I don’t actually think that contacting your representatives (or protesting, or any other political strategy) is guaranteed to always be useless, and I think that that’s just as ideological (i.e., not materialist) a view as believing that any these things automatically possess some spectral power or something.
However I wish that people recommending contacting reps or protesting would give some indication of what their desired strategy with these things is.
Many people have taken on a liberal view of politics wherein everything takes place in the realm of the theatrical, the representational, the symbolic, the realm of imagery and vibes or of emotional catharsis, or the realm of speech / discourse.
A protest is an expression of an opinion. A “demand” is an expression of a desire. To “demand” something is to shew that you want it; to “protest” something is to shew that you do not want it.
The mechanism by which these expressions of popular desire are supposed to work on the realm of politics is unclear. Why should capital, or the military, or the police, or the state, care what the people want? Are we to believe that an expression of popular desire can have some overwhelming, supernatural, tidal power of its own? Are we supposed to believe that politicians and capitalists will be overcome with sympathy for the plight of the people and decide to change their minds? History tells us that this will not happen.
In fact an expression of desire is only the first part of a sound political strategy. The desire needs to be 1. specific, actionable, and delivered to bodies with the power to act on it; and 2. accompanied by a threat. Here is what we want; here is what we will do if we do not get what we want. The point of a protest (a “demonstration” of popular will) is to give an indication of how many people are willing to actively, physically intervene in the mechanisms of capital if they don’t get what they want.
Take a strike for instance. There is an expression of desire (for pay raises, vacation time, improvement of safety standards, &c.), and there is a threat (if you don’t give these things to us, we will stop work and shut down your operation). The threat is likely to be effective because it stops the capitalist from getting what they want if carried out.
Take a boycott (say, Puma). There is an expression of desire (we want you to stop sponsoring Israel’s football team) and there is a threat (if you don’t, we will not buy your products and will take other actions to prevent other people from buying your products). This is why BDS works—boycotts are undertaken not as an organic expression of moral outrage (though they can certainly start with moral outrage), but precisely because and to the precise degree that they work. They work by threatening to deny the capitalist what they want, and by having the necessary infrastructure to follow through (e.g. alternate transportation during the Montgomery Bus Boycotts; strike funds that allow striking workers to, you know, strike).
Now think of contacting representatives. This can only work if there’s an expression of desire, and a threat. The threat could be, I will not vote for you in x election unless you vote this way in this bill. The threat could be, we will flood all of your lines to such an extent that usual business cannot be carried out. The threat could be, we will demonstrate outside of your offices, at your appearances and speeches, outside your home, and wherever we see you in public such that your life as usual cannot be carried out.
Take a protest. The expression of desire (the people in the streets, the signs, the chants) is part of it. The threat, the demonstration of popular power, should be another. If you don’t give us what we want, we will shut down transportation, we will shut down shopping, we will render business as usual impossible. Think of the phrase “a protest without disruption is a parade.”
We do these things not because they feel good or cathartic, not because self-expression is an end in itself, not because we are good people if we do them, or for any other symbolic reason. We should do things to the degree that they are effective in achieving the outcome we want. An expression or representation of desire is exactly nothing. You have to take actions that are in some way geared towards forcing people to accede to your desires.
(Also even the demand-threat model of changing institutions’ behaviours is only one strategy among many that are necessary. I’m not saying that this is sufficient to institute full communism or anything—just that this is the bare minimum necessary for these particular strategies to be, well, strategic, in the slightest)
a petition is a threat of protest
a protest is a threat of riot
a riot is a threat of revolution
a revolution is a threat of change