David Harrison: This Will Not Stand

This is the next of our 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. . 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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, Our Unfinished Work, every month.

From the outset, Donald Trump’s countless executive orders and other malevolent actions were meant to overwhelm Greenland, Canada, Hakeem Jeffries, Charles Schumer, Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, John Roberts, and you. 

Overwhelmed people can have difficulty getting their bearings. Absent immediate help, they begin to think their desperate situation is permanent. Once they hear that assistance is on the way, they could discount that news. Bizarrely, they can fall into acceptance of their situation and aid in quashing their own hope. Law firms, universities and small countries can even aid in devising the conditions of their own surrender.

There is a choice. Overwhelmed people can see new possibilities emerge. While assessing the enormous unavoidable damage that this country will continue to suffer under Donald Trump, they can find meaningful opportunities to fight back. Those opportunities are growing, and with them the sheer number of resistors. We are capturing our fury and put it to use.

That is where we are now. Even as he holds majorities in the House and the Senate, we know where Trump can be pushed downhill. 

• John Thune and Mike Johnson have squeaked by on budget and spending policy. They are now at an impasse with each other and the Senate and House Republican caucuses. The question is how to add to the mix the necessary increase in the debt ceiling and an enormous tax cut. There is no “one big, beautiful reconciliation bill” already teed up. The increase in the debt ceiling has led Johnson to promise the Freedom Caucus the House will make draconian cuts and to promise the small band of “moderates” the House will not.

• Some lies are more difficult to sustain. Donald Trump’s professed love of tariffs and his prevarications about their lack of cost to consumers will collide with Americans’ demand for imported products. Trump’s bludgeoning of other countries will diminish our access to their markets for years. Inflation will increase noticeably, markets and consumer confidence will decline, and the Fed will be forced to act upon their worries. Unbelievably, Trump sold himself to the voters as the penultimate manager of the economy. The number of Americans who believe they are “better off” under Trump’s economy has dropped 33% since January. There is more to come. 

• So far, resistors have underestimated what federal courts will do. Part of this judgement is based upon the Supreme Court doing extra duty to protect candidate Trump from criminal charges. The rest is Trump’s bluster, bargaining the courts will shy away from certain rulings that are unfavorable to him because of worries about his potential noncompliance. However, federal courts have a broad array of enforcement actions that make noncompliance nearly impossible. Further, the already battered markets would not stand for it. Finally, federal judges (including the Supreme Court) read history books too. Yes, they are going to advance Trump’s powers to replace the heads of independent agencies. 
  
  Once Trump and Musk comply with what civil service protections require, they will be able to dismiss tens of thousands of federal workers. But John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett will emerge again. The Supreme Court will not allow any larger scale diminution of legislative powers, or the end of birthright citizenship, or the illegal impoundment of appropriated funds, or the elimination of well-established due process rights, even those afforded to undocumented persons. There have been at least fifty federal court rulings against Trump executive orders and other administration actions. 
  
  In almost all cases, judges have established that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail when the merits of the case have been examined.

As Trump starts the slide from the top of the hill, we can help push, for the good of the world. Let’s do these three things:

1) Get Back into Your Cell

Doing things together can be key to maintaining our intensity of effort. The outstanding political organization Common Power offers numerous real-time opportunities to groups of resistors from around the country to do work that counts. 

Indivisible has been there since the darkest days of December 2016 when Democratic leadership was absent. They have an excellent search feature to help us find like-minded, organized people. 

2) Fight Against Unthinkable Aid Cuts

It has been disheartening to watch Republican past supporters of the Agency for International Development stand by watching the agency be dismantled. It has been additionally disappointing to see the once somewhat balanced Marco Rubio forgetting everything he said previously about our country’s international role. Now comes the Foreign Aid Bridge Fund raising millions to do what they can to stem the loss of nutrient based foods, community health care workers, refugee assistance, vaccine testing and other assistance previously provided by USAID. This fund has several major partners and is well grounded in the work that demands immediate protection.

3) Don’t Let Unacceptable Actions Be Forgotten

It’s not just Marco Rubio who can’t remember what he did and said previously. Pete Hegseth can’t remember that the Department of Defense’s impending military attacks are classified and Mike Waltz can’t remember that calls should be secured. It’s heartening that the conservative Republican Senator Roger Wicker and conservative Republican Representative Mike Rogers are, as noted by Rogers, “still trying to find out what happened.” They are chairs of their respective Armed Services Committees and are duty-bound to stay focused. Call Roger Wicker at 202-224-6253 and Mike Rogers at 202-225-3261 to emphasize this point.

So, it goes. Donald Trump is stomping upon our nation and dismissing our longtime friends who have been by our side for a century. We will work every day to make sure this does not stand.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

David Harrison: Elon, You’re Really Killing Me

This is the next of our 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. . 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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. 

Donald Trump’s opening month was designed to leave you overwhelmed and in despair. The sheer extent of his malevolence has been epic, as has been his boorishness, his antipathy to the Constitution, his racism, his misogyny, and his blindness to other nations and to people in need.

If you don’t die in a flood, eventually you will take stock as the waters recede. If you can, you will check right away for permanent damage, mourn your losses, and try to achieve some measure of equilibrium. That’s difficult enough, isn’t it?

It’s worse with the Musk-like smell in the air, the armed assassin, bursting with self-importance, chortling, surveying the landscape and looking for unintended survivors. And then you get to hear that it isn’t what you say it is. That’s not a Russian dictator your nation is bowing to, and he didn’t attack Kiev. There are no nuclear weapons unprotected, no airways made unsafe, no epidemics invited, no tax cheats empowered, no hospitals closing, no parents desperately seeking medical help for a comatose child, and no vendettas pursued. Just one more day addressing inefficiency.

Already, our despair is not just outdated but unaffordable. Sheer fury stands as the only option, a guided fury that finds, exposes and addresses Trump’s vulnerabilities. However we got to this place, this is where we are. And we know exactly where we need to go. Substack-er Robert Reich got it right. Our progress is already measurable. 

Courts will block Trump’s executive orders in many areas, including his efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship. Happily, they will also require the Office of Management and Budget to release most of the appropriated grant and contract funds that Trump has blocked, citing the solidly constitutional Impoundment Control Act of 1942. Ultimately, this will save us from the embarrassing spectacle of Republican Senators using back channels to plead with Trump aides to release funds that the Senators have already appropriated.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been bent on overturning their 1935 Humphrey’s Executor ruling, which required the President to establish neglect of duty or malfeasance before firing the head of an independent agency. The Court will rule that this standard usurps the President’s constitutional powers. The bigger issue here will be what the Court will do with Trump’s amendments to civil service protections, where he seeks to hugely expand the number of workers who are thought to be involved in “policy” and who thus would serve at the will of the President.

All the more reason for resisters to reactivate the Congress, which is not nearly as hopeless an objective as one might guess. At this point, Speaker Mike Johnson has a two-vote margin and must tend to the dispute between the “Freedom” Caucus who would massacre Medicaid and a small number of “moderates” who would protect it. Not shockingly, Donald Trump has lied, endorsing the budget proposal which would slash Medicaid after saying two days previous that it was not going to be touched. This is what is in Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.”  

Worse for Johnson, this budget reconciliation process is his only way to increase the debt ceiling (and keep the government open) and his only way to pave the way for Trump’s tax bill, including the candies he passed out on the campaign trail. Johnson has no path forward. Doubly worse for Johnson, he has no way to pass the continuing resolution appropriating the current year’s spending without Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries supplying some votes.

Trump, Johnson and even Senate Majority Leader John Thune are talking like they have a majority and a mandate that does not exist. We can help clarify things for them by doing these three things:

1) Protect Medicaid from Trump and Musk

What could you say about a nation which would seek to cut a person with no money who needs to go to the doctor to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest? Find the right Republican member of Congress and call their number to reject that proposition. You can remind them that Donald Trump said he wouldn’t touch Medicaid.

• Call Rep. David Valadao of California, who has already spoken out. Reach his office at 202-225-4695
• Call Rep. Marianette of Iowa, who won in 2024 by less than a thousand votes. Her number is 202-225-6576
• Call Don Bacon of Nebraska, who has shown in the past that he can stand up. Reach him at 202-225-4155

2) Save Lives by Protecting Vaccines

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is a doctor, who has fought for vaccines his entire medical career. He vouched for Robert Kennedy as HHS Secretary, saying that he had gained important concessions on protecting vaccines. In one of his first acts as HHS Secretary, Kennedy formed a task force to reconsider vaccine requirements. Call Bill Cassidy at 202-224-5824 and tell him what he knows, that lives are hanging in the balance and that a nation is depending on him. Here is a vaccine protection tool kit, and here is the bad news about measles in Texas, helped along by the anti-vaxxers. 

3) Build Our Country for the Future

We can and will take back the House in 2026, and that’s not so far away. Attention is always being paid to donations to political organizations and candidates. These are not charitable donations for those that itemize contributions to eligible nonprofits. However, there are important ways to use charitable contributions to bolster organizations that are trying to protect democracy at a critical time. See the attachment to find six important examples of tax-exempt organizations who need your assistance. For those over 70 ½ they can even accept a share of your required minimum distributions (RMD) from your retirement account.

No one is saying we can’t have hearts that are breaking for our country and for our planet. Instead, we are saying that this cannot and will not stand. We are all in for guided fury that finds, exposes and addresses as much as we can of what has befallen us.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

David Harrison: Here are the Rules

 This is the next of our 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. . 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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, Our Unfinished Work, every month.

You could watch the news and become dispirited, and it wouldn't be just because of Donald Trump's awful assault on America. 

Jill Biden is known to be angry at Nancy Pelosi for her lack of "loyalty" displayed in getting Joe to withdraw from the race. This is preposterous. We should be outraged at Jill and Joe Biden and their aides for serving democracy and all of us up on a platter. If Nancy Pelosi made an error, it was in not starting a quiet campaign to block Joe a year earlier in 2023, when he had promised to be the bridge to new leadership.

Even in running against an un-constitutionalist, the margins were too narrow for Democrats to field an 81 year old burdened by a serious bout of inflation coupled with obvious cognitive deterioration. How about just reading epic tragedies laced with deep irony, rather than acting them out? As much as we can puzzle that voters bought Donald Trump's con, our initial wounds were self inflicted.

So, what now? Led for the time being by lawyers seeking injunctions, the resistance is reforming. It demands our full commitment until we are out of this mess. A condition of our success is learning how to better sort out which of the mass of Trump's executive orders and other actions are contestable in court; which need Congressional approval in the face of slim majorities; which are subject to the reaction of voters and the market; and which take advantage of those powers of the presidency that are most difficult to constrain. Making these distinctions is an essential part of resisting. Note these examples:

• Trump's quest to end birthright citizenship will be blocked by the courts. As federal district court Judge John Coughenour (a Reagan appointee) has already emphasized, Trump has no path. The constitutional protection for these babies is unambiguous. Trump will be blocked by the courts as well in his effort to destroy the Civil Service, since the statutory protection for civil servants is also clear. But there is little protection for the fired inspectors general and there Trump will prevail. Trump's massacre of environmental protections will bring effective but uneven legal challenges, depending on the environmental laws he is citing or ignoring.

• Though Mike Johnson's house majority is tiny, the media and the markets are following anticipated social welfare budget cuts and corporate tax reductions as though they have already happened. The media seem to think the choice is one giant budget reconciliation bill (Mike Johnson and the House) or the same content spread over two bills (John Thune and the Senate). However, members of the House Freedom Caucus have already ignored the Trump/Musk entreaties on lifting the debt ceiling and they will continue to do so, Right now, on the budget there is no path forward for Trump, even if he shuts down the government he is running. There is a very real chance that Johnson will have to turn to Hakeem Jeffries at some point in the process.

• Trump has broad authority to change Denali's signage. (Be sure to click here right now for John Snell's better sense of Denali) 

• On foreign policy, to Zellensky's chagrin, Trump's presidential powers allow him to chat with Putin regularly. He can bully Denmark and Panama with relative impunity, and his presidential powers to apply tariffs are broad. Here his problem is that a lie repeated a thousand times remains a lie, even when your Senatorial sycophants are swooning. The primary impact of Trump's tariffs placed on Mexico and Canada is to increase costs for the American consumer, thus spurring inflation. The stock market will correct downward, and Trump will be chastened to the extent that is possible. That's why tariffs are a better as a bullying position for Trump's trade negotiations than they are an actual step to be taken.

• In certain cases, the public's response will cause Trump to sand off the sharpest edges of what he otherwise would do. That's the case with deportations. Once he gets beyond deporting felons (which is an old practice) and turns to the seven million undocumented workers and their families, people will be herded and employees will be removed from jobs. Farmers will say they can't complete the harvest, families will be torn apart, and thousands of people will hit the streets. As with Trump's last term, everyone from Oprah to Melania will watch this all on the news and will seek a pause.

What to do right now? First, don't forget we need to take back the Virginia governorship by electing Abigail Spanberger in Virginia to replace the term limited Republican governor Glenn Youngkin. Then, for now, you could also look for who needs help among the many organizations who are filing or are intending to file to block Trump in court.

It is a good thing that attorneys general from the states will be major players on selected issues, as they already have been on birthright citizenship. During Joe Biden's presidency, the Supreme Court narrowed the circumstances under which states have standing to challenge federal actions, but they still will be there a lot.

Those inclined to provide financial assistance to litigating organizations need to decide whether to boost organizations who will seek to block Trump in multiple areas or in one specialty area like federal civil service or climate change. The larger litigants include the American Civil Liberties Union and the very well respected Brennan Center at NYU. An interesting player on multiple fronts is Democracy Forward, a coalition of litigants whose purview is even broader than that of the ACLU and Brennan Center. 

Often there will be multiple litigants. This is the case with the three separate promising lawsuits filed against Musk and the "Department of Government Efficiency". These suits have a statute behind them that forces transparency upon government advisory commissions. 

At this point, the major fighter against Trump's attempted takedown of the civil service is the National Treasury Employees Union. (NTEU). There has yet to be anything filed to try to defend our country's role in the World Health Organization. 

Several environmental organizations are headed to court. Ironically, they will seek to take advantage of the Supreme Court's Biden-era ruling in the Chevron case, which scaled back considerably the power of the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to broadly interpret environmental laws when carrying out enforcement.

The litigation will grow in coming months and there will be early successes. Slowly and certainly, these and other avenues to put MAGA in decline will become clearer.

And we will all be there to do just that.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

Where we go from here

Dear friend,

After years of blogging about our collective fight against MAGA, and after receiving comments from hundreds of you, I feel like I know you. You are not going to be surprised that the election results broke my heart just a bit. We had a chance to put Donald Trump behind us at long last, and we weren't quite able to get it done. This outcome will definitely require a recovery period.

But I already recognize that it's not just frustration and sorrow that have invaded me, it is anger! After I momentarily hung my head, I lifted my head. This will not stand. We will not let our country be destroyed and our constitution be shredded by a man whose love for himself and indifference to others are monumental. As Kamala Harris said today, this is not about the end of a fight, it is about the beginning of one.

That's a fight we join right now. In 2018, after two years of Trump's incumbency, we all worked to achieve the Democratic "tsunami", taking back 40 House seats and regaining Nancy Pelosi's speakership. That can be our result in 2026, a giant step in restricting Trump's powers. The obsession toward that end must start now. There's a lesson out there about no wound-licking, just pride in what we stand for, and hard work to back it up.

Join me in starting now. I am changing my blog to a simple email format, and you will get it somewhere around the 25th of each month. As in the past, it will evaluate the current outlook and offer things each of us can do. You don't have to do anything to subscribe but if you want to un-subscribe (perish that thought) there will be that option at the end of each email. This is also a great time to get your friends to join the list.

Best to all

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#50: Trump Unconcerned About Pence, and Everyone Else

This is the next of our 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. 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

One could ruminate on how a candidate who sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power could be normalized sufficiently to be enabled to run again. Embracing the horse race story, it seems almost like commentators and reporters are unwilling to say what they know to be true about Donald Trump. It seems a bit bizarre that he is running for election without acknowledging the results of the previous one. To say nothing for promising to arrest his opponents, get police to beat people up, and use the military to deport 12 million people.

Now comes the release of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s filing to federal district court judge Tanya Chutkan. This detailed explication of felonious behavior should be required reading. Beyond saying “So what?” when told his vice president’s life was in jeopardy, Trump clearly knew he had lost and chose fraudulent democracy-obliterating actions to try to stay in power. This is not forgivable.

 

However, this train of thought about the absolute illegitimacy of his candidacy must not be entertained, at least not until after we win on November 5. For this moment and every moment until then, it is only about what we must do to make Kamala Harris president.

Our chances are good, for these top 10 reasons:

• Kamala Harris is closing the gap with Trump on voter trust on the economy. This leaves immigration as his dominant issue and helps explain the heavily emphasized Feeding on Felines plank of Trump’s platform. 
• Even by Trump’s standards, his most recent claims on Harris being mentally impaired are uncommonly repellent to independents.
• In six of the seven swing states, Democratic Senate or Gubernatorial candidates have strong leads. At this point, the leads of Senatorial candidates Ruben Gallego in Arizona, Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein in North Carolina (over “black Nazi” Mark Robinson) are large enough to discourage Republican turnout. The polling leads of Senate candidates Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan are also valuable for Kamala Harris.
• Harris’s campaign is raising and spending considerably more money than is Trump. Accordingly, she is making unprecedented commitments to field staff and digital advertising, as well as the usual television and print ads.
• Polls are showing fewer undecided voters than in recent election years, and fewer already committed voters open to persuasion. Trump’s agonizingly long tenure on the national scene means that most Americans have their mind made up about him. That makes it easier for Harris to sustain even a small lead. 
• Polls in 2022 ended up being the most accurate of the last two decades. Pollsters believe that they have made methodological improvements to polling approaches that had contributed the 216 and 2020 undercounting of Trump’s support.
• Robert Kennedy Jr. (the non-Kennedy Kennedy) remains on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin, to Trump’s disadvantage. Given Kennedy’s dumping of a bear carcass in Central Park, he is Trump’s “bro” in creating animal lore.
• A woman’s opportunity to control her own body is on the ballot statewide in Nevada, Arizona and Florida. To try to win votes, Trump is pretending that he never did what he previously said he was proud he did. Similarly, Trump opposed the Affordable Care Act every second of his administration and now insists that he led a bipartisan effort to protect and save it.
• As judges Aileen Cannon and Juan Merchan have fallen by the wayside at least temporarily, federal judge Tanya Chutkan has just shown herself to be unyielding. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has filed a 165-page brief providing significant new evidence of Trump actions that are way outside the heretofore unimagined broad presidential immunity the Supreme Court devised. Chutkan is expected to also release material (including FBI notes) from the appendix that Jack Smith filed. This will all remain in the news, as it should.
• The demographics in several swing states show a substantial reduction in the percentage of white voters without college degrees, who heavily support Trump. This is partly because of increases in diversity.

By now, we know what to do. We are either doing it already, or plan to do it as soon as we can, which hopefully will be very, very soon. Even though voting has started in some states, there are things that can be done.

1) Target Young People
	There are college students and other young people (even ones you may know) who still are facing this hugely consequential elections with antipathy, Rock the Vote makes it incredibly easy to check one’s registration, register to vote, and help others do the same. If you aren’t a young person, figure out to whom you can send the link.
2) Go Someplace Soon
	You would think it would be too late to sign up to go someplace else to knock on doors. The thing is, it isn’t too late. Common Power is one of the premier field organizers in the country. They are doing work with local partners in all seven swing states and in nine other states with close Congressional races. Depending on your travel availability you could even pick a nearby state. They are just a click away.
3) Lessen Your Money Management Burden
	Just as there are places you can still go, there are places your money can still help! There are organizations that are duty bound to put your resources in play before the election. In North Carolina, Mi Familia Vota is deploying paid canvassers to Latino households in and near Raleigh. The North Carolina Latino population has grown significantly, and it is under-registered. This little missive has already raised $8,000 for this aggressive effort by tireless organizers. Here is a link to join us in this effort.  Happily, there are Republicans who cannot abide Donald Trump. Led by Sarah Longwell, the Republican Accountability PAC will run as many swing state ads as they can pay for. They all feature personal testimony from Republican voters. They would welcome your help.

Let’s seize upon the excellent opportunity to wake up in the sunshine on Wednesday morning, November 6. 

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#49: This is How We Will Keep It Going

This is the next of our 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. 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

It isn’t just being suddenly ahead when more than six weeks ago we were behind. That itself was worth our collective exhilaration when Joe Biden resigned, Kamala Harris got traction, and Donald Trump was surprised, surprisingly. 

Instead, this glee has been built on the idea that we can keep this momentum all the way until November 6. We suspect that there something different about this election cycle that makes Kamala Harris’ lead more sustainable and expandable than Hilary Clinton’s even bigger lead in 2016. This is the case for that proposition:

• In 2016, Trump forces were just starting to Benghazi Clinton, as they had Swift Boated John Kerry. The worst of emails, Anthony Weiner and Jim Comey’s declarations were yet to come. It may be that as a former prosecutor, Kamala Harris has considerably less vulnerability than did Clinton.
• Even though she is Vice President, Kamala Harrison is being received as the candidate of change. There was a huge response to her simply being younger; a woman; and capable of a smile or laugh. It is difficult to believe that Donald Trump was once seen as a political novelty, but no more. Day after day, he owns being a grumpy old man, dare we say “nasty”? Better yet, the Democratic strategy at the convention has been not to describe him looming, but to make him small, the man running his leaf blower.
• Donald Trump’s means of delighting his base by repeating lies and insulting Kamala is not being well received by independents. It has decreased the number of undecided voters and thus has made it harder for him to regain the lead.
• Trump and Vance continue to test racist and misogynistic approaches to defining Kamala Harris. A Putin lover calling her Comrade Kamala? Through the convention speeches and huge swing state advertising buys she has established her own life narrative.
• If Kamala Harris had started campaigning in 2023, by now she would be frayed by the efforts of her Democratic opponents. Instead, she is fresh and energetic, and only needs to this momentum for two months. This is Joe Biden’s inadvertent gift.
• In a meaningful way, reproductive freedom is on the ballot in all 50 states. Especially important in drawing young voters in swing states are the statewide initiatives in Arizona, Nevada, Florida and (to boost Senator Jon Tester) Montana.
• As successful as Trump and the Supreme Court have been in delaying or preventing Trump’s legal reckoning, Juan Merchan is standing in the way. He is scheduled to sentence the felon on September 18 in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
• Democratic Senate candidates are bolstering Kamala's candidacy by leading their opponents in the swing states if Arizona, Michigan,  Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

Now for the feeling being felt now to be the way we all feel on Wednesday morning, November 6. This is not guaranteed. Perhaps we have all decided the ways in which we can be engaged. This missive has outlined thirteen ways to jump in deeper and stay in longer. The gains thus far among independents are startling. Accordingly, worthy of new attention is the heretofore inadequate but potentially consequential effort by some Republicans to get other Republicans to vote for Kamala Harris. We could support one or more of these three organizations:

1) Hayley Voters for Harris
	Haley Voters for Harris believed Nikki Haley when she said she would not kiss Trump’s ring. They were compelled by her detailed description of why he would be “a disaster for the party”. All they are doing now in the face of Haley’s protests is acting on her very clearly articulated beliefs. She should be proud of them! They are working hard to capture for Kamala Harris the votes cast for Nikki Haley in the primaries. Haley Voters for Harris.
2) Republicans for Voting Rights
	Veteran Republican organizer Sarah Longwell has developed several projects under the flag of the Republican Accountability Project. Even though its goals are longer term, the favorite should be Republicans for Voting Rights. They are a clear voice in fighting their own party’s voter suppression.
3) Republican Voters Against Trump
	Out there also is the more established Republican Voters Against Trump. Their budget is modest, but their use of their dollars is exquisite. They are placing ads in swing states featuring Republican voters outlining their antipathy toward Trump, featuring his January 6, 2021 insurrection. Their ad budget can be increased to seize this unique market niche.

As Michelle Obama urged, we have all decided to “Do Something”, reveling in the hugeness of the opportunity that has emerged in the last month. Over the next 60 days everything depends on the extent of our commitment.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#48: Make the Momentum Momentous

This is the next of our 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. 

If you are not already receiving these messages by email, 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, Our Unfinished Work, every three to four weeks.

Our step has a new bounce. On one day, we were a part of Joe Biden’s losing bet. He had wagered that voters would discount his decline in the face of Donald Trump’s malevolence. From the time he made that bet in 2023, we were in danger of losing it, and it happened on one single debate night. It wasn’t just that polls in swing states got scary. It was that there was no way to move forward to change those projected outcomes, given Biden’s frailties. There wasn’t a way to reset, and none would develop.

On the next day, we were offered a first-rate opportunity and a hundred days to take advantage of it. Our energy boost is huge. We are in play in an all-new way. We are fortunate that we didn’t lose the Biden bet in the September debate, which would have been too late for any recovery. It is not an inevitable outcome, but we know what we must do and what Kamala Harris must do to win the Presidency. So, let’s spend the next hundred days doing it, and she will too.

The race is suddenly fluid. The encouraging signs are everywhere, way beyond the $250 million that Kamala Harris’ campaign and a Super PAC raised in the three days after Joe Biden’s withdrawal. CNN reports that compared to Biden in early July, Harris polls 9 percentage points higher among independents, 8 percentage points higher among people of color, and 6 percentage points higher among women. Try as he might, Trump will not be able to shield himself from having overturned the protection of Roe v Wade. A new Axios/Generation Lab poll shows Harris doing 7 percentage points better than Biden among 18–35-year-olds.

Certainly, we need to find an additional boost from this boost. Here’s the five places from which it is most likely to come:

The selection of the vice president has everything to do with our competitiveness in swing states. Unworried about chromosomal makeup, this missive would pick Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in a heartbeat, because of her ability to reinforce the blue wall in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. An excellent case could be made for Arizona Senator Marc Kelly, a Navy captain and astronaut from a border state. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has youth and blue-collar credibility and could stick a pin in the highly over-inflated J.D. Vance balloon.

Trump’s physical and cognitive decline has become more evident. Kamala Harris should challenge Trump to a one-mile walk. Hannibal Lecter is now showing up as a commendable, living human being in Trump’s rally speeches. At one point, Joe Biden tweeted, “Donald, Hannibal Lecter is not real. And he is a cannibal.”

Any debate between Trump and Harris gives Harris a chance to use her prosecutorial skills to counter Trump’s cascade of lies. What Trump will say in a debate is entirely predictable. Harris’ counter will obviously be better delivered than Joe Biden’s. Plus, there is a real possibility that her fighting back will elicit never too far under the surface misogyny and racism from Donald Trump. Harris’ “abuser, fraudster, cheater” description of Trump isn’t going to go away. She knows his type.

Trump’s multiple legal problems will reemerge in September, the worst time for him. As regrettable as was the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, it still left a path for justice. In the hush money case, Judge Juan Merchan will sentence Trump in September, finding Trump’s felonies occurred prior to his election, putting them outside the Supreme Court’s broad protections. Merchan’s sentencing will elicit an appeal which the Supreme Court will not hear before November, if at all. Perhaps even more useful, Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan will be holding evidentiary hearings in September or October on which of Trump’s election fraud actions represented “private acts”, also outside the Supreme Court’s shield. This will put damning testimony from former Trump aides before the public daily.

Kamala Harris can get a boost from us. Joe Biden won in 2020 in part because of the extraordinary effort behind him. We cannot and will not be out-organized or out-funded. We should be doing these three things without delay, taking advantage of the Kamala Harris driven new burst of energy.

1) If You Have Money, Send It
	Find your checkbook or credit card. On the funding side we must follow cardinal rules. After giving money in the ultra-close presidential race, we can be careful to not donate to candidates who a) don’t need the money or b) aren’t going to win even if they have the money. Instead, we are looking for races hanging in the balance. Helping to target races are such strong organizations as Focus for Democracy and the Movement Voter Project, sorting out cost effectiveness and using this learning to provide guidance. Swing Left does an excellent job of identifying targeted Congressional and Senate races. Sometimes, unique ways to give emerge. In this case, there is the political action committee called Haley Voters for Harris. They still believe the things Nikki Haley said about Donald Trump this winter. Their money is being used to capture for Harris the votes that went to Haley in the primary. Out there also is the more established Republican Voters Against Trump.
2) If You Have Time, Give It
	Now that we are fully back in play, you can put time into campaigning as well as money. If you want to present yourself to be deployed in another state, no one will do it better than Common Power which attends to training and on the ground supervision as well as placement. After dinner is removed, your kitchen table can be the site of postcard campaign participation through Postcards to Voters or Vote Forward.
3) Don’t Forget the Grassroots
	Readers of this missive provide bedrock support to organizers around the country, all of whom have targeted efforts in swing states. These leap out: Walk the Walk is volunteer run, focusing on registering people of color in 11 states.  Reproductive Freedom for All is a great way to focus on states where pro-choice initiatives are on the ballot, including Florida, Nevada and Arizona  Mi Familia Vota organizes Latino voters in eight targeted states, including the burgeoning Latino population in North Carolina.  Rock the Vote is the largest organizer of young voters, where Kamala Harris has already made important inroads. And thank you Taylor Swift wherever you are. The Rural Youth Voter Project is turning out young voters in rural areas, focusing on people of color.

What to do in the next hundred days? Why not spend it taking advantage of this sudden, fresh opportunity to create a Trump-free future.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington