#57: Let's Guide the Most Diverse Congress Ever

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Donald Trump has asked why his accomplishments of the past two years are not being recognized. Mr. Trump, we are not unwilling to identify the actions you can put on your ledger. For example, we do recognize that you advanced a tax law that massively increased wealth disparity. We are aware that you have severely weakened global alliances and NATO even as Baltic and Eastern European need protection from Putin. We acknowledge that you have removed the United States from the Paris accords even as climate change represents the greatest environmental threat the world has faced. We have noted that you have attacked the Justice Department countless times, apparently believing you are exempt from the rule of law. 

Donald Trump will see quickly that our taking back the House of Representatives will change the world in which he malfunctions. We are just getting started.

A lot is happening all at once. The budget showdown will end up being a huge miscalculation by Trump, the Freedom Caucus and Fox News commentators. As they continue to play to their base the rest of us will to see their base deteriorate. The Republican party continues to vanish before our eyes.

As the turbulence increases, we must be careful not to become vertiginous in our reaction to shifting political news. Nancy Pelosi and her spirited ranks would give us enough activity daily even without Trump’s tweets, firings and indictments. Hence the need for us to be able to sort out things that matter at lot from things that don’t matter quite so much.

• In the very small parade of Republicans who criticize Donald Trump, it matters who is criticizing him and what the basis of the attack is. The sincere but often politically anemic Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have left--- they have been freed to say what they want but their microphones have been taken away. But, Mitt Romney just became a Senator, and he has no worries that affronting Trump will cost him his re-election. In his surprising Washington Post op-ed, he has already signaled the prime battleground--- Trump’s disregard of Britain, Germany, France and Canada and his genuflection toward autocrats. This will give some new energy to the Republican globalists in the Senate.

• In the mass of negative press that Donald Trump deservedly gets, it matters that he is erroneously called a populist, which he is not, since a populist’s care for the common people must be authentic. It matters when the media falls into the “both sides” equivalence trap. In the budget shutdown, Republicans in both houses had agreed to bi-partisan budget compromises. Trump watched Fox-TV, got wounded by Ann Coulter, and torched the agreement that his henchmen (including Mike Pence) had already signaled he would sign. Rather than this being the news behind the budget shutdown, we get the account that the parties squabble so much that they can’t find common ground when it was surprising and commendable that they were together occupying that ground. Most of Pelosi’s package passed the Senate by voice vote in December.

• In the emergence of twenty or more Democratic presidential candidates, it matters that we remember that this winnowing of candidates is going to take 18 months. We must not get ahead of ourselves in over-assessing Elizabeth Warren’s announcement of her candidacy, since it doesn’t put her in any driver’s seat. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries, it will be difficult for anyone to build any meaningful lead. We have sorted through a big field before (see the elections of John Kennedy-1960, Bill Clinton-1992, Barack Obama-2008) with the candidates and their supporters coming together at the end, thus enabling to take back the presidency after Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

We have 67 new members of the House of Representatives, including the 40 who flipped Republican seats. It turns out that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not the only one who was elected! It is not a flaw that the Democratic Party has just elected “moderate” and “liberal” and “progressive” candidates, it is a strength. And, it is splendid that we have fought for and gained the most diverse Congress ever. 

We all came together to do this, and now the resistance needs to come together to make sure all this freshness and earnestness gives us some badly needed policy improvements on health care, immigration, climate change and global partnerships, among others. With Mitch McConnell controlling the Senate and Trump in the White House, we will be playing defense and will have limited opportunities to send policies in new directions.

As Pelosi considers compromises on each of these issues, we will have to sort out in which cases the much better alternative that we insist upon will prevent us from grabbing the modest gains that we can achieve. However, we must all be certain that accepting such modest gains won’t create obstacles for more significant gains after we take back the Senate and White House in 2020.

For instance, even if Democrats coalesce around some version of Medicare for All, there is no way that such a proposal will become law between now and 2020. In the meantime, we should be shoring up the Affordable Care Act, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and showing voters that Republicans are not protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Let’s not skip weeks or even months by watching rather than doing. Let’s take care of these three things right now.

1) Preventing Further Environment-Destroying Regulatory Changes
	Late in December, the New York Times provided a thorough, exceptional report on the damage Trump has caused the environment and human health through regulation. As discussed in previous missives, this carnage was possible because environmental statutes have traditionally given the executive branch broad leeway through rulemaking. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has already developed plans to use the new House majority to continue to fight the 80 rule changes that Trump and EPA have made, and to block new rules wherever possible through litigation or legislative action.  It is time to follow up with the people whose very election depended upon us. Pick one new member of Congress in who you are most invested and make certain that these matters are high on their agenda. Start by emailing the new member and then go one step further. Find out the phone number of their district (in-state) office. Call that number and ask for the email of the legislative aide who is assigned to environmental issues. In most cases they will provide it. Write that aide, cite the New York Times feature, and ask them to keep you posted on what their member of Congress expects to do.
2) Start Winning Back the Senate Today
	It is easy to forget that the early energy to take back the House came not from the shell-shocked Democratic Party, but from two organizations that emerged in late 2016--- Indivisible and Swing Left. They and other advocates were able to secure enormous financial and volunteer support for candidates, including literally millions of individual donations. In more than 80% of the House districts we flipped, our candidate was able to out-spend our opponents, and in all of the districts we worked harder than the opposition. Swing Left invented “district funds”. These collected money for candidates in targeted races well before the primaries and provided the funds immediately after the primary, giving the primary winner a great head start. In 2020 the Senate electoral map is much more favorable for us than it was in 2018, with Republicans holding 22 of the seats being contested and Democrats holding 12. We need to win back four seats. Swing Left has started the equivalent of district funds to go to our winning primary candidate in each of eight races where we have the best shot. These include the races to defeat Martha McSalley in Arizona (perhaps through the candidacy of astronaut Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords’ husband), Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner in Colorado. These and other Republican senators who are vulnerable in 2020 and 2022 are eager to re-open the government lest their vulnerability increase. At a minimum we should all check out what Swing Left is up to with regard to taking back the Senate. And of course we could do more than the minimum by donating this very moment.
3) Weighing in on the Nuclear Threat
	All of us in the resistance are aware of the threat to humanity posed by climate change. In the light of Trump's alarming foreign policy amateurism, it's time for us to better understand the dangers to humanity from nuclear proliferation. A new generation of weaponry would escalate spending dramatically and imperil our very existence. Representative Adam Smith of Washington is the new House Armed Services Committee Chair. He's the perfect person to help chart an alternative course while attending to national security. Let's prepare for action steps with the new House of Representatives by reviewing Adam Smith's counterpoints to where Trump may be headed.

It won’t be long before we will be absorbing the Mueller report. For now, let’s keep getting our work done. Let’s not let ourselves be carried away by the inevitable backing and forthing among Democrats, including the new members of Congress. Most of these issues are well worth fighting over. We are not going to do something that will keep us from coming together in the summer of 2020.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#54: We Are Just Getting Started

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It was all there in seventh grade if we were paying attention. Our noble Democratic experiment was built upon separation of powers, including a system of checks and balances. Some would have made George Washington king, but he showed clear disinterest and the Constitution made it impossible. The President would be the chief executive and commander in chief. She or he would carry out the laws enacted by Congress. The President could sign or veto laws passed by Congress, and Congress could override a veto with a 2/3 vote of both the Senate and the House. The President would appoint and the Senate approve members of the Supreme Court, who would settle statutory disputes and, (bolstered by the Marbury vs Madison case in 1803) determine the constitutionality of acts of Congress.

Even the enormous powers exercised during wartime by Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln left mostly unscathed this intentional, carefully-crafted system. It even has survived the worst judicial wrongheadedness, including the Dred Scott decision upholding slavery, and in our time, the tortured resolution of an election (Bush v. Gore) and the establishment of corporations as persons in Citizen’s United.

So, too, the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit will survive Donald Trump, whose contemptuousness toward government institutions has been clear from the outset. Even so, one would not want to pass over the exchange between Trump and Chief Justice John Roberts too quickly. Some pundits seem to think it was just a bit of political theatre, but the labeling of judges by Trump as Trump judges and Obama judges and Bush judges was one of the greatest affronts to Trump’s oath of office. If there had not previously been scores of other Trumpian epithets hurled at Democratic institutions, more attention might have been paid. 

No one is proposing that John Roberts be elevated in the pantheon, but it is to his credit that he paid attention. The resistance should be more pleased than is presently apparent. John Roberts knows more than anyone that over half of Supreme Court decisions are made unanimously. He also knows that in just over 20% of Supreme Court rulings, five justices outvote the other four. Most importantly, he knows that it is a very dangerous thing for the independence of the courts to be tweet-defined, especially when the tweeter-in-chief may end up having some personal matters before the court.

Especially delicious is that two of the judicial actions Trump criticized (protection of Acosta’s press pass and defense of Muelller’s legitimacy) were taken by Trump appointees. Bush judicial appointees have ruled against Trump positions as well. It is one thing to concede that politics influences everything, certainly the judiciary. But it is foolish to ignore that the facts of the case and the nature of the underlying law are huge factors in the practices of the courts and thus in the decisions impeding Trump. If he stops affronting the Constitution, the courts will stop admonishing him.

The media wants to leave it that each executive action was “ruled unconstitutional”, obscuring that each of these cases has different claims and different merits. The recent case blocking Trump’s reduction of places where asylum can be sought was simple --- the statutory language on asylum-seeking does not in any way provide the President this discretion, so he is unconstitutionally claiming powers he does not possess. The legal arguments over the press pass of Jim Acosta is all about whether a property right (Jim Acosta’s ability to do his job) can be constitutionally extinguished by Trump without “due process of law” guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Adherence by Trump and Sarah Sanders to due process would be establishment of legitimate standards for accreditation. The court didn’t need to address this issue, but any such standards would have to be consistent with freedom of speech and of the press as guaranteed in the 1st amendment. Finally, the initial Trump travel ban was blocked by the courts over its denial of “equal protection of the laws” under the 14th amendment. Trump was faulted for a baseless division of Muslims and non-Muslims.

With the Mueller report coming out soon, and more indictments certain to emerge, we need to retain a sophistication regarding the role of the courts and each of the constitutional protections that block many Trumpian excesses. The Brennan Center, Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union (82 separate cases against Trump actions) have all been well funded by resisters to make certain we use every tool afforded to us in a country that has an independent judiciary. We will all make certain that they and our environmental litigators continue to have the support they need.

In the meantime, the lame duck Congress is coming to town, a month ahead of the best freshman class of new members of Congress to ever hit Washington. The goal for all of us is constant oversight, as vigilance is the price of liberty. We certainly don’t want to lose our edge during a lame duck session. The worst sort of mischief can be avoided by taking these three steps:

1) Knock Down the Wall
	Yes, there is going to be another wall show down. The House has passed $5 billion for the wall, and the Senate provided $1.5 billion for multiple border security efforts. The good news is that any appropriations compromise requires 60 votes in the Senate. Get used to this. The 50-vote budget reconciliation process was anomalous, and with the House going with the Democrats, it is a forgotten relic, mercifully. Trump’s selective interest in caravans (and the entirely bogus number of 500 criminals in the caravan) is designed to put pressure on the Senate in order to get 60 voters, as is his pledge to close down the government if his wall isn’t supported. Of course, Trump threatening to close down the government to get his way on the wall is a “go ahead, make my day” moment. But it remains the case that Charles Schumer would cut a $5 billion deal in a second if he could get some relief for Dreamers. You wouldn’t want Schumer or your own Senator of whichever party to get too careless on all of this. It is a good time to email your own two Senators, letting yourself get swept up by their email systems that favor people from their own states. They suspect what you think, but tell them anyway. The wall is un-American. It sends a signal to the world that we aren’t who we always said we were. Tell them that you want policies that provide a clear path forward for immigrants, asylum seekers and Dreamers. You might want to underscore your feelings on this matter. Peace Supplies has “No Wall” t-shirts, yard signs and bumper stickers.   Also, although it is a dismal picture, there is no time like the present to think about those in your region who might be considering sponsoring the few refugees (30,000 or so per year) who are being allowed into the country.
2) Don’t Forget Stacey Abrams
	It is one thing to campaign hard in a contested election in which a state has huge ideological splits. It is another thing to be Stacey Abrams and have to do it when your opponent is in charge of the election process, is bent on voter suppression and will not recuse himself. Please don’t forget that Stacey Abrams’ story is not even close to over. Get on the mailing list of her new organization Fair Fight Georgia and give her a little money if you can. If we can get an election in Georgia where people are encouraged to vote rather than being frightened, she will win.
3) Get Ready for All New Action of Climate Change
	It’s all there in the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was legislatively mandated twenty years ago. The Trump administration would have done away with it if they could have found a way to do so.   This assessment was prepared by 13 federal agencies and is blunt and dramatic about the projected costs, which it says could be hundreds of billions of dollars. It notes that warming will continue to make weather events and fires more calamitous. Trump’s simple answer: “I don’t believe it.”  This will not be the status quo for long. Next year the Democratic House will pass a climate change bill to increase our national efforts and Charles Schumer will look for Republican votes in the Senate. There are several Republican up for re-election in 2020 in states that have turned blue or are turning blue. These Senators will either put the battle against climate change on their plate or be held politically accountable for not doing so. With the House in Democratic control we have all new ways to up the pressure. This is going to be an intensive effort. A good start would be to place yourself on the mailing list of the U.S. Climate Action Network, which includes the major environmental organizations and hundreds of local action groups.

It’s a new day, but not one that brings even a momentary thought of complacency. We are not tired, we are energized. The blue wave of November 6 is not signaling to us that we can walk away. It is telling us that we must not. We just created the biggest Congressional vote margin of victory since 1974. The Presidency is at stake in 2020, and with it our democracy’s essence. We’re just getting started.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#47: Trump Has Underestimated Our Response to His Perfidy

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Just because all of this has become one of the most bizarre episodes in American political history doesn’t mean we can’t handle it and fix it.

Donald Trump’s removal of John Brennan’s security clearance would otherwise be seen as miscalculation, but Trump is not necessarily a calculator. Instead, the party he has taken over has permitted him to select his enemies almost randomly. Omarosa Manigault is a “dog”, no longer a “wonderful” person. Jeff Sessions is “scared stiff and missing in action” now, but before he was a man of “integrity, principle, and great resolve.” Justin Trudeau, Teresa May and Angela Merkel hardly know what to expect anymore, except that they will be meeting with someone who has no business being the President of the United States. The lashing out is now unrelenting. Lebron James? Jimmy Fallon? New Congressman Conor Lamb, now called “Lamb the sham.” Here are his 487 primary insults thus far. 

There is a reason his customary levels of anger and retribution are accelerating. His party is about to lose control of the House and might possibly (a longer shot) lose the Senate. He is not that astute at understanding the details of Senate and House rules, but he knows that Democrats controlling the House means that his powers will be diminished. Nothing close to the awful 2017 tax bill would have been passed if the House had been under Democratic control. Worse for Trump, as we win the House, the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee will no longer be the toadying, unprincipled Devin Nunes. It will be Adam Schiff, relentlessly focused on Trump’s Russian ties. And House Committees have clear, protected powers to issue subpoenas to administration witnesses.

So, you can make it so that his good times are all gone, and maybe get him thinking that it’s time for moving on. His presence as president is anomalous, not the beginning of a movement that will rend the Constitution for decades. Instead, we will spend those decades re-joining the world community, re-invigorating our love for democracy, reversing the worst of his “make the rich richer” policies, and re-establishing environmental protections.

There are arguments out there that the blue wave might not end up as strong as is being predicted, but the recent primaries have been nothing but supportive of the claim that the wave will be big. As is often the case with off-year elections, this is all about turnout and using new voter registrations to boost our turnout advantage even further. The most recent primaries show it is working. To make matters even better, Republican retirements have left an unprecedented number of open seats. 

In Washington State, where CBS news tracking has seen only one Republican seat as competitive, impressive Democratic turnout revealed that there are three. For all that has been said about Republican loyalty to Trump, there are a declining number of Republicans. In the past year, there has been a 5% drop in the number of people who identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican.

This wave is still there for us to produce. No distractions, no excuses. By now, it is necessary for this movement to have each of us be a fully engaged member of the resistance. Can we check all ten of these boxes?


□ You have made it a point to learn the specific ways in which actions by Trump and Congressional Republicans have diminished America, beyond the lies and the bullying. You can choose among your favorites when you underscore these matters to others. These include the further maldistribution of wealth through the tax bill; the pushing of millions of Americans away from the health care they need; the systematic attacks on environmental statutes; and the weakening of the coalition of Western democracies.

□ You have placed yourself in a circle of like-minded people who either get together to work, or who even without getting together empower each other regularly with new actionable information. Postcards are produced, calls made, complex matters sorted, resolve strengthened.

□ You have identified reliable external sources of news and information which will sharpen your personal campaign efforts, and you consult them regularly. You have avoided letting these sources swamp your day.

□ You shrug off distractions. You don’t know what Donald Trump thinks of John Bolton’s mustache. You don’t even care. You spend more time on campaigning, almost none on You Tube parodies. What’s the point of those? How hard is it to make fun of Donald Trump? When you are laughing, isn’t the joke on us, at least a little bit?

□ You rise above despair that someone is crumpling your Constitution and you relish that emerging from this dysfunctional government is within our capacity. You already are imagining what party you want to go to on November 6, but you remember that we have to produce the results before you celebrate them.

□ You have picked one or more promising campaigns to support. You know what that support entails, and so does the candidate and her or his staff. You feel good about the choices you are making,

□ You are actively trafficking in online voter registration links and are trying to find and motivate unregistered voters. If you are older, you are unafraid of connecting with millennials on this critical matter, to the point of making yourself annoying if necessary.

□ You are actively deploying your checkbook. Within your means, you have made yourself an investor in our future. You are making careful choices about where you are putting your money. You understand that the earlier you give, the better.

□ You continue to contact members of Congress as you find new ways to give them guidance. You know what actions they need to take between now and November (including passing a budget and fixing the DACA separations) and you intend to weigh in.

□ You allow yourself to dream about how this country will re-emerge. Rather than petrifying yourself with the worst possible news, you are embracing the best possible news and endeavoring to make it so.

Right now, while we are carrying on all of the above campaign activities, let’s do some fixing in areas where Trump has done damage and open up some new fronts.

1) Bring Immigrant Families Back Together
	There are numerous refugee advocacy organizations, and refugee resettlement centers for those whose legal status is not being challenged. It would be good to find out and support those who do that work. One could also support one of the many excellent organizations who are advocates or who offer legal assistance to undocumented persons, including those seeking asylum. Notably, there is a small, new, spirited organization which is determined to offer specific assistance to individual families which are in the slow process of being reunited, who are spread across the country and whose need is great. This is Immigrant Families Together  They have set up crowd funding accounts to meet the very real and detailed needs of refugee moms who are seeking to care for their children. You can click and support. Or you can get wonderfully focused and set up a “registry” to allow you and your friends to all boost the same mom.
2) Take Some Personal Action to Protect the Environment
	It is going to take a long time to put back in place the Environmental Protection Agency rules promulgated by Barack Obama and pulverized by Donald Trump. Right now, the best thing we can do toward that end is make the blue wave happen. We can also commit ourselves to personal action. Shaking our heads as the television shows us miles of plastics in the ocean does not turn out to be an effective strategy, and certainly Trump is not preparing to offer one. So, let’s look at a couple of pledges that force us to modify our own activity. OneLessStraw is taking pledges from individuals, businesses and schools to give up plastic straws, which we certainly don’t need. The Million Bottle Project needs your pledge to keep 20 million plastic bottles out of landfills by 2020.
3) Accept it is Time to Get All the Way Behind Beto O’Rourke
	Beto O’Rourke is trying to unseat Ted Cruz in Texas, which would be such a wonderful thing that one can barely permit oneself to dream of it. And he may be 6 points behind. But he does have a bit of a chance and does represent the kind of principled hugely energetic and imaginative candidate we long for. He has raised twice as much money as Cruz at this point by eschewing PAC donations and getting small donations from around the country. We’re from around the country so let’s give him some small gifts.

So, Rudy Giuliani has argued that truth isn’t truth. That got the expected single news cycle push back, and we moved on to the Manafort conviction and the Cohen plea. But it was a moment worth dwelling upon because it demonstrates the path that Trump has put us on. At any time, truth is whatever he says it is. If the whole world was a courtroom every one of his uttered sentences would be a perjury trap. The New York Times has fact-checked 250 statements Trump has made about Russia and the Mueller investigation. The man will say anything and immediately thereafter, he will believe it is true because he remembers he said it. Stay focused and he will find that he has underestimated our response to his perfidy.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#40: How Will You be a Part of the Blue Wave?

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.

It is a little mind numbing, no? How do you separate the claims and the counterclaims? How do you distinguish between the disappointing Trump actions and the hugely damaging? When can you let yourself be heartened by something positive that might happen in the Congress, and when must despair wash over you before you can even try to conquer it?

These times take some sorting. Remember that this President is intentionally unmoored, not just as a part of his being but as a political tactic. That is going to unsettle a citizen’s equilibrium on a regular basis. Remember also that some advocates gain your attention by telling you the worst-case scenario. Just because the most right-wing member of the House of Representatives calls for this or that governmental action does not mean it is going to materialize tomorrow. The legislative process is meant to generate heat as well as light. And it is certainly doing that.

So, if the news bite is something outrageous like “Representative Mark Meadows, leader of the House Freedom Caucus, proposed today that Americans be jailed if they don’t pay daily homage to Donald Trump”, don’t start packing a duffel. There are still checks and balances. Our system is bending right now, but it doesn’t mean it will break.

We need to pay careful attention to which members of Congress are making public statements, and when those statements are consequential. Sometimes legislative leaders selected by their caucuses will signal their specific intentions or even their willingness to compromise on an issue. Statements by leaders of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy (Republicans) and Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer (Democrats) carry much more weight than pronouncements from individual members. The same is true in the Senate with Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn (Republicans) and Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin (Democrats). 

Watch also for representations made by the chairs of major committees, or the “ranking” member from the Democratic minority. Take note of the higher level of cooperation between Richard Burr and Mark Warner (the Republican chair and the ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee). When one of the two says something about the Russia investigation, they will stay connected with the other, even in the face of political differences. Note the lack of such cooperation in the House between Intelligence Committee Republican Devin Nunes and Democratic ranking minority member Adam Schiff, and don’t expect that their statements reach across the aisle. Because of his committee powers and because his pronouncements are less frequent, when Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley says that Donald Trump should not fire Robert Mueller, it counts more than ten other Senators saying the same thing.

We can also learn to recognize when elected officials overuse the microphone. For instance, the ever-vocal Ted Cruz does not have a following in the Senate Republican caucus. His pronouncements on what others should do are not influential. Tom Cotton’s following is small. In the House, public statements from Republican moderates like Charlie Dent are intended to rally the fifty or so colleagues that he needs in order to be treated with more care by Speaker Paul Ryan, but the moderates have rarely gotten traction they have sought. Things are different in the Senate. Because Mitch McConnell holds only a two-vote majority, any public statement by a Republican Senator who might desert him on a key vote means a great deal. That’s why there are always reporters looking for comments from Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Lindsay Graham, Jeff Flake, John McCain, and even Rand Paul. They have not been as spirited as we would have liked, but we still have what’s left of the Affordable Care Act because of Republican Senators.

Donald Trump was not the first president to make Americans miserable. The now nearly sainted John Adams wanted to put dissidents in jail for sedition. Until later in life, he and Jefferson hated each other. Landowners were terrified of Andrew Jackson. James Buchanan turned the threat of a Civil War into a certainty. Woodrow Wilson was a racist. George W. Bush let Dick Cheney make up a war.

In the face of the pain this man has wrought, collect rare moments of grace. Former presidents and their spouses sitting with Melania Trump at Barbara Bush’s funeral was meant to communicate that we still stand for something together, at least for now.

This misery will be tolerable only if we can make it pass. Our momentum is growing for the fall elections. We will vigorously contest the Senate and will win back the House. And that will provide considerable relief from the worst Trumpian havoc that would otherwise be visited upon the people. 

The Michael Cohen/Rudy Giuliani adventures will continue to bring rewards, and Robert Mueller ever so patiently does the work that he was called upon to do. Tough times require some people to step forward when they didn’t initially intend to do so. Thank you for that, Rod Rosenstein, and Senators Jerry Moran and Charles Grassley. And yes, we do get guilty pleasure from the work of Michael Avenatti.

There is even a tiny bit of movement in Congress on important issues even as most of the time is spent on political positioning. We can and should do these three things to support work in progress.

1) Convince Republicans to Dare to Help the Dreamers
	The discharge petition is a rarely used process in the House of Representatives that forces consideration of a bill on the House floor. Republican moderates hope to use this process to require Paul Ryan and the House to move forward on four separate legislative approaches on immigration regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Trump is still blocked by the courts from throwing the Dreamers out, but Congress must act on the longer-term solution. Paul Ryan is afraid that a floor debate on a bi-partisan compromise would put Trump in a position where he would veto the bill because it doesn’t wall us off from Mexico. With Democrats expected to join moderate Republicans, advocates are only seven signatures away. The closer they get, the more leverage moderate Republicans will muster to force a vote. Check this list and see who has signed thus far. Pick a Republican from your state or from a nearby state, call their office and ask them to join this effort. Or pick from these seven Republican members, who signed a letter to the Speaker last December telling him they wanted action on DACA! Remember, even if they don’t end up taking this step, it is worth it to let them know you are out there. Chris Smith of New Jersey: 202-225-3765 Scott Taylor of Virginia: 202-225-4215 Dan Newhouse of Washington: 202-225-5816 Mimi Walters of California: 202-225-5611 Mike Simpson of Idaho: 202-225-5513 Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania: 202-225-4276 Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania: 202-225-4315
2) Give Long Overdue Criminal Justice Reform a Boost
	Criminal justice reform has been a project of Jared Kushner, whose father was incarcerated in years past. Progress has been slow, even though there were broad bi-partisan agreements on sentencing reform and on prisoner education near the end of the Obama presidency. There is still some bi-partisan interest in getting something done this year. The House is prepared to move along a tiny bill on inmate education, eschewing the more impactful but more contentious sentencing reform. The Senate wants to take up both issues. This placces Judiciary Committee chair Charles Grassley in conflict with the House sentencing reform obstructionist Jeff Sessions. Write a quick note to Grassley and Democratic assistant minority leader Dick Durbin to thank them for doing the right thing. Chuck Grassley 202-224-3744 135 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dick Durbin 202-224-2152 711 Hart Senate Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Sign up to get action alerts on this and other efforts from the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, started over fifty years ago by Dr. Martin Luther King.
3) The Elephants Need You to Remember Their Plight
	The narrative was that Ivanka Trump had talked to her father, and that we were going to fully shut down the ivory trade and elephant trophy hunting. It turns out that there is still hemming and hawing, and talk about case by case evaluation.     And, of course, there has been even more absurd talk that we need to allow permits to kill elephants in order to raise funds to keep people from killing elephants. There are members of Congress who are staying with this issue, and even exploring how Facebook has created a path for people selling illegally secured animal parts. Please call Senator Chris Coons of Delaware to thank him and to ask him to be an ongoing leader in elephant protection.  Chris Coons 202-224-5042

This is how it will be going for a while--- a few meaningful legislative actions here and there, followed by a huge showdown on the budget in late summer, as Trump threatens to close down the government if we refuse to build him a wall. It will all lead up to a colossal referendum on the Trump presidency in the November 6 off year elections. What are you doing right now to be a part of the blue wave?

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#37: The Time is Coming for Donald Trump to Tell it to the Judge

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.

From the first minute of the Trump presidency, we have resisted. It was not as though we wouldn’t have had some satisfaction if he had tacked toward the middle or showed the slightest interest in the obligations of the job or some desire to improve his skills. From the beginning, it was worse than we feared at least in one very notable respect- he has no commitment to democracy. All of the worst presidents from James Buchanan forward have at least recognized the nature and the wondrousness of the great democratic experiment, however they have tarnished it.

It doesn’t seem like a commitment to the self-governance of the American people is too much to ask, but it is now clear that it will not be forthcoming from this president. This is an unprecedented time, where aides fall by the wayside as soon as they aren’t fawning enough, or they vary in the slightest from his Fox-spawned world view. Donald Trump is not willing to be any kind of President, and he is proud and protective of that unwillingness.

It is extremely unlikely that he will be impeached but is not even a close question as to who would be a less dangerous president between him and the vice-president. Mike Pence would be the most politically conservative president of modern times, but nonetheless he would attend to the requirements of the job more fully in one day than Donald Trump has in any month that he has been elected. You could pick your poison, but if you did, why not reduce the danger to security and our democracy by choosing Pence, who at least recognizes there is someone in the world besides himself?

That choice is not likely to come before us. Donald Trump’s presidency will survive. We will not ever know all of his offenses, whether or not they are “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Those we know for sure will be discounted by a sufficient number of Republican Senators to protect him from being removed from office, however much they end up fleeing from him in every other way.

Even without much prospect for impeachment, the role of the courts in checking Trump’s abuses of power is growing. At least for now, the president is constrained by federal courts from walking away from DACA. The courts have forced the modification of his various travel bans, and they have slowed the Trump/Pruitt pillaging of environmental regulation.

On the personal culpability side, those who are seeking to hold Donald Trump legally responsible for doing the things he relishes doing are all making progress. What has emerged are several solid opportunities for the judicial system to be used as a check against the misuse of power.

First, Stormy Daniels, as much as she has captured the nation’s attention span, will not necessarily be a lasting problem, since evangelicals have already given Trump a get out of jail free card. Nor is he facing a big problem from former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who is also seeking release from her non-disclosure agreement. Donald Trump has not subjected either woman to tweet-assault, and both have stressed that their relationships with him were consensual. However, Trump still has a groping issue before the courts. A New York Supreme Court Justice thus far has refused to throw out Summer Zervos’ defamation lawsuit. If Trump’s appeal of the Court’s denial of his stay is turned down, a deposition would be next. 

Second, the resistance has been making the emoluments argument since Trump was elected, and that case is still alive in federal court. The Constitution prohibits officials from receiving “gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states.” Maryland and the District of Columbia have argued that Trump is receiving such gifts as foreign governments gravitate to the Trump International Hotel. 

Of course, the biggest personal challenge for Donald Trump is the Mueller investigation itself. Given the methodical way that Robert Mueller has proceeded so far, it is surprising how much conjecture there is in the mainstream press that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia. Why would one conclude that Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn never got Trump’s consent about Russia, since it is abundantly clear that Trump was otherwise involved in every aspect of his campaign? It would be wise to wait to draw these conclusions. And while we are waiting, it would be good for us to school ourselves on the obstruction of justice by Trump and his sycophants. This includes a dozen or so separate incidents including the timing of the Sally Yates and James Comey firings. It includes the memorable statement crafted by Trump and Hope Hicks that the meeting between Russians and Donald Trump Jr and others was about the adoption of Russian orphans. And it is all laid out in two stunning podcasts on collusion and obstruction on NPR’s Embedded program.

Any or all of these three legal actions could end up being a major barrier to Trump’s worst intentions. Happily, they all have their funding sources, and no bake sales or bike-a-thons are necessary. Thus, all of us could turn to other fronts to boost the legal challenges to Trumpism, including taking these three steps:

1) Keep Fighting to Protect Public Lands
	Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke decided to “go big” in his reduction of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% from its original 1.35 million acres. This decision was all about advancing the interests of oil companies. The battle to save Bears Ears is instead about listening to the Navajo, Hopi, Ute and other tribes who fought so hard to create the monument in the first place. Your participation in this effort will not only show solidarity with the tribes, but it will send Zinke and Trump a signal that you stand behind federal land conservation protections. The tribal coalition offers you the opportunity to sign up for regular updates, contact your member of Congress, and underwrite the legal action.
2) Save the Modern Day Census
	A lot of people are confused by the dust up over the Trumpian effort to add a citizenship question to the Census in 2020. Why not change the short form (which is designed for us to complete in ten minutes) to find out who is a citizen? This citizenship question has not been asked since the 1950s, since the Census is intended to establish our total population, regardless of our citizenship. The data is then used to allocate Congressional districts among the states, and it is used in numerous federal funding distributional formulas, so that the funding can be responsive to people and communities in need. Adding the citizenship question is intended to decrease the count (and thus the relative political influence) of areas of the country with heavier immigrant presence. We do not want or need to widen the growing gulf between the government and immigrant communities. The addition of this question will generate an undercount in the census.  It’s time to see whether your city and/or state is among the several who have already joined the coalition to battle this new provision.
3) Continue the Fight Against Voter Suppression
	Previous missives have emphasized two major organizations fighting fiercely against voter suppression. It seems odd that election officials and some state legislatures would work to inhibit voters from voting, but that’s exactly what can and does happen. Both the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the American Civil Liberties Union have been instrumental in rooting out these practices. The efforts of another long-time player are growing. The League of Women Voters has the status, the experience and the local networks that are all essential to expanding voting in America. Find out what they are doing in general, and what they are doing near you.

To stop the daily Trump assault on the American democracy, we will use every single legal tool that is at our disposal, so why not maximize the use of the legal system itself? Our fore-parents expected that it would be an inhibition to the misuse of power, and for that, there is no better time than the present, don’t you think?

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#36: Responding to the Sounds of Republicans Whistling in the Dark

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.

You can definitely understand their motivation if you hear someone whistling as they walk through a long, dark, foreboding, seemingly endless tunnel. Shapes appear in the murkiness and it is difficult to keep your footing. Why wouldn’t you try to develop some reasons why everything is going to be all right? Or in the alternative, at least you would entertain a narrative by which you could take certain steps, things won’t be as bad as you had feared. 

The seat that Democrat Conor Lamb just won in Pennsylvania is somewhere around 119th on the list of possible wins by Democrats! Republicans are in the dark tunnel, and are terrified of the potential of a blue wave. So they are trying to tell a different story saying that the Democratic victory was due entirely to the appeal of Conor Lamb's centrist policies. But Republican Congressman Charlie Dent counters those tales--- “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. I have seen wave elections before.” 

Any giddiness within the resistance about November prospects is unwise. Do we remember that the Access Hollywood tape was supposed to have made Donald Trump unelectable in the first place? But, what we are displaying as the creators of a blue wave in the fall is not giddiness, but relentlessness. There’s a difference.

The tactical argument, made by Republican consultant Jeff Roe in Sunday’s New York Times, is that Republicans will significantly reduce their November losses if their candidates stay with Trump rather than fleeing from him. The issue here is whether a Republican incumbent needing some of the numerous Trump-discontented swing voters in a heavily contested district could find such voters by ending their Trump genuflection. Roe argues that such a dive in the direction of the center by incumbents could jettison core Republican votes and end up being self-defeating. Roe brings forward his fantasies about the tax bill and even the appeal of Trump’s beginning the construction of a wall. Yes, please, we are all hoping fervently that Republicans will all get behind wall construction, and Mexico paying for it, as their central campaign theme. But, his more important argument is the idea that this election is primarily about who energizes their base. If that were true, that wouldn’t be so bad, but the truth is even better --- the election this fall is only partly about who energizes their base.

Trump and his henchpeople are trying to summon their base when they trash Mueller, or act as a Fox News broadcasting outlet. They saw the election results in Pennsylvania, and last fall in Virginia, and it has become self-evident that the resistance to Trump is translating to higher motivation and participation of those opposing Trump. They understand that the fall elections aren't just who one supports, it is who casts a ballot. Trump fears that if he stops tweeting untruthful things, his supporters won’t cast ballots.

Swing Left has been targeting 65 Republican held seats. The Cook report has been arguing that somewhere around 80 are in serious play. Somewhat belatedly coming to the conclusion that things are getting interesting, the House Democratic Campaign Committee is now talking about 98. We need to win 24. How do we do that besides energizing the base?

• We make our base bigger by getting 18-24 olds to register at a much higher level than their present 24%. The resistance is focusing on this goal across America.
• We fight back against the voter suppression efforts in swing states like Wisconsin that are dedicated to discouraging people from registering and voting.
• We support intensive voter identification and get out the vote efforts everywhere.
• We contest every single independent voter. Trump got a last-minute surge of women voters in November of 2016 after FBI director Comey made his late announcement on the Clinton emails. We are winning those votes back through Trump continuing to be Trump. By 56% to 32% women voters would prefer to see Democrats controlling Congress. 
• We expose the truth about Trump legislative “victories”. We must continue to remind independent voters that the tax bill is heading us toward trillion-dollar annual deficits.

Meanwhile, Congress continues to attend sporadically to the legislative role in running the country. Accordingly, Congress is putting our environment at risk, and not just through actions they generate on their own.   They are allowing Trump, Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke to work their will on the enforcement of environmental laws that were devised over forty years by Democrats and Republicans working together. We can do three things right away.

1)Stop the Poison Pen Riders
	Congress needs to pass a spending bill by Friday, and they can’t do it without Democratic votes. Even with that situation, House Republicans have proposed 80 separate appropriations “riders” that are designed to weaken environmental protections.   For instance, last year Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Susan Collins joined in helping Democrats protect methane gas regulations that Trump and Pruitt were trying to eviscerate. Now there is a House rider being advanced that would exempt oil and gas companies from methane rules. This is one for the member of the House of Representatives from your own district. Call or email her or him and insist that they oppose the riders. Or, since Charles Schumer and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate are in a strong negotiating position, call your Democratic Senator’s staff and tell them how much this means to you.
2) Keep the Focus on Climate Change
	Who knows what will happen with Donald Trump and the Paris Climate Accords going forward. There were some signals that he might be softening about removing the United States from the agreement, but then again there were arguments that he might help protect Dreamers through DACA or might limit gun purchases by 18 year olds, so don’t hold your carbon-added breath…  Instead, please boost the growing coalition of Governors who have formed their own Climate Alliance, who aren’t waiting for the federal government, and are showing their own leadership on climate change. Seventeen Governors have already joined the coalition. Check the list to see if your Governor has joined. If she or he hasn’t call their office today and seek to rectify the situation. While you are at it, do a check to see how your city or town is lessening its own carbon footprint. If your councilpersons don’t know the answer to this question, they should find out the answer and give it to you. Trumps climate position will be increasingly isolated if more states get with the program, the more Trump and his climate position will be isolated.
3) Time to Join the Herd
	For a moment it seemed as if Donald Trump (spurred by Laura Ingraham!) was with conservationists in battling what he called the “horrors” of the trade in elephant tusks. But the danger has increased that the import of elephant tusks will again be allowed. Ryan Zinke has included trophy hunting proponents in his “advisory committee” and import permits may soon be issued.   There are a lot of good ways to help elephants survive. Right now, it seems as if being part of a world-wide movement to block markets for tusks is an outstanding approach. Wild Aid is an inventive advocacy organization that is using social media to get you to Join the Herd. This is your chance.

It does seem endless, this Trump-opposing quest we are on. It seems as if he has been the President of sorts for a decade, at least. The rewards of being part of the opposition have been there from the beginning, as the Affordable Care Act was wounded, but saved by our collective efforts. With the November elections approaching, and the primaries preceding them, the rewards will start to increase--- if we keep on doing the right thing, every day.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington