What is the Point of Lobbying in 2025?

Image: Cynthia looking skeptical on the steps of the U.S. Capitol

What is the point of non-partisan democratic lobbying when it seems democracy itself is unraveling in the United States?

Before the Bread for the World lobby day in Washington DC this month, I reflected on the act of talking to members of Congress while President Trump ordered ICE to kidnap people without due process and ordered the National Guard to use force against peaceful protestors. I posted: “Not gonna lie, I have mixed feelings about going to talk to Congress about hunger this week in DC w POTUS attacking ppl in LA. But poverty is also slow-inflicted violence. I’ll probably blog about it tonight to collect my thoughts. Thoughts to share anyone?” Even I, a volunteer lobbyist of 18 years, was feeling skeptical.

Comparing the importance of advocating for nutrition programs with the importance of opposing violent threats to democracy is tricky. Without meeting the basic need for food, folks have nothing at all. But without the right to assemble, due process, and a system to pass or enforce laws, we won’t have the structure of the government to debate the policies of providing food, clothing, and shelter for those in need.

It’s also difficult to see how it's effective to lobby with members who are consistently backing authoritarian leadership. Should we be talking with those members at all?

I decided anew that it IS worth it for me to keep advocating with Congress, but not for just one reason. I’ve collected a few of my reasons for perseverance here. Maybe you’ll find you agree with some. Maybe you’ll have more reasons of your own to share in the comments. Perhaps you’ll disagree and share that in the comments, too. It’s a conversation worth having.

Here are my reasons I continue to advocate with Congress:

Poverty and Hunger are Both Forms of Violence

Violence at a street protest is easy to point to because it shows up on our screens without us even having to search for it. Physical harm from malnutrition is quiet and insidious, without the headlines. It brings long-term pain, suffering, and shame to victims. It does damage to a body, especially in an infant’s first 1000 days of life. And it happens all the time in every county in every state in our country, according to Feeding America, even though the U.S. produces more than enough food to feed everyone.

In the 2013 documentary “A Place at the Table,” actor Jeff Bridges said, “35 million people in the U.S. are hungry or don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and 13 million of them are children. If another country were doing this to our children, we’d be at war.”

Wasting and starvation are even more prevalent in countries where USAID once operated before President Trump and DOGE dismantled it. The forced shutdown left clinics with rooms full of life-saving medicines and food withheld from people who died without it, including Yagana’s son in Nigeria. Yagana, mother of twins, brought one of her children to a Nigerian health center to be treated for malnutrition. Her son was recovering under the care of the clinic – until the foreign assistance freeze shut it down. Yagana’s son died four days later. Death is death no matter whether it was caused by a physical blow or lack of food. Starvation caused by a political decision in the White House took his life. It was violence against a child in poverty.

Taking a stand against ICE, lax gun laws, or drastic cuts to food programs are all acting against violence in different ways. Working on any of them is pulling on a thread to unravel the same cloth of oppression and injustice.

Violence From the State Can Be a Distraction

There is so much going on right now that it makes caring activists feel like we’re a bunch of little kids learning soccer…everyone in a mob chasing after the ball in a pack. It's hard to stick to a strategic plan when you feel the urgency of all the different fires popping up everywhere. But this chaos is a strategy of the administration. Having advocates shift constantly from issue to issue weakens our opposition.

Image: The legs of three kids and a soccer ball.

History is full of examples of government leaders using an external war or some sort of violence to draw attention away from domestic unrest. The more sensational the news, the more our attention gravitates away from more mundane harmful policies. Star Wars showrunner Tony Gilroy used dictatorships throughout history for inspiration for his series, Andor. One of Andor’s characters notes in a resistance manifesto, “It’s easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.” Multiple disasters split our attention and power. (More of my musings on Andor here.)

I see a solution in the soccer metaphor: We need to keep playing our positions. People like me who specialize in hunger and health need to keep playing our positions and advocating for those things. However, the metaphor breaks down when we talk about numbers. There’s no restriction to 11 teammates on the field at a time or 90 minutes of play. In real life, we can increase capacity. We can increase the number of players by recruiting more advocates from our communities who are not yet in action. It’s harder to hide from 40,000 activists than 40 activists. We can increase the game time by doing our regular advocacy activities AND attending special protests or donating to folks who are organizing those protests.

It Only Takes a Few Votes to Turn the Tide

You don’t have to convince the entire House or the entire Senate of anything. That’s never going to happen. But the way things have gone in the recent past up to this very moment, it only takes a few senators to sway big legislation. That’s how we get to suspenseful moments like the late Republican Senator John McCain casting a deciding vote to keep the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”).

Sharing personal stories, having face-to-face interaction, and building relationships in Congress are increasingly hard to do, but these human interactions are sometimes the only things that can cut through the noise. There is still something important that happens when humans look each other in the eyes. And I’m not just talking about members of Congress. Aides can be highly influential, too. Sometimes we are voices staffers and members would never otherwise hear, trapped in their own political bubble.

I also see a special role for advocates when multiple forms of activism are putting pressure on members. It’s happening right now around proposed Medicaid cuts. People have been protesting about Medicaid, editorials and letters to the editor appear about it daily, and The Hill reported that Senate leadership started leaning on specific senators in rural states to move their position. When all that is in place, constituent advocates with compelling personal stories - like the Little Lobbyists who rely on Medicaid and bring their kids with complex medical conditions to meet members - can be a deciding factor at the right time. But in order for that to work, the advocates must organize and be present.

Stubborn Ounces

You might still wonder: Will it do any good? Will any of them listen?

We could argue that forever, but for me, it doesn’t even really matter. Because the last reason I give you is the moral reason. At this moment, we still have a representative system of government and I still have relationships in Washington D.C. Speaking out is a moral obligation for me while we still have a democracy and my actions might help us keep it.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “silence equals compliance.” I will not be silent.

And when there is nothing else to my reasons or arguments, I think it will come down to a poem called “Stubborn Ounces,” which I first saw tacked up on the wall of my kid’s English classroom at John Burroughs School. I didn’t like it back then because I was so deeply convinced that my specific voice had an impact. Now, in 2025, when all is up for question, I see the meaning: I have a right to choose where I will apply my influence, whether or not I see it making a difference.

Stubborn Ounces

You say the Little efforts that I make
will do no good: they never will prevail
to tip the hovering scale
where Justice hangs in balance.

I don’t think I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
in favor of my right to choose which side
shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.

Bonaro W. Overstreet

I still have enough hope to feel that the stubborn ounces of me and my fellow advocates will amount to enough to tip the scales as it once did for the generations of activists before us. Maybe not this week or next month, but someday…again.

What now?

Now that we’re at the end of this post and you’re drawing your own conclusions, what do we do now? There are a lot of right answers depending who you are and what resources are available to you. The only wrong answer is to do nothing at all.

Our fight for social justice doesn’t have to look like just one thing. In the past, I’ve asserted that I’m an advocate, not a protester, because I’m better at connecting than yelling. But we’re running out of options to do the things that are easy for us or the things we prefer. Now is the time to do what is necessary.

I know that is a hard thing to read when the situation already stresses us out and we’re stretched too thin. I offer you this inspiration I saw on social media. It’s not meant to be a list from which to pick the easiest thing. It’s a reminder that we need to look for the most effective things for each of us and to not judge each other harshly. We need everybody. We need YOU.

“Some are posting on social media

Some are protesting in the streets

Some are donating silently

Some are educating themselves

Some are having tough conversations with friends and family

A revolution has many layers

Be kind to yourself and to others who are traveling in the same direction

Just keep your foot on the gas”

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