It sounds stupid, but writing letters and making phone calls to your local elected officials actually does help get the ball rolling in terms of changing policy.
This is wishful thinking, at best, and reveals a common, yet total misunderstanding of how the U.S. political system operates.
A major part of the problem we face in this country is the notion that we still live in a democracy and have a representative government. That if we just contact the politicians and let them know of we feel, or replace one set of politicians with a new set of politicians, the problem will just go away. It's that same wishful thinking that drove so many millions of people to fall for that "Hope and Change" propaganda employed by the Obama election campaign back in 2008.
The simple truth is, we do not have functional democracy, nor does our government represent us. We do not choose our own leaders, they are chosen for us. The only choice we are given in the matter is we are allowed to select from a tightly controlled, hand-picked group of politicians that have already been vetted by the banks and corporations who run the country. We are only allowed to have the politicians they want us to have, and those are the politicians they either directly control or know they can influence.
Why is this the case? It's very easy to understand, actually. It's almost intuitive. Elections are controlled by two things:
1. Money
2. Media
You need a combination of these two things to get anyone elected to a major political office in this country. One or the other won't do it. You need both in tandem.
Now who controls this special combination? Super wealthy people do. Banks and corporations do. The entire political system in the United States, and most other fake democracies, is controlled by wealthy interests, and wealthy interests don't have the same agenda that the peasants in the 99% do.
When you see that slogan "To Serve and Protect" on the side of a police car, take notice of the fact that the slogan never alludes to who exactly the police are serving and protecting. It's assumed by people that it must mean the police are serving and protecting the general community at large, but the real truth is the police exist to serve and protect the ruling class. Just as Mafia Dons will hire a bunch of thuggish henchmen to patrol a neighborhood under their control, the ruling class hires thuggish police to patrol the countries they control.
Police exist to control the 99% and keep them toeing the line. They "serve and protect" the interests of the ruling class, which is to centralize wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, and maintain control of the system that allows them to exploit human beings much the same way a rancher might exploit a herd of cattle. That's what most of the countries on earth have been converted into - farms. Your "elected politicians" are really just middle managers who have no power. They've been put in place to run the farms for their wealthy owners and to take the blame when anything goes wrong.
The people aren't allowed to know they don't have democracy. The people aren't allowed to know their alleged "elected representatives" don't really represent them. After all, if the majority of the population ever learned this truth, it's likely there would be a revolution, or at the very least, widespread civil unrest. This is too risky for the ruling class, especially in the United States where there are well over 300 million firearms in private hands. A full-scale revolution in the United States would be virtually impossible to contain, despite the overwhelming technological advantage and resources possessed by the government. So the illusion of democracy and representative government is maintained - at least for the time being.
But I suspect that at some point in the future, this current charade will come to an end, and the ruling class will reveal to us the nature of the system we really live in.
Frank Zappa said it best:
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."