This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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As Joe Biden undoes much of Donald Trump’s most perfidious acts, and as Trump’s Twitter voice remains silent, one can find a calm absent for the past four years. No daily counterpunch? No elevation of fraudsters, attack on American institutions, or monumental falsehoods? Back to the work of figuring out what a government can do with and for the people, including defeating a pandemic! It is a glorious feeling that should be savored, so long as one remembers the democracy-defending work in which we must quickly re-engage.
The $1.9 trillion stimulus package that Joe Biden has proposed was designed from the beginning as a package that could be subject to compromise. Its $1,400 per person stimulus checks would go out to married couples making as much as $150,000 per year, giving Mitch McConnell the truly bizarre opportunity to pretend that he is worried about the government giving too much money to the rich. Biden left room to compromise, hoping not without justification that Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin can rouse the same bi-partisan coalition that drove the previous stimulus package. In that context, Susan Collins taking nine other Republican Senators to the White House is a good idea.
The other Democratic option regarding the stimulus package is to forget the compromise and pass a package with 50 votes and Vice President Harris breaking the tie. That would narrow the package only to items (including the stimulus payments) that can be included in the budget reconciliation process and pare the bill to $1 trillion or so. Even the smaller package would require the not-automatic assent of Manchin, Democrat Krysten Sinema of Arizona and Independent Angus King of Maine. The fact that Manchin is not a guaranteed 50th vote reduces the President’s leverage.
This might well work out. So might an effort to figure out how to do something about Trump now that it has become obvious that we will not get the 17 votes necessary to convict him for his role in the riot at the Capitol. The effort by Democrat Tim Kaine and Susan Collins to censure Trump (and perhaps ban him from running for office) could get traction. They would have to move quickly and expertly. Just over three weeks from when Trump almost got them killed, Senate Republicans already are developing amnesia over what happened. In another couple of weeks, they will be insisting that Barack Obama did it.
Unfortunately, there is a re-emergence of the large Trump-terrified segment of the Republican leadership. This means that we resistors will have to turn our attention away from Biden cabinet confirmations and restorative executive orders. The Republican leadership and rank and file have made other bargains with Trump in the past so that he will pretend to be interested in something they want. Before, the deal was about him killing them politically. On January 6, the Trump provoked mob raised the idea of killing them physically.
Unbelievably, we need to get ourselves fully engaged in the elections of fall of 2021 and 2022. This is because House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has already travelled to Mar A Lago to offer and receive the necessary blessings. The former insurrectionist in chief, McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are unwilling to extricate themselves from their “can’t live with him, can’t live without him” mode.
State party organizations are allied with Trump and are angry with the 85 Republican House members who did not join the amicus brief seeking to overturn the election. Although it is a depressing thought, there is a good argument that we should all be circulating petitions to urge Trump to remain the active leader of the Trump-Republican party. It would then continue to be the party of white males, the only major demographic where he led last November.
Off-year Congressional elections are normally the time when the opposition party gains ground. Trump running further-right candidates against those conservatives who have been identified as lackluster bootlickers gives us an excellent chance to take back seats. It’s not a fanciful prediction since a split Republican party just delivered us two Senate seats in Georgia. Certainly, we worked hard to grab these seats but Trump had already loosened their grip. There are several promising opportunities to pick up Senate seats.
Across all Americans, 76% rate Trump’s post-election conduct as fair-to-poor, and 68% believe he should not continue to be a major public figure. Of course, things are a little different among Republicans. Pew Research has filed a very timely assessment on Trump’s current grip on the party of Lincoln.
There are some heartening findings, and some that are unbelievable. 64% of those that are Republicans or lean Republican are still locked into the lie that Trump won or “probably won” in November. Of course, that means that 25 million or so voting Republicans no longer believe this con. It is also encouraging that only 29% of the Republican respondents are completely convinced by this toxic waste dump of beliefs. These people endorse Trump’s post-election behavior, hold him harmless for the insurrection, believe he was the elected winner, and want him to play a major role going forward.
With Trump still bullying the schoolyard, our biggest danger is that the lie of a stolen election that he continues to repeat will grow in its credence over time. The best way to prevent this is to immediately resume the collective intensive productive political advocacy of the many millions of us who brought down Trump.
At the local level, as Republicans seek to change the laws and voting regulations that enable mail-in ballots, we must contest every false statement. They are all derived from the made-up fraud story that began months before the election and did not end even in the aftermath of the January 6 riot. From now until November 2022, the central battleground issue will be how easy or difficult it will be to cast a ballot. To our advantage, the false claims of voter fraud will be a staple of debates in primary contests between Trump-endorsed candidates and current Republican office holders clinging to a shred of integrity.
We should support the other ways that Trump could slide further downhill even while holding on to the Republican party structure.
First there are the lawsuits. The rape/defamation case filed by E. Jean Carroll remains before the courts. Trump is under investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James for over-inflating property valuation while securing loans and deflating the same property values when paying taxes. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has secured tax files and is looking at insurance, bank, and tax fraud.
Second, there are the other candidates. Nikki Haley and Marco Rubio will try to nudge Trump away from his leadership role without being obvious about it.
Perhaps most importantly, there will be the recriminations from those whom Trump wronged in the past four years. The pre-election Trump tell-all books were just a start. There are damaging tales to be told by besmirched jettisoned Cabinet secretaries, and there will be a flood of disclosures on what Trump said to this or that world leader. There will be surprises, and we will end up feeling that there could have been monthly impeachment charges.
Trump brought America down almost all of the way. While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stride forward, let’s do three things that will keep us on track from now through the off-year elections on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
| 1) Fight Now to Protect Voting Rights | |
 | Across America, state legislators are battling over the circumstances under which people will be welcomed to vote or will be discouraged from doing so. Those trying to suppress voting will retreat to Trump’s election fraud lie over and over. The Brennan Center for Justice has an outstanding summary outlining where legislators are trying to scale back mail-in ballots, expand voter ID requires, make voter registration more difficult, or purge rolls of infrequent voters. It is time for you or your organization to check in at your state capital. Call your legislator to make certain you understand what is transpiring and what you should be doing. Or check in with your state’s democratic party organization. If they don’t know what is going on, help them change their ways immediately. |
2) Help Republicans Make Republicans Accountable | |
 | The Lincoln Project drew a lot of attention during the Presidential campaign, but there is an even better organization of former Republican leaders to support the fight against election fraud con. This is the Republican Accountability Project. Give them your email and they will send you regular news of their activity. They are part of a constellation of Never-Trumpers that is very intent on not letting Trump pretend he won. They are the folks that put the Ted Cruz: Resign billboard up in Times Square. |
3) Get Started on Swing Senate Seats | |
 | There are 20 Senate Republican seats up for election in 2022 and only 14 Democratic seats. We have a good shot at what will be open seats in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa. Wisconsin could get interesting, especially if Ron Johnson retires. How about Florida if Ivanka Trump challenges Marco Rubio in the Republican primary? Since we already wish we had more than 50 seats, it is time to gear up. During the post-election battles in Pennsylvania, 6’8” Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman was fierce and principled and unwavering. He is going to jump into the race from the outset. If you act now you will be able to say you were with him from the beginning. |
Somewhere, in the midst of things (perhaps on January 6?) it occurred to all of us that this is not a movement that would or could end with our election success on November 3, 2020. So, we are in it to win it, over, and over again.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
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