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.
It is all overwhelming, but you must know there is a way forward. The killing of George Floyd has exposed the never healed wound of racism in America. If we make it so, this will be a point where we turn in a new direction. The massive outrage will be translated into new rules, laws, protections, and oversight of policing in America. We will find that this time is different, that not only will policing change but that as a society we will renew the way we are addressing systemic racism and huge wealth disparities.
The pandemic will continue, and with it a similar sorrow of preventable, agonizing deaths. Trump’s tale of an error free pandemic response is not believed, or believable. There are tens of thousands of caskets which should not have been put into service. Scarily, at this stage of battlefield exhaustion we are newly vulnerable. Somehow, millions of us feel invulnerable, or we suppose that we have done all we can.
There is an uncomfortable parallel between our spiraling out of control on these two fronts. We do not accept as much responsibility for racism as we must. And, we are not worried about the virus as to the extent that we should be. In both cases, we are still telling ourselves an untrue personal story, and a fable about our nation in the world.
Every time we as a society hear news that we have been bad at doing something good, we think that it is anomalous. We say, “No, that isn’t who we are.” Even if we never speak of American exceptionalism, the idea of it is so ingrained in us from our school days forward that we may as well have “We’re number one” printed on our garments.
That makes it essential to understand why the idea of the United States as a beacon can remain genuine even as we see our greatest failings exposed. It’s because of kindled dreams, the true story that those who are born here and those that come here can lift themselves up. It is more difficult nowadays to make the dream come true, but tens of millions have enjoyed more freedom, more opportunity, and more education than the generation before it. That’s our brightest beacon, and Donald Trump won’t have succeeded in extinguishing it by the time we remove him on November 3.
We will be left battered, with the virus still infecting us, systemic racism unchecked, our greatest environmental hazard unaddressed, and our role in the world diminished. The test for us as citizens after November 3 is to find our way into a new era. The challenge of our elected leadership, including a new Democratic majority in the Senate, will be to help generate the momentum that will help carry us forward.
We are eager to hear of the selection of the Vice President but are otherwise cheered by where the election stands. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we couldn’t help but notice that there has been some deterioration of the Trump position after the bible was brandished and the New Testament ignored. It doesn’t hurt that there are two things wholly present in Joe Biden and entirely absent from Donald Trump-- knowledge and appreciation of the workings of government, and empathy for human suffering.
The formula for our impending electoral success remains. There is plenty of persuading of independents to be done, mostly to reinforce their movement in considerable numbers away from Donald Trump. Even more dominant is our need to generate turnout, which we have been ably rehearsing these past three years. 4.3% of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 did not vote in 2016. We will fix that.
The troubled times call us not to pause our efforts but to redouble them, relentlessly seeking to bend the arc of history toward justice. Presently, we can do these three things:
| 1) Sustain a Huge Political Movement | |
 | New registrations and higher turnout are much of the focus of the immense organizing effort that is underway. Indivisible and Swing Left did not exist until November of 2016. Their work has been indispensable. Other organizations have come forward, like Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, the Sister District project, and at the regional level, such exemplars as Common Purpose. New attention must be paid and is being paid to how sharply focused, sustainable grassroots efforts will be fostered and supported over time. That is why we should support the focus of the Movement Voter Project which has vetted and is generating assistance for 450 local and state progressive organizations |
2) Protect Government Watchdogs | |
 | The system of internal government watchdogs has had strong bi-partisan support since its inception. Now, Donald Trump is firing inspectors general one at a time, every time one of them offends him (easy to do) or a cabinet secretary. This amounts to a lot of carnage, because the entire idea of inspectors general is to push back against the misuse of power and the misappropriation of funds. Standing in the way of the new rounds of firing is Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who intended to have as his political legacy the creation and protection of a strong system of internal oversight through inspectors general. The law requires Donald Trump to provide justification for inspector general firings, and Trump thus far has said his justification is that he “lost confidence” in each appointee. Grassley has no choice but to put a “hold” on selected Trump appointees until Trump complies with the law. Grassley’s enthusiasm for standing up to the President may fade. It’s time to use Charles Grassley’s comment system to thank him for his efforts thus far, and to urge him to continue to seek protection of inspectors general. |
3) Be a Part of Our New National Commitment | |
 | George Floyd’s murder started something that isn’t going away, and shouldn’t go away. We must recommit to finding the racism within ourselves, and tirelessly ferreting it out in our country. With regard to police brutality, from the outset we must work at the level of every single community to re-examine the nature of policing, including its priorities, staffing and funding. Unfortunately, this necessary intense effort has been branded by more than a few as “defunding”. In his life, the writer of this missive has twice been confronted by individuals who inexplicably indicated a strong interest in killing him! Calling 911 was and is an outstanding option for people in such situations, and it’s unwise to confuse Americans by telling them that 911 is going away, even if that is not necessarily what one means by defunding. This discussion over the language of defunding will continue, and eventually a language of massive reform will emerge. In the meantime, it behooves all of us to understand and be engaged in what is being sought city by city, notably by the 8 Can’t Wait Movement. |
Now we have an agenda before us that must be addressed both immediately (by banning chokeholds) and over several years. Both the pandemic and George Floyd’s murder have signaled us to be wary of embracing a false equilibrium, some new level of satisfaction in ourselves. Instead, let’s remove the divider in chief from his position, and go back to looking together for what America can become
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
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