My MAGA Congressman is Afraid. Very Afraid.
The Banter's Rich Herschlag is running to unseat his MAGA Congressman in 2026.
by Rich Herschlag
That clichéd superficial advice I had received my entire life upon complaining about the government—write to your congressman—was something I resisted unwaveringly until two months ago. During my first four decades as an eligible voter I figured cynically no matter how carefully crafted and thoughtful my letter, it would at best ultimately serve as the lining for a staffer’s cat litter box or the digital equivalent. Why that changed on January 20, 2025 can probably be chalked up to some combination of desperation and pent up anger.
Aside from watching the reelection of a convicted felon and culprit of transparent treason to the highest office in the land, the personal insult added to common injury was losing my congresswoman. Here in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, our three-term Democratic Representative, Susan Wild, lost by a margin of 50.5% to 49.5% to 42-year-old MAGA enthusiast Ryan Mackenzie. After several unremarkable years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mackenzie like so many other milquetoast Republicans finally found his sea legs by urging Congress to decertify the state 2020 presidential election results and later calling for an end to U.S. aid to Ukraine.
So in late January of this year, feeling like an old dude starting from scratch, I finally wrote my first ever letter—via website—to my congressman. Here was my middling effort:
Hello. I narrowly missed being a victim on 9/11 and lost a dear high school classmate that day. I am urging you to speak out against the nomination of Kash Patel as Director of the FBI. The many veteran FBI agents have done an incredible job protecting all of us from terrorist attacks since that horrific day. Patel's plans to gut the FBI of long serving, highly effective, extremely knowledgeable agents based upon carrying out a personal vendetta on behalf of Donald Trump is an abomination and one of the most unpatriotic, self-defeating ideas ever floated before the American public. With a nearly perfect track record to date, if these agents are dismissed for reasons other than actual dereliction of their sworn duty and we are successfully attacked on our home soil, blame will be fairly placed upon anyone who enabled their unjustifiable firing.
Like riding a bike or making coffee, for me this process became easier each time out. And by early March it seemed more than clear Mackenzie was among the hordes of Republican members of Congress afraid of their own constituents. Here is a brief compilation of my more recent efforts:
Hello. By now you can be certain you’re going to be a one-term Congressman. Enough to secure a long lifetime of government sponsored health insurance while you take it away from people who really need it, but not nearly long enough to call the House a career. It’s important at this time of reflection to consider what your legacy will be other than having thrown your hat in the ring with a pair of pathological narcissists who did their best to deconstruct a societal infrastructure that, while flawed, for 80 years allowed the United States of America to become the economic and social envy of the world.
If you’d like that legacy to be firing without cause thousands of military veterans and accomplished scientists after they served their country with honor for many years; allowing Russia to hack away at our digital security while we decimate our intelligence gathering operations; allowing a superrich megadonor with no government experience or security clearance access to our private Social Security data; thinning out the overburdened FAA while planes crash in midair; and dozens of other atrocities put forth in a matter of weeks by a Chief Executive who we both know is mentally ill and fading fast, then I suggest you keep hiding out in Washington, D.C. while your panicked constituents protest your chronic absence from the Lehigh Valley.
If, however, you’d like to salvage a shred of human decency before ultimately returning to the legitimate workforce, I strongly recommend you return home and face the justifiable fury of thousands of voters who pay your salary and have so quickly been betrayed. It will, of course, be extremely painful for you but at the same time may provide the very beginnings of a path to saving what might still be left of your soul.
I figured this would be the pattern for months to come—shoot out a sarcastic letter, be ignored, shoot out another sarcastic letter. But this past Friday afternoon around 6 PM, all that changed. As I finished up a report for work and started thinking about what was shaping up to be a relaxing weekend, I checked my phone and saw I had just missed a call. It was a robocall from the office of Ryan Mackenzie that had gone to voicemail. The voicemail said to "press 1" to be connected to a town hall "teleconference," which "will start in just a few moments."
When I called back—a grand total of four minutes after the incoming call—a recorded message from the Congressman told me I had just missed the opportunity to be connected, and his office would inform me of future town hall teleconferences. I guess in similar kamikaze fashion. So I fired off another letter.
Hello. Thanks for the hit-and-run virtual fictional make-believe town hall. A new low. You have now fully satisfied your office’s sacred obligation to convene periodically with concerned constituents. Sorry we didn’t connect. But that’s on me. I blinked. You’re just doing your job to sabotage the government, and this latest effort is entirely symbolic of the President you so ably represent.
Anyway, don’t worry about me. I'll be on NoDoz staring at my phone 24/7 for the next 60 days waiting faithfully and patiently for my next golden opportunity to interface with the folks in D.C. so ably and efficiently ruining our lives.
And one more thing. I know you’re preoccupied sequestering yourself and kissing the President’s ring, but try to commit my name to memory. Because I’ll be running to unseat you in 2026.
No joke. I’ve decided to run. More to come.
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I recently began my ninth year of writing for this innovative and fearless publication, and until now have largely stayed out of the comments section, though I faithfully read every last comment. The outpouring of support here is humbling. Thank you. I will have a lot to learn procedurally between now and the end of the calendar year, when the race starts in earnest, but for the most part I think I'll enjoy the process. Regardless, over the past few trying months I've hit the point where I would never forgive myself if I didn't give it a shot. The upcoming races are going to draw in all sorts of talent belonging to folks who had never seriously considered it before. It's going to be a great time to be alive, damn the torpedoes. And for good measure, let me piss off MAGA by bragging in advance about one of our main strengths--DIVERSITY! Take that!
Brilliant!
I wish you luck!😊