#52: We’re Not Going to Let Him Pry the Bill of Rights Away From Us

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.

Some of us have taken personally all of these things about Donald Trump. His presidency has eaten away at our country, and we have not been able to abide it at all.

We have been sustained by the too rare legislative victory, notably John McCain’s thumbs down on overturning the Affordable Care Act. Even more so, our strength will come from what we will make happen next Tuesday. We have put together the largest collection of well-funded and well-fought off-year Congressional campaigns in history. We have been unrelenting. Because of that, we will win back the House of Representatives on Tuesday, November 6. 

Through it all, have we been too miserable, too worried, too obsessed with Trump? Have we overlooked any commendable policies he has advanced? Have we allowed his con-man, bullying, prevaricating habits to blind us from his positives?

No. No, we have not overlooked his positives. There is no brighter side. He is in permanent service to himself. He swore an oath to the Constitution and seems to think he swore an oath at the Constitution. He will say anything that suits him at any time that suits him. Left to himself, he will take this country apart.

We do not want to be embittered, or heartsick. More importantly, we do not want to see the world’s longest, greatest noble experiment in self-determination slip away. We will not let the Bill of Rights go, and he will be unable to pry it from our hands.

After next Tuesday night, it will be back to work, but in a new phase. There will be an all new set of issues to confront. New legislative challenges will be before us and the Congress, including House committees investigating Trump’s self-dealing on behalf of his holdings; his campaign’s ties to Russia, and his antipathy toward paying the income tax the law requires.

We have barely begun to sort out our Presidential candidates. We must pick a winner, hopefully someone who can articulate a nation’s dreams and its citizens’ values. Certainly, we have missed that. We do not intend to have this unthinkable presidency repeated, or mimicked by another.

With early balloting underway, it might seem like this chapter is over. This is untrue. With us putting new districts in play, there could be as many as 20 house races decided by one percent or less. In races like these, what happens between now and Tuesday will be monumentally important. Similarly, four or five Senate races are tied. Winning over the last few undecided voters and getting our voters to vote will mean everything for our candidates.

As underscored in missive #51, think how awful it would be to wake up on November 7 and wish that we had done more. You know how to keep that from happening. Here’s three things we can do in the next week.

1) Do Everything You Can to Promote Voting
	You can only vote once, but you can wear your “I Voted” pin and be visible about having voted everywhere you go. Just think of the discussions you can start at the post office, the bank, the grocery store or on the bus. Please, please stop telling yourself that single votes don’t matter. If you are unaffiliated, Indivisible is doing phone banking in key districts every day until the election. Here’s where to sign up.
2) Yes, There is a Way to Make One More Donation That Counts
	Early on, veteran political organizers wondered out loud about Swing Left, whose leadership did not ask whether they could join the circle of resistance organizations. They just acted, and they have played a major role ever since. Now in connection with Act Blue, they have the perfect way to fix your worries that you haven’t donated enough. In their Immediate Impact Fund, they have selected nine Congressional races where the margins are tight, and where our candidates could use a last minute cash boost. We have put so much money in play that it might be hard to imagine that parting with a final $100 could make a difference, but it does because there are thousands of us making that same $100 calculation at the same time. Remember that resisters put 85 districts in play for good reasons, to maximize the blue wave and to make Republicans defend ground that they had always assumed was their own. Let’s make sure these candidates are supported.
3) Let’s Make Elections Better With Each Election Cycle
	The battle to end voter suppression is ongoing, as is the separate but related effort to improve redistricting practices. Congressional redistricting will commence once the 2020 Census has been completed. We will make gains in State Houses this year which will have huge consequences for redistricting. In many states, this means acquitting ourselves better in the usual political battles. It is good to remember that there is a higher goal--- using the initiative process or legislative actions to guarantee that both parties attend more carefully to the importance of considering the citizenry when they do district drawing. It is not just gerrymandering that disenfranchises voters. Sometimes the two major parties do horse trading that guarantees one party’s preeminence in one district, providing it to the other party in a neighboring district. This limits the number of swing districts and thus the choices that voters would otherwise be able to make. It produces members of Congress that are less willing to work across the aisle. As told by the outstanding Brennan Center, five states will vote on initiatives that will improve redistricting processes. Four other states are enmeshed in legislative debates on how to redistrict. Check and see if your state is included, and help make it so in the future. Some of these initiatives are drawing serious opposition with smokescreen advertising, so a last boost is a good idea.

Well, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. And it hasn’t been. From the beginning, about the only good thing one could say about the electoral events of November 2016 is that it would surface hidden layers of sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia that we have been needing to get into the daylight and confront. We will keep that up for every minute it takes.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#45: You Know That You Can Make This Man a Footnote

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.

When Donald Trump is asked about Russia killing journalists and answers that “our country does a lot of killing also,” and when he calls a Putin plan to interrogate a former US Ambassador an “incredible” idea, he’s lost touch with the magnificent quest for self-determination that sent the colonists to Lexington and Concord. It has become clear that Donald Trump has bought into an equivalency based upon power, but Americans have not. His greatest praise for another nation or its leader is “strong” and ours is “free”. We know the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. The fact that our President does not recognize that difference is the scariest thing we can say about him, among a host of scary things.

This cannot, must not, and will not stand. Collectively, we have it within ourselves to make this man a footnote, a figure from an awful time who will have wounded our nation greatly but from which we will resolutely recover. Through our efforts together, we can set the stage for a celebration on November 6, 2018 which will shake our nation, and mark the beginning of Trump’s political demise.

Through Comey’s late announcement, Putin’s interference, our own slipping and sliding, and lack of voter enthusiasm, in November of 2016 we fell 70,000 short of the votes we needed in the places we needed them. The firewall was breached, and the man who did not expect to be president and who was not ever been for a minute qualified to be president became the President.

Why would we let that become a major moment in our planet’s history? We won’t. The coming blue wave does not depend upon you to convince your Fox addicted cousin to share your political beliefs. It depends upon your efforts to flood this election with committed voters: millennials who didn’t make it to the polls last time, women who have figured out what Trump stands for in their lives, independents who in special elections have turned away from Trump in huge numbers, and the Democrats and progressives who have been obsessed with creating a blue wave since the fateful day.

It is all within our reach. Consider this:

• There is daily consternation that Trump’s “base” remains loyal to him. Most often, that base is defined as self-identified Republicans, and much is made when they are undaunted by Trudeau taunts, Playboy Playmate payoffs, or NATO negativism. However, at this point, only 27% of registered voters identify as Republicans. As Nate Silver emphasizes, the fact that as many as 90% of Republicans support this or that Trump action should never be the news lead - the significance of Trump’s high level of disapproval is in the broader electorate.
• The overall disapproval of Trump has shown an important dwindling over time in his support among people who identify themselves as “moderates” or “independents”. You can’t win an election without doing well with them. These voters have registered their disapproval on issues like Trump’s choice to believe Putin’s denial of election meddling. 
• As important as Trump’s low approval ratings (around 42-43% of voters) is the unlikelihood that he will be able to do anything to give those levels a significant boost. Unemployment levels are already low, and these levels would worsen during a trade war. Polls show more voters disapproving of the tax bill and Trump’s health care approaches than those that approve. He is a known quantity - where is his potential upswing, especially as Mueller moves forward? Digging deeper into these low levels of approval provides even more good news for resisters. The percentage of people who strongly disapprove of Trump is twice the percentage of people who strongly approve. This is the enthusiasm gap that is driving the nearly unprecedented level of political activity by Indivisible, Swing Left, the Democratic Party itself, and countless independent organizations and individuals.
• Special elections for vacant seats have a different dynamic than the elections that will be held in November, which should cause Republicans to be extremely thankful given the returns so far. Even in very solid Republican districts the shift to Democratic candidates that we have all generated has been very significant. 
• Even better, Congressional districts where there has been high quality polling of this year’s races have delivered excellent results for those of us who are trying to generate a wave. When conservative Republican Dana Rohrbacker is on the ropes in conservative Orange County, California, you know that times are changing.
• Since the Parkland slayings, youth registrations have become even a higher percentage of new voter registrations, especially in swing states. The intensive voter registration drives across the country will help generate the blue wave, because young voters overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.
• The generic vote tests who voters would select between an unnamed Democratic congressional candidate and an unnamed Republican. At this point the polling average gives Democratic candidates a 7.4% advantage. At election time, that is consistent with taking back 40-50 House seats. Of course, we can do better than that if we make sure our voters turn out. 

Once we have considered these data points, we can’t help but be focused on November and generating the wave. Of course, there remains the small matter of what we were believing in November 2016 - that Donald Trump had only the tiniest chance of being elected. That was true, but it came to pass. How can we give ourselves over to this painful, dangerous process one more time? How can we dare believe that if we act tirelessly, we can start to stop this destruction of America? Because it is all of us, together, and we are more dedicated to this outcome than we ever have been.

So, let’s do these three things right now.

1) Take Voter Registration to An All New Level With Michelle Obama
	Happily, the new force in the national voter registration effort is Michelle Obama. The emergence of her national effort called “When We All Vote” takes nothing away from such stalwart national organizations as Rock the Vote or countless local efforts. Instead, it will draw new attention to the need to register and keep us oriented to this mission from now to November. Increasing the participation of millennials is especially important to creating the blue wave. The appeal from Michelle Obama is simple and pointed. When We All Vote is set up to recruit you as a volunteer, provide links for easy voter registration, take your donation, and keep you posted about national or local events. Some of the races we are contesting will be decided by a thousand votes or less. It is not hard to imagine a situation in which voter registration alone will spell the difference. As Frank Bruni writes in the New York Times, “We got it wrong in 2016. We can get in right in 2018. There’s a far side to the American disgrace, a way to contain the damage, and it’s both utterly straightforward and entirely effective. It’s called voting. And from now until November 6, we must stay fantastically focused on that--- on registering voters, turning them out, donating time in the right places.” While we are working on voter registration, we should remember that the list of newly registered voters is available in most states. A small group could take on the task of writing notes to those people in their community who have just signed up.
2) Devote New Efforts to Gubernatorial Races, Including Supporting Stacey Abrams
	The intensive efforts by resisters and the political climate that Donald Trump has created has opened up more gubernatorial races this fall. This would be important in many years, but it is especially important because congressional and state legislative district lines will be redrawn in response to the 2020 census. In many states, Governors will be in a position to veto redistricting plans that hijack the electorate with gerrymandered maps. This is what happened in many states after the 2010 off year elections.  The Democratic Governors’ Association is hoping to take back several states, including Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and Wisconsin (where Scott Walker is seeking a third term.) A special prize would be Georgia, where lawyer, politician, author, and businesswoman Stacey Abrams is aiming to become the first African American woman to become governor of that state. Thanks to Donald Trump, Abrams is facing the weaker of the two Republican candidates, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, rather than the candidate backed by the outgoing governor, Nathan Deal. It would be nothing but a good thing to help Stacey Abrams. If you are in a state that has no meaningful gubernatorial race, you could adopt her race as your own. If you aren’t yet in a position to donate, sign up and keep an eye on Georgia.
3) Recommendations from Your Co-conspirators
	Readers of this missive have good ideas. One encourages attention to state initiatives that reform legislative redistricting processes, which will be before the voters in Michigan, Missouri, Utah and Colorado. The story here is that beyond Republican shenanigans in 2010, parties in some states have worked together on redistricting that is intended to increase the number of safe seats (making trades to protect incumbents) and reduce the number of swing districts. This is not in the interest of voters. It would be a good thing to look at your state’s redistricting process and find out who is trying to make it better and who is not. A friend writes urging we all read and support Robert Reich’s lucid appeal to four Republican Senators.  Another reader of this missive who is worried about obsessing on the news recommends Krista Tippett’s advice: “The news is never the full story of our time. It’s not the last word on what we’re capable of. It’s not the whole story of us.”

We have a huge opportunity, right now, between now and November 6, to write an all new chapter in the story of our time. There are elections coming up. Powerlessness is a fiction. Get back in the driver’s seat, please.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#31: No Forgetting the Strength and Grace of Barrack Obama

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.

To the extent that people in political mass movements are capable of collective wisdom, now would be a very good time to achieve some. As fascinating as is Fire and Fury, Michael Wulff's exposé of a petulant, distracted, uninformed, dishonorable president, we can't permit ourselves to dwell at the scene of that crime.

Steve Bannon's comments regarding treason, Trump Jr. and Manafort are delicious, of course. But, collusion in inviting the Russians into the presidential election, and/or obstruction of justice are matters before Robert Mueller, and thus are already in good hands. There aren't a lot of countries where the government can investigate a sitting president, but we are definitely one of them, as Richard Nixon was dismayed to learn.

Beyond being very concerned about Mueller, and he is, Trump is worried about the permanent de-legitimization of his presidency. He would, and has, lied regularly to try to avoid this outcome. It is this fear of Trump's that has put Jeff Sessions on the Tom Price-like slippery slope, even though Jeff Sessions was the first Senator to endorse Trump's candidacy, and for a long time the only one.

It also why Trump has recruited a motley collection of House Republicans who have forgotten they always loved the FBI and are now seeking to eviscerate the FBI. Most of all, it is why Steve Bannon must be made an outcast, even as he retracts and apologizes. If Donald Trump could get away with it, he would have Sean Hannity interview him and then insist that he never met Steve Bannon, except once in a large meeting of junior staff and interns.

In the midst of it all, we must keep our focus. Doing 2018 the right way (both in terms of the legislative process and the 2018 elections) will give us the opportunity to begin to reverse in 2019 what happened in 2017. As we tackle 2018 in our massive and growing movement, we must continue to adjust our efforts to take advantage of new conditions.

Paramount among these new conditions is that 60 is the new 50. Mitch McConnell is out of the actions that require only 50 votes in the Senate due to those actions being advanced under the budget reconciliation process. Getting to 60 will push him back to the center. That's why he and his colleagues wanted the awful tax bill so badly. It was their last night at the saloon before reporting for active duty.

Because of their influence on committees and their willingness to talk to Democrats, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Jeff Flake will still be important. However, we will need a new tact - we will want to quickly improve our communication with selected Democratic Senators from states Trump won by a wide margin and who are up for re-election in 2018. There are several who were elected to their six-year terms in 2012, when Barack Obama was re-elected. These include Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Now that Doug Jones has been seated, we are at 49. Getting to 51 (requiring the re-election of these Senators) could generate innumerable rewards, including improved defense against future Trump Supreme Court nominees.

The trick will be to find an approach to the budget, DACA (Deferral of Childhood Arrivals), infrastructure investment and other legislative challenges that keep these vulnerable Senators comfortably within their own party.

This is more possible because fashioning a workable Democratic caucus position while attending to needs of individual Senators is Minority Leader Charles Schumer's specialty. And it's even more possible than that because Trump’s growing unpopularity has reached these states, making it far easier for these Senators to oppose him.

The resistance does not need to demand that every Democratic Senator think alike. It has never been so. Depending on the issue, the position and politics of centrist Democrats must be honored and even celebrated. It's a party with progressive goals but a big tent.

So, by all means let’s participate in compromises to keep the government going and people served. But remember always the standards --- no participation in international bullying, no blessing of planet poisoning executive orders, no pretending that Trump has ended airplane fatalities, no thinking for even a second that a wall is related to our security, no disregard of international institutions, no conflating growth in the stock market with giving a boost to those in need, no throwing people off their health care insurance, no denigrating the media, no comforting the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted, and no forgetting the strength and grace of Barrack Obama.

With those standards in mind here are three things we can do to help our bruised nation get off to a strong start in 2018.

1) Get Back the Senate Majority
	For most of this past year, the resistance to Donald Trump has concentrated on taking back the House of Representatives in 2018. The work of Indivisible and Swing Left has preceded and surpassed the work of the Democratic Party on this front, although the parties efforts have increased to date. With Doug Jones' victory in Alabama, the Senate is still a longer shot, but it is within reach. The formula would be to hold onto the vulnerable Democratic seats enumerated above, pick up the Republican seats held by Dean Heller of Nevada and the retiring apostate Jeff Flake of Arizona, and work for an upset with good candidates in such states as Tennessee and Texas, where a win by Representative Beto O'Rourke over Senator Ted Cruz would be delicious. It's time for activists to get to know a vulnerable Democratic Senator who is working hard and who is up for re-election in a state where every other major elected official is a Republican. Why not start with Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota? She is a stolid Democrat, served two terms as attorney general, and eschewed running for Governor to run again for the Senate. Whether or not you are ready to make a small contribution to her campaign, now is an excellent time to sign up to start learning about her.
2) Standing with Patagonia to Protect Public Lands
	It's time to notice that one company has put themselves forward to oppose the Trump/Zinke destruction of public lands. As previously discussed in Missive #29 the action cutting Bear's Ears National Monument by over 2 million acres is only the beginning of the administration's efforts to put conservation last.  The outdoor gear company Patagonia has objected, brought other companies and conservation organizations to their side, and taken a leadership role in this effort. They have paid for some very effective television ads which have made interior secretary Ryan Zinke very angry. Click here to join and participate in their campaign to preserve public lands.
3) Get to Work Fighting Gerrymandering
	As we know, long before votes are cast in an election, initial critical steps are taken. Progressives battle against state legislative proposals that make registering to vote more difficult or otherwise seek to suppress voting. Activists register potential voters, seek to increase the intensity of their interest, and set up systems to convince people to vote and get them to the polls. For years, looming over all of these efforts has been the extra level of difficulty in winning gerrymandered districts, whose proponents use demographic analysis to create disproportionate advantage of one party over another, over and above what would be the likely or common political distribution within that geographical area. This turns swing districts (in which political choice is magnified) into safe districts (in which only one viewpoint is entertained). Both parties have been guilty of gerrymandering in the past. The federal courts have taken notice, and there have been important legal efforts to stop the most egregious practices, especially those that constitute racial discrimination. Every ten years, the completion of the census puts state legislatures into the position of needing to redraw the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to adjust to population shifts. In the fall of 2010, Republicans pulled off huge gains in state legislative races. Subsequently, they used their legislative majorities in several states (notably in Wisconsin and Virginia) to creatively re-draw district lines to gain significantly more seats than their overall vote total would have predicted. For instance, North Carolina has an almost even number of Democratic voters, but its Congressional delegation has 12 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Eric Holder, the Attorney General under Barrack Obama, has persuaded Democrats to take on this issue with all new energy and a fresh understanding about how the worst excesses of gerrymandering can be countered. His National Democratic Redistricting Committee is behind strategies to make certain Democrats don't make the same mistakes in 2020 as they did in 2010.

There's nothing wrong with admitting to ourselves that political America has become wearying. The daily Trumpian approach to life, to our nation, and to the world is soul-sapping. As an antidote, you could look at the newspaper (remember those?) and see the evidence every single day that our resistance is growing. And there's some other evidence that can restore the soul as well. Nicholas Kristof says 2017 was the best year in human history. Last year, over 300 million people in this world got their first access to electricity and to clean water, and 250 million boosted themselves or were lifted from the worst levels of poverty.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington