Don’t let this map fool you. It’s as medium-geranium-red as they come.
Today was a day of almost comic-book level evil, and do you want to know what didn’t make it any easier to take? All of my blue-state friends using their social media feeds to exhort anyone that they know who might happen to have a Republican representative in Congress to please please please be sure to call their representative. As someone who lives in a sort of medium-geranium-red Congressional district, with a representative that switched his vote from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ as the bill got worse, they were talking to me. I get that on a day like today you probably feel a little bit helpless since your representative understands the basic human value of healthcare already, but do you want to know why this was unhelpful and also kind of annoying?
(1) We know. If we’re your social media friends and we live in a Republican Congressional district, it has probably already occurred to us to call our representative. We’ve probably been calling our representative a lot recently, actually.
(2) This kind of partisan fight is really immediate and visceral for us. We live our lives surrounded by people who are obviously comfortable with voting for a comic book villain for Congress, so fights like today’s are a part of our daily lives.
(3) We’re probably a little jealous that you get to live comfortably ensconced in some safely blue urban (and probably coastal) Congressional district, and being reminded of that privilege isn’t that pleasurable on a day like today.
(4) It seems like there might be other, more useful ways to contribute to the fight than reminding the very people who have been on the phone with their representatives for literally weeks not to forget to call their Congresspeople. I don’t know what those ways are, but hey, it’s my privilege not to have to think them up, because I live in a medium-geranium-red Congressional district where I get to call my representative all the time.
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