Armchair Activist

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Find opportunities to participate in local and state government from your living room, home office, kitchen, car, or wherever you write letters, postcards, emails, or make phone calls. When you make your voice heard, it is democracy in action!

Below are many links to sites where you can research information and points of view to help you decide your own way to take action. These are suggestions that might help you decide what you need to know or do to have your voice heard and make connections with like-minded people. While not a comprehensive list, it can get you started on an action-oriented path. Let’s promote democracy, tell our elected officials what we want, and get more Democrats elected!

Our Club does not advocate all the ideas or people presented in the links, but the more information you have, the easier it will be to decide how you can best be a person of action!

WHAT CAN I DO?

• Americans are feeling powerless to thwart the Trump administration’s assault on our nation’s values. Praised by tech CEOs, surrounded by sycophants, and enriched by his return to the White House, the president’s actions march on unchecked. Americans, however, have a powerful weapon that has been hiding in plain sight. First, we must recognize that the president is unfazed by citizen outrage, the courts, or the media. He responds to one thing: the market. The most potent weapon to resist the administration is a targeted, month-long national economic strike — a coordinated campaign that attacks tech companies and firms enabling ICE  — to inflict maximum damage with minimal impact on consumers. In sum, the shortest path to change without hurting consumers is an economic strike targeted at the companies driving the markets and enabling our president.
  – Scott Galloway, Resist and Unsubscribe
• 5 calls.org – This website makes calling your representatives quick and easy. If you are able, call your representatives every single day. Once your congressperson forms a public stance on an issue, it’s hard for them to walk it back. The earlier they hear your opinion, the more likely it is you’ll make an impact. Calling is by far the most effective way to ensure that your representative hears you before they take a public stance..
• Indivisible.  The Political Outreach Committee is monitoring and then sharing important, and sometimes urgent, information from this organization.  This is a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups, with millions of activists across the country. Their mission is to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda. Indivisible’s national team offers strategic leadership, movement coordination, and support to Indivisible activists, and also directly lobbies congress, builds partnerships, runs media campaigns, and develops advocacy strategies.
• Chop Wood, Carry Water – This daily actions newsletter from activist Jessica Craven gives specific steps to take action for democracy and progressive ideas. She also has a podcast and posts on TicToc and Facebook. Here’s a link to her Activism 101 Document that might get you inspired to take action on a variety of fronts.
• Simon Rosenburg – from a 30-year veteran of US politics. The blog focuses on strategies to defeat MAGA, telling the Democratic story more effectively, and ensuring freedom and democracy prevail.
• Letters from an American – from Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College, to chronicle today’s political landscape. She references the past (Constitution, laws, economics and social customs) to explore what it means to be an American today. She is also on Facebook, BlueSky, and SubStack.
• Today’s Edition Newsletter – daily thoughts, from Robert B. Hubbell, to provide hope and perspective to like-minded citizens who are devoted to preserving American democracy.
• Sierra Club Activism – in the face of a warming climate, unprecedented levels of pollution, and powerful special interests undermining basic protections, the club is now focusing on bringing people together for solutions. You’ll find many ideas here on taking action, not only for the climate but also to protect democracy. The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club is addressing the state’s change from “climate action to climate denial” under Gov. Youngkin and you’ll find many ways to take action.
• John Pavlovitz, American pastor and author, known for his progressive social and political writings.
• ACLU, Progressive Caucus Action Fund, Vote Forward, Daily Kos, Black Lives Matter, People Demanding Action, The States Project, Women’s March, Progressive Democrats of America Red Wine & Blue are organizations that may have local representation, and many ways you can get involved.
• MideasTouch News MeidasTouch Network (MTN) was founded by three brothers Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas. MTN is a pro-democracy news network. MTN has quickly established itself as one of the most viewed and visited news networks in the world. MeidasTouch is independently owned and operated and is unencumbered by corporations.

Choose your own topic and take action!

Your opinions matter, and your thoughts are probably similar to more people than you think. We need to have Democratic voices speak out loudly in our area in order to have a healthy two-party democracy.

You can contact your county Board of Supervisors, School Board members or other elected officials to express your views and concerns. A note of thanks is also welcome when they support policies and legislation that helps our community. Find your local elected officials on our Current Elected Officials page.

Suggested Topics for Letters to the Editor

Consider sending a letter to a local paper on issues that are important to you. The Public Relations Committee can help you draft a letter or give you further contact information at local papers.

Some topics you may want to use as writing prompts to share your ideas and concerns:
• Women’s health (there are multiple recent issues on this subject)
• Responsible gun ownership
• Climate crisis
• Voting rights and Black Lives Matter
• Support for teachers, librarians, mental health
• Veterans benefits
• Mountain Valley Pipeline (including eminent domain and the environmental concerns)
• Loss of full faith and credit of the USA
• Foreign aid/humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Gaza

• Roanoke Times
• Smith Mountain Eagle
• Bedford Bulletin
• Franklin News Post
• Lynchburg News & Advance

ATTEND A LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

School boards across the country are being inundated with angry (and sometimes violent) audience members who want to change curriculum, ban books and bring religion and politics into public schools. The same thing is happening in the counties around Smith Mountain Lake. See below for more about Franklin County in particular.

You can help by attending one or more school board meetings in your county. This will give a more balanced perspective so that board members (and audience members, too) realize that there are other views in our community. If you don’t want to speak, just attend a meeting to learn about the school system, which is often one of the biggest employers in rural counties, and where many of your dollars are spent.

If you would like to make a public comment, you must reside in the county and sign up ahead of time, and then you are allowed a set number of minutes to speak, uninterrupted. You do not have to address a “hot” topic or divisive issue. Some ideas are:

• Talk about how our school division is addressing the significant amount of “learning loss” that occurred during a two-year global pandemic that drove many kids to virtual learning for a significant portion of time.
• You’ve been watching School Board meetings and would love to see the focus shift to education and welfare of our kids instead of serving as a political podium for culturally divisive issues such as book banning and transgender bathrooms.
• Talk about what can be done about the significant absenteeism and behavioral issues that we are currently experiencing post-pandemic.
• In Franklin County, there is great need for a true Career and Technical Education Center (CTE) to serve both the students and community, thereby making us a more attractive county for new employers.
• Teacher pay, retention, and filling teacher and staffing vacancies are all relevant topics that need to be addressed, especially in Franklin County compared to other nearby counties (Roanoke, for example).

You will need to sign up ahead of time to speak, so be sure to look at your county’s School Board agenda on their websites to find out dates and times (they do meet in the summer!) and for information or forms for making your comments.

Bedford County School Board
Franklin County School Board
Pittsylvania County School Board

More about why local school boards need your voice

Local school board meeting audiences have become packed with “activist members” of the community. That’s their label for what they’re doing. In Franklin County:

• Many of them are not parents of students in the public schools.
• Many did not support mask requirements in schools at any time during the pandemic.
• Many do not support being inclusive with our LGBTQ+ kids.
• They continue to accuse the schools of teaching CRT and of driving a Marxist agenda through our schools.
• Book banning is now garnering support with the new administration.
• It appears that this has become a social event for this group as many of them bring knitting and read books during the meeting after they have made their 3-minute speeches.
• They have become a distraction to the Board’s agenda of focusing on education and the welfare of students.

Also in Franklin County, and perhaps other counties as well, the same 50-60 people come to each meeting. This small group, while visible and vocal, does not represent the whole community of 56,000. Please consider adding your voice to show that there are other points of view.

Express Your VIEWS ON gun violence

Write to your local Congressman to express your opinions, fears, suggestions about gun violence in the USA. Remember, our elected officials are there to REPRESENT us. Our lake area Congressional representatives are listed on our Current Elected Officials pages. Feel free to call, write, or do both!

Write letters to Get Out the Vote

There are many organizations that have started letter writing campaigns to encourage people to get to the polls. Studies have shown that postcards or letters addressed to individuals actually do increase voting.

The SML Democrats and both the Bedford and Franklin County Democratic Committees schedule postcard writing sessions for elections. They are a fun, social opportunity as well if you join a group session. Information will be posted at the appropriate time, usually in summer months.

There are also organizations that target populations in many states to encourage turnout for hotly contested elections. Depending on your interest, you could commit to writing 10, 20 or 100 notes to encourage people to vote for various reasons. Environmental, health care, women’s rights, children’s needs, legal issues, racism issues, etc., are all topics with organizations behind these causes that will enlist your help and offer letter-writing tips. Whatever your interest is, you can find a place that needs your help to get voters motivated enough to hit the polls. Some examples are listed above, under the “What other people are saying” headline.

For example, Vote Forward uses letter writing as an important strategy, and if you’d like to participate, use this link.

Turn the Governor’s Teacher Tip Line into a “positive”

Governor Youngkin ran on a platform of “parents’ rights,” fueled by fear of CRT (Critical Race Theory) being taught in public schools. One of his first actions in office was to establish a tip line to report teachers who use “divisive teaching practices” (even though he doesn’t define what that entails) and his administration refuses to answer who is to monitor the tip line or how a report will be addressed.

We can combat parent fears that lead to book banning and opposing CRT, which is not taught in Virginia elementary or secondary schools. Tell the Governor about the positive impact that our schools and teachers have, and that he has overstepped. Express your opinion of the tip line. Many teachers find this demeaning and insulting to be reported to the government for undefined “divisiveness” with no stated recourse. 

Let’s do this instead: keep the tip line alive with positive reports

Rather than feeding into the assumption that learning about diversity and historical facts is harmful to our children and future adult citizens, fill the tip line with positive experiences of schools, teachers and education. You don’t have to have been a student in the lake area counties or even in Virginia! Simply tell about the positive impact teachers, schools and education have had on you, your life and/or your family.

Some suggestions for positive reports:
• Who was your favorite teacher and what did they teach?
• What teacher had the most positive impact on your life?
• What does/did your child like about their teachers?
• Tell about a positive impact on your life from your school or your child’s school.
• What are some of your fondest memories about school?
• Express your personal opinion of this action.

The governor’s site for comments is: helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov.