The GOP calls are recordings (mostly including a message from my Congressman) and the callers *always* sound hysterical. Including my Congressman, whom you would think was fighting off an invasion of king cobras slithering under his desk, from his tone of voice. Hysterical fear, is what he sounds like, and that's not something I want in my so-called representative. It's been obvious for years the man can't think, can't do anything but mouth the party line in defiance of both facts and logic, and maybe he really is that terrified of reality, but does he have to sound like someone with a snake up his pants leg?
Yesterday evening's call was just as hysterical as usual, though I'm not sure it was him (I had the volume turned down on the answering machine, so missed the first part of the spiel; it sounded like him, but then terrified people sound more alike than their normal voices.) The cause of the fear as "Obama" and "Obamacare" which the hysterical male voice wanted me to call my Senators about right away so they'd vote to repeal it. My Senators are just as braindead GOP as the caller could have wished for, and what they get from me has no effect on them at all...I point out the factual errors and lies in their position, with references, and they send me bland "responses" (not responding to any of the points I made) reiterating their love for America and their clear intention to pay no mind to anyone who disagrees. So no, I wasn't going to call them.
But the real kicker was what came next, past the point where I usually hang up the phone. A female voice came on, not as hysterical as the male voice but speaking very rapidly, giving instructions for how to "authorize" the call center to put my name on a petition by just punching one of two numbers. In other words, the GOP are a) determined to get names by any means possible--if I hadn't listened closely, I would not have realized that *either* number would put my name on that petition--and b) so terrified of talking to real people that the whole damn thing was a recording. This goes along with their policy on meetings: GOP candidates hold "meetings" that are stuffed with their people and anyone who attends and expresses a contrary opinion is an intruder (in one case was arrested for attending a supposedly public meeting and asking an awkward question...the only time a "dissident" has a chance of speaking directly to a GOP politician, apparently.) It leads up to the disgusting displays of viciousness by the audience at the GOP candidates' "debates" where it's clear GOP supporters will cheer for deaths of sick and injured, and boo-hiss serving military personnel with whom they disagree.
I'm sick of the fear-mongering the GOP does, that preys on any latent racism, homophobia, paranoia and increases it. I'm sick of the ranting, hysterical tones of voice that make grown men sound like screaming toddlers faced with something scary to a toddler. I'm sick of the plain damn lies they tell, too. And most of all I'm sick of the meanness, the viciousness, the willingness to harm fellow citizens, the hatred of everybody but themselves.
So while the recorded female voice was going on about how EASY it was to push the button, I said "Go to hell" very distinctly and hung up. It was unnecessary, of course. They're already in the hell they made and they like it so much they want to drag the rest of us in there with them.