Would you like to know the two factors that permit Congress to defy you?

We can tell you what people will do before they do it. We use these two, well-tested, rules of thumb…

1. People will tend to do nothing until they’ve had repeated reminders to take action. There’s an “inertia problem,” but…
2. People will tend to do what the media tells them to do, even when people believe they’re immune to “media manipulation.”

This second problem is the greater difficulty, because it’s hard to talk people out of something their pride tells them they don’t do in the first place. But our results don’t lie…

Even DC Downsizers are slaves to media agenda setting.

We can tell this is so. One way is by looking at the opening rates for our newsletter.

• If we follow-along and write headlines that match what the regime media is talking about, then more people open our messages.
• When we bring up things that will really make a difference, the opening rate is much lower.

Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct mail guru, long ago claimed that he couldn’t raise money for any issue the media wasn’t talking about. Our own experience has confirmed this. So we’ve made some effort to conform our messages to the media’s agenda. While…

Playing along with the media’s agenda improves opening rates, it doesn’t move the world in the right direction. So we reached a decision late last year — we want to stop taking orders from the media. In fact…

We’d rather reach the point where the regime media takes orders from us.

To achieve that goal we must…

• Constantly expand our resistance to following the media’s lead
• Introduce subjects and strategies that will actually cause positive change
• Overcome the inertia problem

Because you see, the inertia problem bites down hard the moment you try to act counter to the media’s agenda. Think about it…

If people are more interested in what the media is saying, and you’re talking about something different, then people will be less likely to take the action you’re requesting. So how do we overcome this inertia?

The first step starts with us, and with you. We/you must resolve to…

1. Discuss things other than what the media wants.
2. Switch the focus of our efforts to things that will make a real difference.
3. Conquer inertia, by taking meaningful action daily, on at least a small scale.
4. Persuade others to do as we are doing.

Here’s an example of how this is done…

Last week you opened a message from us that wasn’t about the media’s agenda: “The Simplest Method To PASS The Read The Bills Act“

You were unique and special, because the open rate for that message was 75% of the media agenda-sensitive message titled, “Why Rush Limbaugh Said, ‘Disband The Republican Party’“

The Simplest Method message was about something that could make a real difference — the Read the Bills Act (RTBA).

Many of the people who opened that message overcame inertia and took a very simple action. They asked their friends if they support or oppose RTBA. IF you were one of those people, we thank you. But…

If you didn’t take that action, you can learn how do it here: https://archive.downsizedc.org/blog/the-simplest-method-to-pass-the-read-the-bills-act

You may have also written back to those who said they support RTBA, and asked them to send a message to Congress about it. Thank you if you did that. You overcame inertia again and took a positive step that could cause progress. But now inertia rears its head again…

The people you asked to take action may not have done it yet. Should you simply forget about them or should you take another action to overcome inertia? We hope you will send the following letter to your friends who said they support RTBA…

Hi. I’m writing you about the Read the Bills Act again. Did you have a chance to write your reps asking them to sponsor the bill? Remember, you can do that very easily at this link — https://archive.downsizedc.org/etp/rtba/. You’ll get a copy of your letter to Congress sent to you by email. I’d appreciate it if you could forward that to me when you get it. I’m keeping count of how many people I persuade to contact Congress about this. Thanks in advance for your help with this.

Inertia always wants us to remain still — even inactive. But simple actions like this are very simple, and can add up to real progress over time. I hope you’ll take this action right now, and let us know you did it, by writing to us at Feedback@DownwsizeDC.org.

Thanks in advance for overcoming inertia to take meaningful action. We are determined to cause meaningful change. We hope you are too. If we can recruit 100,000 people to support bills like RTBA, then we’ll be well on our way to recruiting the 3-5 million we need to make Congress submit. Every long journey begins with a single step. Take your next step right now.

Jim Babka & Perry Willis

Downsize DC

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

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