Between the 2016 elections and the subsequent unauguration day, I struggled to figure out what my resistance to the Trump regime should entail. I needed to set a minimum level of political action for myself that was substantially more than my previous minimum (i.e., voting every two years) but still attainable. I hope to have a multifaceted approach to resistance, but I wanted to set a baseline. I also needed a way to hold myself accountable over time, so that Trumpism never became normalized and so I didn’t become lazy. I resolved to contact the Trump White House every single day for as long as it takes to get rid of him.
The series of posts that I’m calling Thank you for contacting the White House is a webbed up version of what I submit daily to the online whitehouse.gov contact form, which is now apparently the only public way to contact him since the comment phone line has been disabled.
Removing a phone number for the White House indicates that Trump does not want to hear from or respond to his constituents, which is inexcusable. However, it does allow me to easily copy and paste my less-than-2500-character messages into Medium so that they become open letters, where I hope they may be useful in some way. Online congressional call scripts are abundant, presidential examples less so. When I remember to change the settings, my posts are public domain so I encourage you to use or adapt them for your own purposes.
Filling out the form also allows me to address Trump “directly”; it just would have been awkward to address a phone bank volunteer as ‘Trump’ but it sure does blow off some steam to call him the names he deserves. In naming, there is power.
Maybe I’ll even get some debate from the other side!
Here’s the first post in the series, on Trump’s first day on the job, wherein I realize you can’t call the White House anymore. Since the White House doesn’t give you their phone number, I refuse to provide mine when I submit the form. Instead, I give the phone number for the Republican National Committee (202–863–8500. I use it whenever I need to provide a phone number for people likely to spam me). Once, I tried entering the old White House comment line number:
I give myself three-day weekends. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I schedule Medium posts that are just quotes about freedom and stuff. I then paste those into the contact form. Sadly, whitehouse.gov does not allow for automating submissions, but maybe I’ll submit website feature requests, too. In any case, self-care is important for lefties right now, and the weekend is family time. I’m also learning about American history by researching quotes to use!
So far, I have not received any email responses to my whitehouse.gov form submissions or received any “regular updates” that I accidentally signed up for one time when I forgot to uncheck the box.
