#13: Our Strength Grows, Our Dreams Are Huge, And We Will Not Be Denied

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

On Sunday the New York Times featured a front page article suggesting that Donald Trump might, on some issues, be trending toward a process where he learns new information and approaches and "adapts to realities". They said that he had exhibited such a newly deliberative approach on matters related to Russia, North Korea, and moving the Israeli capital to Jerusalem.

Then, also over the weekend, Donald Trump destroyed the New York Times' evidence. He gave interviews saying that the false Obama wiretapping claim was "my opinion", ignoring the world of facts and verification. After a "very friendly conversation" by phone, he invited to the White House Federico Duterte, the Filipino ruler and proud extrajudicial killer of drug suspects. He called Kim Jong-un a "smart cookie" for surviving his rise to power at 27, even though the cookie accomplished that feat by executing his rivals. And, while suggesting slave owner Andrew Jackson (who died in 1845) could have avoided the civil war, he said, "Why couldn't that one have been worked out?"

Political leaders can make mistakes. They can dispute well established findings if they outline the nature of the dispute. They should and can and do debate research methods, the implications of the findings and the wisdom of the government response. The whole nature of our public policy debates and the associated political battles is the explication of differences in viewpoint, and the fashioning of collective response.

However, we cannot decide what and how to do together if you can just make stuff up, anytime you want. What if you make six things up a day, and what if you do that almost every day, and what if eventually the fact checkers can't begin to keep up? And what if the American people become desensitized to those inventions? And what if you are the president while doing all that? What if you expect the truth to be accepted as whatever you say it is? At a certain point, this disregard or even contempt for objective information will rend the democracy.

No longer are these outbursts the appropriate subject for a bemused email or an eye roll. If you are part of the resistance, you will need to up your effort to examine information yourself. You will need to actively follow and support the intermediaries (including newspapers) who try and sort out what is happening. You will want to use posts, letters to the editors and public meeting not only to offer your own viewpoint, but to provide core information.

By late fall, you will be able to summon your energies, to continue to get behind emerging Congressional races, and to entertain the growing sense that we will take back the House of Representatives on November 6, 2018. In the six months between now and then, I am asking you to become a more relentless truth-advancer than you are now. We must attend to the factual framework on each issue, lest we forget that there is one.

On the tax proposal front, that will ultimately mean that we can use real data to prove that the announced intentions in the new Trump one pager will provide huge comfort to the comfortable, not least in its elimination of the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax. We contemplate as much as $7 trillion in revenue losses and to this point, we've heard nothing about boosting the middle class or addressing income inequality.

Before we get into the tax discussions, we must obsess about the facts of proposed changes in the health care law, which in its new version threatens even greater loss of coverage than the previous draft before the House. Under the new plan, states could send people with pre-existing conditions into a high risk pool which presages much higher costs than under the Affordable Care Act and which for many will ultimately preclude coverage. How many people have pre-existing conditions? According to the Kaiser Health Foundation, there are 52 million! The new approach now before the House is a plan to generate untold human misery. Donald Trump seems to not have seen the plan he has endorsed, because he continues to say that those with pre-existing conditions will not suffer loss of coverage.

With this matter squarely before the House of Representatives, our missive identifies three things we can do to influence the outcome of the health care batte:

1) Shore Up Opposition to the New Trump/Ryan Effort
	In addition to allowing states to get a waiver permitting them to exclude pre-existing conditions in essential coverage, the proposal before the House would enable states to exclude mental health coverage and maternity care. There is no way the bill as written would pass the Senate, but the best way to defeat it is still at its inception. House Republican moderates are only a vote or two away from supplying enough votes for the bill to be defeated on the House floor, and a score more members are still considering voting no. Here is the existing tally to work from. The calls to Congressional offices opposing this bill are overwhelming the systems of individual members of Congress. One way to get through is: identify members of Congress from the above list. If they are already opposed, call and thank them for their principled stand. If they are still pondering this, call or email them and articulate your strong opposition in your own well-chosen passionate and articulate words. If you are going to limit your calls to two or three, start with members from your own district or own state. If there aren't any members that qualify, choose a state where you have some connection if you can. Rather than calling or email the member of Congress, look up their legislative director in the office directory or Google it. Email or call her or him instead of the member. The message will still be received and may even have more resonance.
2) Remember the Dreams of Universal Coverage
	With all the attention to essential coverage, one could forget another way the Freedom Caucus is trying to eviscerate health care protection in this country. The bill before the House also continues the attack on the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act that originally brought 14 million people health care coverage. Through the waiver provisions, the bill incentives the states who are bad actors and reduces resources for states who have expanded coverage for low income populations. This site identifies the 32 states who have opted for Medicaid expansion, and provides data on the level of expanded coverage. If you live in one of these 32 states, make certain your state legislators are keeping posted on what the House bill would do to your state, and make certain they are pushing back at the Congress.
3) Strengthen Advocacy Efforts
	Among the most effective opponents to the Trump/Ryan approach have been the major associations of health care professionals. It would be a nice thing to leave a message at the American Medical Association (phone: 800-621-8335) to thank them for their concerted efforts. Another important force is the AARP, which has registered adamant opposition. For those who love to see good solid analytical efforts on the impacts of the proposals that Paul Ryan floats, you can't beat donating to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Our movement is distinguished by the multiple forms of action our collective opposition is taking, the intensity of each. We will keep on marching, calling Congress, contacting the media, and showing up and countless town halls and other meetings.

Now and again, we may wonder whether our opposition is taking hold. The evidence is that our efforts are reaping rewards for our country. Were it not for the post November 8 sensibilities of millions of Americans, the Affordable Care Act would be repealed by now. The wall would be under construction and Planned Parenthood would be defunded. What we are doing together matters immensely. Our strength grows, our dreams are huge, and we will not be denied.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington