Totally agree it’s important to engage all levels of government. But only the US Senate has the authority over nominations

Awesome!

Trump doesn’t have that power, he’s pressuring the Senate to do so. Thus calling Senators to stand up to these shenanigans is important.

Have you tried calling their phones? Sure some don’t pick up, but enough do.

I’m in favor of larger structural changes, but I’m not about to roll over and allow fascists to get everything they want in the current system. How many people do you expect to join a revolution if they won’t even be bothered to pick up a phone?

The book does acknowledge and analyze the violent and nonviolent aspects of the resistance movements in the case studies, and how they impacted each other. Thanks for the suggestion on Setting Sites

It’s highly variable, and yes I absolutely agree money in politics is a big problem. I do have a direct experience where reaching out to my Senators led to them aggressively and successfully opposing a provision in a law that would have had a big impact on me. Don’t want to dox myself, but this real change to a bill made a huge difference to me and many others. So it is possible to make an impact.

I’m for larger structural changes, but I disagree that rolling over and allowing fascists to get their way in the current system is acceptable. Let’s do both

Why not use multiple tactics? It’s not all or nothing and yes I’m certain Senate offices care about hearing from constituents, far more effective than simply doom scrolling.

Done! https://lemmy.world/post/22021613

These tactics are not always a guarantee to have things go your way, but they increase the chances. For phone calling, numbers of people calling in matter the most, particularly at strategic times, including: right after big announcements, right before a committee vote, right before a floor vote. It’s also more effective before dominant narratives have arisen around a topic and there is uncertainty on how things could shake out.

Resistance to authoritarian regimes takes many forms, I found the book Why Civil Resistance Works to be a very helpful analysis of different resistance movements and their tactics

Because the appointments are the current issue that has some ability to be influenced. It helps to lean into issues that are making headlines, partly because reporters are reaching out to offices for their comments to get their stance on public record

A self-fulfilling prophecy if his constituents don’t try to make him care

Thought I’d add that mass phone calls are a tactic used by the NRA and other powerful lobby groups. Getting a lot of their group’s members to voice their opinion is the key to their success…perhaps to the point of making an office fearful of the backlash via phone calls for going against them.

Relevant John Oliver segment

They do not, Trump’s appointments are not yet in place. It’s never too late to fight for democracy.

Nazi rose to power in Germany because too many people had this defeatist attitude

Seconding Center for American Progress. There are also a ton of issue specific organizations and professional societies that are non partisan, but focus on improving policies that tend to be left leaning. For example Planned Parenthood is technically a nonpartisan nonprofit, but many other health or environment related non-profits have a policy team that tries to advance their cause they best they know how. Being nonpartisan means they aren’t limited to speaking with one side or the other and can keep a drum beat going on their issues regardless of the political winds. These orgs could use your donations now more than ever.

There is plenty of space for passengers and storage. We traded in a Ford Fusion sedan and the Ioniq 5 has much more storage space than that did. One of the long road trips I mentioned was a camping trip. We were able to bring two big tote bins, a big cooler, a canopy tent for the picnic table, folding chairs, sleeping bags, air mattresses, extra blankets, and two dogs on the back seat. As a bonus, we got an adapter that plugs into the charging port and can power a hotplate for boiling water faster than a camp fire (also serves as back up power for my house if the power goes out, can run an extension cord down to the freezer). There is a small frunk, we mostly use that for emergency supplies.

I’m above average height and can fully extend my legs in both front seats and never have issues with head clearance. I like the space between the two front seats as well being mostly open concept as opposed to the closed spaces in Teslas. Feels spacious for every day driving and on road trips can fit a soft sided cooler as well as a food bag.

My Hyundai Ioniq 5 is my favorite car ever! We’ve taken it on two long road trips with very few issues. The biggest issue was one charging station in a rural area had a 2 hr wait to use it. But we typically only take 15-20 mins to charge from 10%-80% on road trips.

Not sure where the top commenter is getting their range issues from. Our level 2 charger at home adds ~250 miles of range in 4 hours. In hindsight probably would have gone a cheaper route of a simple exterior 240V outlet on the wall and a compatible cord to save a few hundred dollars.

Otherwise there’s very minimal maintenance and the car is super easy/fun to drive. Love the 1-pedal driving mode after a short learning period, it’s so responsive that the car feels like it reads my mind on where I want to go/how far to be behind the next car.

Edit: the 2025 Ioniq 5 models are coming with the Tesla charging port, so that will open up a lot more charging stations!

Just check out the resumes of pretty much any astronaut. They’re all incredibly accomplished people, the selection process is so competitive