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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.
Certainly, it is difficult to avoid becoming numb. Donald Trump has escalated his affronts to the constitution and to any conceivable acceptable standard of presidential behavior. Just when you thought he could not be more of an unknowing, incurious, unprincipled con man, he finds a new thing to do or say that to this point would not have been thinkable.
Once he takes the step of vouching for Kim Jung Un’s character and exempting him from involvement in the death of Otto Wambier, one sees that Trump has reached an all new level in the admiration of autocrats and ignorance of history. It is not an exaggeration to say that as World War II brewed in 1937 Donald Trump would have offered Benito Mussolini a golf game, praised his governmental leadership, and remarked about the warmth of their relationship.
As conservative commentator John Podhoretz reminds, on human rights issues Republicans have been divided over decades between those that want their President to carry the beacon of justice wherever they go, and those that want their President to practice “realpolitik” where he or she is clear-minded about our autocratic adversary’s ethical limitations. Now that we have seen Trump with Putin, the Saudis, Erdrogan, Duterte, and Kim Jong Un, we realize that he does neither - when he is face to face, he does not recognize human rights violations, including the Khashoggi and Wambier deaths, and neither he does he recognize the autocratic leader is anyone different than Angela Merkel, especially if he has received nice notes and generous toasts from them.
When a level of malfeasance becomes this bizarre, we must overcome our numbness and accelerate our activism. We are not sitting in a theatre watching a drama unfold on the screen. We are a part of the picture, and not just in the crowd scenes. We are putting the resistance in every scene. The level of that resistance has been epic, and it must grow. And, we must continue to attend to unthinkable behaviors not just in the world of Trump, but in the world around him.
In the broader world around Trump, craziness emerges which might once have been checked. Former Hilary Clinton aides and Bernie Sanders aides snipe at each other as if we should care about their recriminations. Say to them “Excuse me, but haven’t you noticed we’ve moved forward?” Tell them that what we have going on now is far too important for us to care about their backing and forthing. Tell them they are not nearly as important as they think they are.
Social media gets overwrought at Diane Feinstein’s condescending approach to school kids, but no one tells the teachers and parents that kids are not their pawns. Who reminded these young people that the specific provisions of the Green New Deal matter must be debated, and need the work that Democrats intend to carry out? Even in 2019, social media participation does not represent a legislative process.
There is so much happening all at once. Three grossly unacceptable approaches stand out and must be resisted. First, in the United States Senate, ten Republican Senators who remember their oath of office are desperate to find a way to adhere to that oath while still countenancing Trump’s emergency declaration. Their newest trope is to pretend that the declaration is like the declarations of the past which have gone uncontested. The opposite is the case. This is the first use of emergency powers to intervene in an appropriations dispute and thus obliterate Congress’ constitutional prerogative. To swipe $6 billion from the military construction budget, the Pentagon must certify that the wall building construction funds are necessary to provide support for troops in the field! So, the made up reason to send troops to the border now generates the made up reason to seize appropriated funds. It is one of the reasons why General Mattis walked away. As much as it pains them, we can get some more Republican Senators to walk away too.
Second, we face a new episode in Howard Shultz’ vanity project, running for President. Even after it was reported that he had voted in just 11 of the past 30 elections (in a state that has mail-in ballots!), he skipped a Seattle schools levy vote in February. And after that, he commended voters who have “perfect” voting records. Howard, we are not dismissing you because you are not perfect. On the matter of civic commitment, which must be a prerequisite for any candidacy, we are dismissing you because of the chasm between you and perfection. Your non-participation makes us all think you feel entitled to our attention, whatever your civic record. We will continue to note that you are not.
The third affront is even more surprising, because it comes from within. The emergence of Indivisible after the November 2016 election was a splendid thing. Indivisible started forming hundreds of local activist groups immediately, and thus in the early stages defined our collective way forward. Who knew that there would come a time when we would have to resist the resisters? Indivisible has decided that the Senate should abolish the filibuster, and with it the requirement that 60 voters be garnered to close the debate. They reason that when we take back the Senate the cloture provision will be an obstacle to the necessary, monumental work on climate change.
This is not a matter of asking Indivisible’s leadership to remember times in past decades when the Democratic minority was able to keep the country from doing this or that awful thing. It is time to remind Indivisible about the value of giving some power to the minority last year and this year and today. If 50 voters in the Senate had been king these past two years, every shred of the Affordable Care Act would have been repealed by now, including the Medicaid expansion for people with little income and no health care. If 50 votes were king, last year McConnell and Paul Ryan would have given Donald Trump $25 billion for the entire wall. On this one issue, as Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and they are us.” We are going to win back the Senate in the fall of November 2020. Doesn’t it seem a certainty that we will not hold it forever, that sometime in the future we will be desperate for the minority to have standing?
In response to these affronts, let’s do these three things right away:
| 1) Get Even More Votes to Block the Emergency Declaration | |
 | Very, very slowly, Republican Senators are increasing their opposition to Donald Trump’s worst excesses. The country needs them to do far more than they have done and are bound to do, but it still is not a bad thing when one or more of them stand up. The reason they don’t do it more often has been thoroughly outlined in previous missives. It’s a matter of self-preservation. It is not clear that any Republican Senator can win re-election after persistent, principled opposition to Trump, because a significant part of their Republican voters will fall away. Susan Collins has to test this proposition. If she doesn’t challenge Trump, a significant part of her Independent supporters will fall away. And what will happen to Colorado Senator Cory Gardner on this front? The House has passed the resolution temporarily blocking Trump’s emergency declaration. It looks good in the Senate, since we already have gained the votes of Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis. No complacency please. Vigilance is the price of liberty. How many other Republican Senators we can get matters because it builds strengths for future battles. This is especially the case in the area of protection of global alliances, where Republican Senators weep into their pillows each night over the damage Trump has caused. Let’s keep the pressure up, emphasizing five Senators who will not be able to stay on the fence much longer. The rules of engagement still pertain. If you have a wiggling home state Senator, always call or email her or him first, even if you have done so a hundred times already. If you are contacting a Senator who is not from your state, strive for as much human contact as you can get, but remember even being included in the “count” of their calls matters, because it is tallied in a regular report to the Senator. Emphasis on these five fence-sitters would be useful:
|
2) Keep Up the Heat on Howard Shultz | |
 | Howard Shultz does want you to think well of him and he wants your support, which hopefully is unavailable. It’s hard to find, but there is a way to avoid vitriolic organized campaigns and tell him your views directly - here’s his contact page As you can see, you can fill in your personal comment or admonition in your own words. One thing to tell him is that every single day Donald Trump wakes up in the morning hoping fervently that he will enter the race. |
3) Change Indivisible’s Course of Action | |
 | The work of Indivisible has been exemplary. As expressed by co-president Ezra Levin, their ideas about doing away with the filibuster are nonsensical. One could read recent American history for five minutes and understand why this is an awful idea. Yes, getting to sixty votes on climate change once we take back the Senate will be difficult. Yes, the globe is at risk. So, let’s get to it and get it done. Eliminating the leverage of the minority which has been so indispensable to us in these troubled times is not the answer, and Indivisible should know better. If you are in an Indivisible cell, please raise this issue. If not, make your thoughts clear by writing Indivisible at contact@indivisible.org. |
All of us working together made possible the House majority and thus the subpoena power wielded by Elijah Cummings, Jerome Nadler and Adam Schiff. What we will learn on multiple fronts regarding Trump corruption and Russian collusion will rock the country. And in the face of it we will continue our relentless pursuit of the protection of the imperfect, aspiring American democracy.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
No comments:
Post a Comment