The Likud isn't a building in Tel Aviv. It's you.
Every branch meeting I attend, I hear the same thing: we knock on doors during campaigns, and then we wait years to be heard again. That has to change.
Here is what I've noticed. The movement is extremely good at mobilising members and not very good at listening to them. Those are different skills, and we've only invested in one of them.
Mobilising is a campaign function. It turns on, it runs hot for a few weeks, it delivers a number, and then it switches off. Listening is a permanent function, or it isn't real. Right now we have a superb machine for the first and almost nothing for the second.
What that costs us
It costs us people. Not dramatically - nobody resigns in protest. They just stop answering. The member who used to organise a whole street quietly becomes a member who votes and goes home. Multiply that by a few thousand and you have a movement that looks the same on paper and is hollower in practice.
It also costs us information. Branch members know things that no poll will tell you: which local promise was quietly dropped, which office stopped returning calls, where the anger is coming from before it reaches the news. When you stop asking, you don't just lose goodwill. You lose your early-warning system.
We treat the membership as an audience to be activated. It should be the room where decisions get pressure-tested first.
What I would actually do
Not a slogan about "empowering members" - a routine. Routines are what survive after the campaign ends:
- A published branch calendar. Members should know when they'll be met with, months ahead, without having to chase anyone.
- Answers with names attached. If a branch raises an issue, it gets a written response from a person, with a date - not silence and not a form letter.
- Meetings outside the centre. The periphery should not have to travel to be taken seriously. If it matters, we go there.
- A public record. What was raised, what was answered, what actually happened. If we're serious, we shouldn't mind it being written down.
None of that is glamorous. None of it will lead a news broadcast. It's the difference between a movement that has members and a movement that has a contact list.
You built this. You should be able to reach it on a Tuesday in a year with no election in it.