I became disillusioned with our political process over a decade ago. The past four years under the Presidency of Donald Trump has now made politics not just something I’m disillusioned with but something to be actively avoided at all costs for my own mental health. I have a limited emotional reservoir and I simply cannot keep having it sucked dry on a daily basis by the Trump Administration idiocy as well as the seemingly endless crises by the media which have increased 2000x the past four years thanks to ACTUAL crises (not just fake news bullshit) caused by Trump. The only reason I bothered to vote this past election was twofold: to do my part to help Donald Trump lose and to help my favorite local Safeway employee get a seat on the local city council.
However, I needed to get involved again at the request of my company. Like many industries, my profession has suffered greatly due to COVID-19 and the outright incompetency of the Trump Administration in response. In dark times like these the leaders in many companies will ask their employees to write to their political representatives and usually provide a template on what to send. The issue was the passage of the Cares Act and more specifically the Payroll Protection provision within it. The passage of that was vital for my livelihood and so I was happy to put my political distain away and send the letters.
I had never written any political leader before and due to the previously mentioned disillusion, I expected I’d never hear anything back. Politicians only care about their constituents at time of elections right? Or in the case of Republicans and Trump when they also need a mob to stage a violent coup no?
My representatives are: Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris and Jackie Speier. Here are the results of my outreach in order of when they responded.
I was incredibly surprised when I received an e-mail back from Feinstein that wasn’t just a standard response having nothing to do with my concerns. Her letter actually gave real responses! She must have a lot of money for a really great staff? Maybe I was prioritized since I’ve NEVER written before? Maybe it was just luck? I’d love to post it but it is actually too specific for my humble little blog here on the internet.
As for Speier I received a message as well stating that she was receiving too many messages, something like 10,000 a month so it wasn’t possible to respond. I believe it was just an auto-response, something like an “out of office,” so I don’t really count it as a response. I guess even an automated “I get too many e-mails” response is better than no response at all.
Now for the main point of this e-mail. Approximately 4 months after my letter I received a response back from Kamala Harris office! This was surprising to me since she was running for VP and won! Why would her staff even bother sending a generic e-mail? Aren’t we at the point when politicians typically disregard their old constituents completely? In any case, I thought it was cool to receive something “official” back and so simply wanted to paste it here to serve as a record.
Here is the official e-mail from my previous Senator, soon Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris!
I’m certainly not going to send a response to her but just for fun let’s do one here.
Dear VP Elect Harris,
Thank you very much for acknowledging a humble constituent. I wish you all the best as Vice President. Even if you did absolutely nothing the next four years I would consider it a vast improvement for the following two reasons:
1. Like Trump said, Pence is a pussy. He has always been a pussy. He’s such a pussy he cannot even have dinner alone with any woman other than his wife? Like a schoolboy his cheeks would probably flush red while a boner raged under the table. He proved he had no spine getting pushed around by Trump for four years and in the end, Trump finally came out and asked him to not be a pussy. However, I’m sure he will continue to be a pussy even after his term ends. You will do much better than Pence; and it will be nice to not have a pussy for a Vice President. 🙂
2. On a positive note it is wonderful you’ve broken so many barriers by simply being you. We need less old white men and more women of color in high positions. Leadership is supposed to reflect those they represent and if I look out my window I’m not seeing only white, male septuagenarians hobbling down the sidewalk. I see a beautiful array of people of color and always feel so happy that I live here in the Bay where such diversity is quite normal.
So in the end, you could do nothing but sit in that VP chair, do absolutely nothing and I’d be quite content.
Good luck Madam Vice President.
