The outcome of the election can leave you feeling a little sad, a little mad, or completely furious, or you could be one of those people who is happy. If you're happy with the outcome of the election, then you can just sit back and relax and coast for the next four years. If you're not happy with the way things turned out, there are things you can do to make a difference. May it be joining groups or writing your local and state representatives, you can still have an impact. But what now?
The first thing to do would be to join an interest group. An interest group is an organized group of individuals sharing common objectives who actively attempt to influence policymakers. You could join an interest group or even start your own if you can't find one in your local community. Interest groups are usually started by mass social movements, which are movements that represent the demands of a large group of the public for political, economic, or social change.
There are different kinds of interest groups, which include, economic interest groups, which covers business, agriculture, and labor. There are environmental groups and public-interest groups. There are also other interest groups such as ideological groups and identity groups. Identity groups include the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and NOW, the National Organization for Women.
Finding an interest group and taking part could potentially make a change. Joining on campus clubs would also be a form of an interest group if the club is trying to make a change, even if the change is just on college campuses.
Another thing to do would be to become a lobbyist. A lobbyist is defined as an organization or individual who attempts to influence legislation and the administrative decisions of government. The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 defined a lobbyist as anyone who spends at least 20 percent of his or her time lobbying members of Congress, their staffs, or executive-branch officials. With lobbying, you can write your state representatives letters or even send them petitions you have had signed. When communicating with your state's representatives, you are showing concern for specific things and can even make a difference if you stick with it enough.
You can find a list of all representatives and your local representatives here. You don't have to be a lobbyist to write to Congress, you don't have to spend 20 percent of your time lobbying Congress, but you can still communicate with them.
The most important thing you can do is to be educated on what is going on in your local, state, and national governments. Watching the news or reading the news, especially local newspapers, are a great way of keeping up with things. There are news outlets that are biased towards either Republicans or Democrats. Fox News tends to be more Republican, while CNN tends to be more Democratic. It's best to find sources from both sides to compare and to see what is really going on, even if you are biased towards one side or the other yourself.
Keeping friends and family educated on what is going on, especially if they don't keep up with politics, is a way to make a difference. The more people that become educated on what is happening in their government can make a huge impact on what happens with the government. The more informed people are, the more likely they are to vote too. Even if you are biased towards one side or the other, you should still talk about what your concerns are with the current government.
Even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, Donald Trump won the presidential election. At this point, there's nothing to be done about it, as he hasn't even taken office yet. Protesting against Donald Trump won't help anything. Presidents can only be impeached if the president is guilty of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. No president in United States history has been impeached and convicted. Andrew Johnson, who was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate which left him as president, and Richard Nixon, who resigned because he had no hope of surviving the trial in the Senate, are the only presidents in history to be brought up for impeachment.
At this time, all we can do is hope for the best, start educating ourselves and start meeting with people with the same concerns.
