For most Americans, the 2024 election has brought exhaustion, divisiveness and, for many, fear and deep pain. It turns out that the days after the election were the easy part. President Trump’s first few weeks in office have been marked by an avalanche of chaos, cruelty and outright lawlessness, leaving many Americans wondering how, and even if, they can make a difference amidst the recklessness.
What are the options?
- Protesting? Important, but usually not the long game.
- Signing email form letters, which only 3 percent of Congressional staff says is highly effective? Often, just gestures.
- Taking a two-year nap until the next election? Sadly, the preferred route for many.
- Or, what Americans know about: transformational advocacy, which helps you change an issue and changes you in the process.
Transformational advocacy is when seasoned activists and rank beginners are trained, encouraged and succeed in doing things as advocates they never thought they could do. Actions like meeting with a member of Congress and bringing them on board to your issue or having a letter to the editor published on an issue you care about. When you do these things, you experience a burst of confidence in yourself and in our democracy.
If transformational advocacy can have an impact on issues we care about, why do so few of us engage?
Let’s be honest — almost everyone shies away from advocacy as a way to make a difference because we see it as too hard or too frustrating, too complicated or too partisan.
But what if that’s all wrong? What if you can become an advocate for a cause you care about and feel fulfilled, not frustrated? And what if engaging as an advocate is essential to protecting our democracy?
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Transformational advocacy works
I spoke with Larry Blankemeyer who joined a Catholic Relief Services chapter at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Richboro, PA. His first ever meeting with a member of Congress was with Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) in 2019. He wanted Fitzpatrick’s help introducing a bill that would require the administration to integrate early childhood development techniques into all child-focused international aid programs — activities like reading and singing to children, playing with colorful objects, and providing better nutrition. The simple things we do to help our own children and grandchildren thrive would make a world of difference for children globally, especially those living in refugee camps and other difficult circumstances.
“I was really nervous before the meeting,” Blankemeyer told me. But after Fitzpatrick told the group that he was interested in being one of the lead sponsors, Blankemeyer says, “I don’t remember feeling like my feet touched the ground. We came out of that meeting floating on air.”
From being “really nervous” to “floating on air” is transformational advocacy. Blankemeyer’s challenge now is getting Fitzpatrick to take his years of support for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s [USAID] humanitarian work and focus it on undoing the damage Elon Musk has done to the agency in a matter of days. That’s a tall order, but at least Blankemeyer is starting with a relationship with the Congressman.
Jay Butera of Gladwyne, PA, might have had the most unexpected impact. In 2013, Butera started a nearly three-year effort to create a bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. Warned that using the word “climate” in the title would be a non-starter for Republicans, Butera persisted anyway. By 2018, the end of Trump’s second year in office, the Caucus had 45 Republicans and 45 Democrats.
Butera’s Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) colleagues in Utah helped then-Rep. John Curtis decide to launch a Conservative Climate Caucus in 2021 which grew to 87 Republicans at the end of last year. Curtis, who recently took Mitt Romney’s seat in the Senate, joined 18 House Republicans last August in signing a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most far-reaching climate legislation ever enacted. Curtis told a group of activists that writing publicly to Johnson “… tells you how committed these 18 names were on that letter … And to his credit [Speaker Johnson] said ‘when it comes to the IRA we’ll use [a scalpel].’”
That was last year, which seems like an eternity ago. Will Johnson’s scalpel have a chance against the meat cleaver Trump is aiming at climate change? We will see if the relationships that CCL volunteers have developed will make a difference in these tumultuous times.
Get in the game
But you don’t have to sit on the sidelines and watch. You can get in the game yourself. But first you must link with an organization that is committed to delivering transformational advocacy, an organization that is committed to:
- Recruitment and community building. The organization brings new people in and forms them into local chapters so we aren’t working alone. It also organizes a monthly, whole-of-organization webinar with guest speakers, Q&A, and inspiration.
- Training. The organization trains you on how to get the meeting with the elected official, how to plan for the meeting, and what to ask for.
- Breakthroughs. The organization encourages you to move out of your comfort zone because confidence grows and transformation happens when you’re encouraged and supported to do things you didn’t think you could do and succeed in making it happen.
It begins with finding an organization that offers a structure of support that feeds you power. (See email addresses below)
I founded the anti-poverty lobby RESULTS in 1980. Over the last 40 years, RESULTS volunteers have played a lead advocacy role in prompting a 66 percent decline in global child deaths, saving some 10 million young lives a year. RESULTS volunteers have also been lead advocates for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria which, along with its partners, has saved 59 million lives between 2002 and 2022.
On a RESULTS national webinar in 2022, Global Fund Executive Director Peter Sands said, “I know how powerful your voices and efforts are. We see that in the way you go up on [Capitol] Hill and talk to people from both sides [of the aisle] … This is one of the most powerful ways in which America leads the world.”
That leadership is being recklessly abandoned with potentially catastrophic consequences. There has never been a more important time for Americans to step in.
Sam Daley-Harris is the author of “Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy” (Rivertowns Books, 2025 paperback) and the founder of RESULTS and Civic Courage.
How to Politically Engage When You Feel Like Shutting Down was originally published in The Philadelphia Citizen, a nonprofit solutions-based media outlet whose mission is to revive democracy in the American city where it was born. You can sign up for The Citizen's newsletter here.
