July 19, 2018

Can an algorithm pass the Read the Bills Act?

Ask your reps to sponsor the Read the Bills Act at least once per month Retweet

Today’s Action: Tell your reps to sponsor Downsize DC’s Read the Bills Act

The rest of this message will tell you how that action fits into the bigger picture, starting with this concept… 

Algorithm: a process or set of rules to follow in problem-solving.

Algorithms are all the rage. Amazon is filled with books on how you can use algorithms to solve almost any problem, from cleaning your house to finding the love of your life. But…

Can they also be used to solve political problems?

We think they can. Our previous messages have made the following points…

  1. It will take fewer people to influence Congress than to replace Congress, so focus on influencing them first. Make that your main activity.
  2. The anti-immigration issue shows what a loud persistent minority can achieve.
  3. If a minority position can be effective, then a majority opinion can accomplish even more.

We’ve also shown you how much potential support there is for what Downsize DC wants to accomplish…

  • There are currently as many dormant libertarians as there are active people on the Left and Right.
  • The number of Americans who would support our agenda bills, like the Read the Bills Act and the One Subject at a Time Act, is probably north of 70%.

That means we don’t really have to persuade anyone to adopt our positions. We just need to discover and mobilize a fraction of the people who already agree. That means the potential is there to cause massive change. So how do we achieve that potential?

We’ll use an algorithm!

We’ve already shown you the basic steps of that algorithm in previous messages…

  1. Constantly share our proposals with more people.
  2. Constantly recruit more people.
  3. Constantly raise more money and apply it to recruitment.
  4. Constantly increase the amount of pressure Congress feels to pass libertarian reforms.

And the steps that apply to our overall effort are similar to the steps needed to pass individual proposals like the Read the Bills Act. We need to…

  1. Constantly tell more people about the Read the Bills Act
  2. Constantly recruit more people to support the Read the Bills Act
  3. Constantly increase the amount of pressure Congress feels to pass the Read the Bills Act

But let’s make our algorithm more specific. Let’s make it PERSONAL. Here’s the algorithm YOU can follow….

STEP 1: Constantly tell other people about the Read the Bills Act. You can do that by sharing the ad we’re currently running on Facebook. Go do that right now and then come back to this message. If you’re not on Facebook skip to the next step.

STEP 2: Write your reps asking them to sponsor the Read the Bills Act. Go do that right now and then come back to this message. We’ll send a copy of your letter to Congress to your email InBox. If you’re not on Facebook then forward your letter to Congress by emailing it to people you think might agree.

STEP 3: Repeat steps one and two next month.

Do those things consistently (the way anti-immigration activists do) and the number of people supporting RTBA should constantly rise, resulting in ever-increasing pressure on Congress.

One of us (Perry) coined a term for this approach back in the 1990s — relentless incrementalism. Make progress in small increments. Do it relentlessly. Be happy about that. Schemes to get powerful quickly are just as foolish as get-rich-quick schemes. Be like the tortoise!

That’s how the minority anti-immigration position became so dominant. It can work for us too. But here’s how you can make it work faster

If you don’t yet have a monthly pledge with us, please start one. If a one-time donation would work better for you, please make one. We’ll use it to buy more recruitment advertising.

There’s one more thing to do CONSTANTLY. Don’t skip this one. We’ll have more plans and greater progress to show if you make reading the Dispatch and doing the actions you agree with part of your personal daily algorithm.

Thanks for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer,

Perry Willis & Jim Babka
Downsize DC

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

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