Tulsi Gabbard

I mean, the thing that you did with the petition, I think that's a great idea because it forces their hand in a very public way to try to do the right thing.

I've seen in real time, I experienced in real time, you know, people wonder like, if I call my Congressman, do they really care?

If I send an email, if I put out a tweet, like, you know, you feel like you're yelling into the darkness and no one is hearing you.

And maybe if you're just one person doing it, that may be true.

But if we all kind of throw in the towel, then we're giving up without a fight.

I've experienced in real time, there was a bill that was coming to the House floor for a vote and it had strong bipartisan support.

I remember looking at the readout that I got and the assessment that I did before every single vote that came through, I had my staff put together, okay, here's why the Democrats are saying to vote for or against this bill.

And here's why the Republicans are saying to vote for or against this bill.

Then I could look at, you know,

oftentimes very different narratives, all talking about the same piece of legislation.

But in this case, the recommendations were, hey, we need to vote for this legislation because it's going to do X, Y, or Z, and it's a good thing.

And it had overwhelming support, close to 400.

It was expected to pass with over 400 votes of support.

In like the four to six hours prior to that vote taking place, there was a flood.

It started trending on Twitter, still Twitter back then.

And phone calls, you know, phones were ringing off the hook.

People were tweeting about why this legislation was not a good idea.

And here were the potential unintended negative consequences that would come from this legislation.

And it was dead.

It tanked.