After a strong, detailed analysis of how "Trump's Big Bad Bill Will Kill Americans," authors Jeremy Barofsky and Pamela Herd offer this brief action paragraph:
If the bill’s impact is clearly disseminated and its supporters pay a political price at each implementation step, there is real hope that the worst effects to the nation’s health may not come to pass. By organizing in response, based on evidence, a brighter future with better health and enhanced economic security can become reality.
I suspect that they are correct about the steps they recommend: 1) organize in response to the threat, 2) in speech and actions based on the evidence clearly disseminate the bill's impact, and 3) make the bill's supporters pay a political price at each implementation step.
I also suspect that most Americans don't know how to do 1), 2), or 3). Very handy for the current administration . . .
But I must say that many op-eds and social media posts don't even bother to attach a final paragraph of that kind to their argument about a current event.
On the web, it would not be difficult for writers to include links even inside brief lists of action items: links to people who've shown how to do what needs to be done, for example. Links to accounts of activism that break down the action items into a more detailed toolkit of active citizenship that has a chance to succeed, for example. Links to people doing the work on a particular issue right now and clues about how to learn from them and affiliate with them.
Write pieces that take advantage of the web and of the web's power to link. Write and publish in web-savvy ways. We're crazy not to.
We're crazy not to. We're crazy not to. We're crazy not to.