do you plan to do?
Have the Marxist intimidation tactics of out of control prosecutors like Smith and Willis and the others given you pause concerning being out in the open about your views?
“What can we do, Jim?” I cannot help but wonder what “Bro” would think were he still alive to see the utter destruction to our Nation wrought in just a few years by the far left, the Democrat Party, the Marxists, the Communists, the academy, the major news media, but I repeat myself.
So, since “Bro” is no longer with us to ask the question himself, I will pose it for him:
“What can we do?”
Let me tell you what I and a group of like minded friends did, a little over a year ago. We are members of a local America First Patriots group. We all joined our local county Republican Party, which had been run for years by a group of nice but ineffective locals who used the group as a monthly coffeeklutch, and did little else. Most of them are the go along to get along type and didn’t seem to mind which direction the party was headed, or that our state Rep and State Senator voted with the Dems more often than they did with their own party.
Once we got a critical mass of members, we ran for Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer and Secretary. And won. Now we have a group that is actually active. We meet, we invite speakers, we brainstorm, we write letters, make phone calls and yes, we even write letters to the editor of our local leftist rag. Some of them even get published. We actually invite local writers to our events which we videotape. Some of us went on to run for Precinct Delegates, and we won those seats too. So now we attend the bi-annual state Republican Convention.
We have since coordinated with the county republicans of the rest of the counties here in MI and had many Zoom calls, and in person events. And we are pretty much on the same page. So at our last State Convention, all of us Precinct Delegates were able to vote out the RINO who had been in charge of the state party and replace him with a rock-solid conservative Christian chairwoman (you may have read about this in the Gateway Pundit 😉)
So little by little, we are taking back our state. Many of us also serve on election integrity committees, recruitment committees (looking to recruit real conservatives to run for sheriff and other offices), etc.
But I can see, that at least in our little corner of the world, we are starting to make a difference.
I am a poll worker in Warren County, Virginia and while it makes for a long day, starting at 0430 and usually ending at about 2030, I enjoy serving my community and on this point I agree with the author.