#84: You Will Rectify This “Appalling Abuse of the Public Trust”

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Nancy Pelosi knew from the beginning that conviction in the Senate was not going to emerge as the final, definitive, justice-serving act that would save America from Donald Trump. We impeached because we had to. Having it come down to whether to call John Bolton as a witness was a fortunate defining moment, which we can revisit every time a bit of Bolton’s book leaks out.

And then came Lamar Alexander, who grew up admiring Republican Senator Howard Baker’s bipartisan approach to the prospective impeachment of Richard Nixon. Because Alexander is not running for re-election, he seemed an ideal candidate for some truth-telling. Though he was unable to muster the strength to vote for witnesses, he delivered this:

“It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law.”

After that, even more notably came Mitt Romney, declaring Trump’s actions “an appalling abuse of public trust.” He said:

Attempting to corrupt an election to maintain power is about as egregious an assault on the Constitution as can be made.”

Regarding Trump’s impeachable acts, there will be much more to say between now and November 3, new disclosures and all new actions by Donald Trump. What Donald Trump said to John Bolton will be one of many mirrors in the carnival’s hall of horrors. Lamar Alexander and Rob Portman and Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski's statements come down to this: “Yes, he did it.” The stories of the “perfect call” are lies. We can work with that. And, we can glory in the fact that Mitt Romney had the honor and the courage to step forward. That was the hardest thing he has ever done.

We have fewer than 10 months to the election. Our present collective consternation is problematic. Are we really going to buy into a luxury we can’t afford, which is to be locked in despair or to be made dysfunctional by anger over monumental Republican Senatorial constitutional malfeasance? What would be the point of that in the face of the most consequential election of a lifetime? Worse, what would be the point of the fatalistic and absurd contention that if we can’t impeach him, we can’t beat him, which is harbored by the most beleaguered among us? Why would that conclusion even remotely be the case? We know the man threaded the needle the first time, winning by 80,000 votes in three states after receiving Putin’s intentional and Jim Comey’s unintentional assistance. Why would we attribute superpowers to a con man? Beat him.

We are dismayed that he has a continued following ranging up to 40% of the electorate. It is sad and bad, but why is it a surprise? He has his own tv channel! It feeds a daily narrative that every single thing we do to defeat him is evidence that he is being successful. It’s all a deep-state spin, and those in that “party” who don’t buy into it have found no way to escape from it. Happily, the very things that Donald Trump says and does to keep this “base” are what has driven independent voters away from him.

We already proved that good news in November 2018, which was the first national referendum on Trump. Totaling the House races, we won by over 9.6 million votes, the largest midterm margin in history. We already have the blueprints, and we are already using those blueprints to move forward daily--- register new voters who will be with us; lay the groundwork for a huge voter turnout, which was absent in 2016. Support strong candidates, early and often. Make certain our candidates behave in appropriate ways toward each other, and consider walking away from them if they do not. We are in this together.

Swing Left has targeted 12 super states.They want us all to tattoo the names of these 12 states to our forearms, or at least etch them in our memories: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. 

Unbelievably, we lost all of these states except Colorado and Maine in 2016. This sorry performance gave us 232 electoral votes of the 270 we needed. Consider the ten states we lost. There are many paths of victory (38 more electoral votes) beyond winning back Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, even though those states are looking great. 

We won the governor’s races in all three in 2018, with margins of 400,000 votes in Michigan and 860,000 in Pennsylvania.

In the likely event that we win both Michigan and Pennsylvania, the election would be ours when we win Arizona or North Carolina or Wisconsin, all of which we lost narrowly in 2016 and all of which have treated us to large gains since then. And then there are several other combinations of states in which we are doing well. Back in Obama’s day, we won Florida and Ohio. Of these two, Florida is extremely promising. We lost narrowly in 2016, had 2018 gains, and are doing a great job of registering new voters, aided by a Florida law that re-grants voting rights to certain ex-offenders.

We are not going to lose the “firewall” states that we famously lost by 70,000 votes. Startlingly, we could well win Florida and Arizona or Florida and North Carolina and not need any of the industrial Midwest, except for Illinois.

Defend the states we won in 2016 and then choose from the states below to pick your path to 38 more electoral votes that will restore America:

	State	# of electoral votes
	Texas	38
	Florida	29
	Pennsylvania	20
	Ohio	18
	Michigan	16
	Georgia	16
	North Carolina	15
	Arizona	11
	Wisconsin	10
	Iowa	6

Since the foundation for this wonderful outcome is the candidate we choose and the hard work we will take on between now and November, let’s do these three things:

1) It’s Time to Thank Mitt Romney
	Not only did Mitt Romney do a courageous thing, he gave an extraordinary speech on why he voted as he did and it should be required reading. A lot of people will disparage him. He needs to know that there are millions of people out here who admire that he stood up when every bone is his body was calling for him to sit down. Call his Salt Lake City office at 801-524-4380.
2) Click and Donate to Amy McGrath
	There are other senators like Cory Gardner that we are even more likely to beat, or Thom Tillis. But, why not defeat the single most cynical person in the country, who somehow also ended up as the Senate Majority Leader. Mitch McConnell’s approval ratings are underwater in Kentucky, and former fighter pilot Amy McGrath is running a campaign that gets stronger with each month. Could there be a more satisfying contribution to make?
3) Add a Few Million More Voters
	Both 2016 and 2018 were “turnout” elections. Getting people registered and to the polls was hugely consequential. In 2016, our shortcomings on this matter caused our temporary demise. Much of voter registration (and its promotion) has become an online task, with Rock the Vote remaining the key player. But the League of Women Voters has not forgotten that this is about all of us. The League is coming on strong again, with over 60 affiliates participating in their national efforts. Watch this trailer made by League members in San Luis Obispo and revisit what is being done in your own community.

So it goes. As November nears, hundreds of thousands of us are thinking of helping in swing states like the twelve identified by Swing Left. The next missive will feature how to consider the pros and cons of such on the road experiences. If you have adventures (or misadventures) to share, email in the next ten days.

Best,
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#83: Select the Person Obsessed With Fixing Things

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Let’s start by choosing and electing someone who has huge dreams but who in the shorter term is obsessed with fixing things. In their first month, this new President would call France, Germany, and Canada and say we are sorry. They would recommit to NATO, and re-sign a Global Climate Accord while demanding more of it. They would join Russian and China back at the table for a new Iran nuclear accord. They would stop writing naïve love letters to Putin and to Kim Jong Un.

This person would be running the show without a shred of venality and with a surprising dose of equanimity. They would partner with Congress to get immigrant kids out of the camps, restore and greatly expand Obamacare, and rewrite one of the worst tax bills in history. They would immediately rescind a score of executive orders that have been trashing the environment.

Regarding this short-term agenda, all of us would say to this new president, “these things first”. We will be thrilled to imagine an America even better than that, but these things first, because they are so critical, because they vanished from us so recently and suddenly, and because we miss them so desperately. Foster your even greater dreams, but don’t let those more distant goals make you stumble as you take your first steps.

This approach is no sacrifice, it is an imperative. We will judge ourselves by our ability to repair the very things that have been broken before our very eyes. We will elect a President who will rely upon a tool kit, and not only a microphone.

It is time to narrow our field. Our pre-conditions have been the same for months now. Nominate someone who can win, conceding that prematurely insisting that someone is unelectable creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look at when and where our candidates have won before. Find someone around whom we can close ranks. Make certain the vice president slot creates a ticket that brings us even closer together. Don’t buy into the non-existent huge differences between “liberals” and “progressives”, since the Senate voting records of those bearing these labels are nearly indistinguishable. 

Government has rules and practices (and even a Constitution) that Trump, a “businessman” has never mastered. So no thank you Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang. Your ideas and commitment are clear, but you need more grounding in government itself. Steve Bullock, Michael Bennett, Deval Patrick, you have both the necessary good approaches and the record of service. We have never known how to get you out of the wings and onto the stage.

The Presidency is an incredibly taxing job. Maybe it is not so wise to nominate someone who is as old or is even older than Donald Trump, especially if we are hoping that they serve two nation-restoring terms. So it’s time to elevate a fresh generation of leaders, which already gave us Barack Obama. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, you will surely find your ways to help this country. Thanks for jumping in, Michael Bloomberg. Your financial support and your ability to challenge Trump as a bigger billionaire are very helpful.

Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg, in no way are you done. One of you may be vice president, and there are other paths. Pete Buttigieg, it is a depressing indication of American cynicism that the most severe criticisms by your detractors are your impeccable answers to our questions.

Elizabeth Warren, you of the scores of new plans, please continue your recent move toward casting these for the country and not just our party. Your intellectual strength and relentlessness are admirable. Within the Senate you will help our new majority forge much of our changing economic and social policy.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, please be our President. Put to use your clear and strong sense of what can be done next, including much of it in an initial one-hundred-day flurry. You already know how to do what you need to do, and you will be able to get and keep us by your side. Your exemplary record on immigration reform, on economic opportunity, on health care reform, and on protecting the rights of women and minorities will help you lift us.

Be President with the same matter-of-factness, attention to your roots and good humor that characterize you. Tell us the truth. As you have already shown you can do, reach out to all independents, and to any legitimate Republicans that are left. Especially on global security issues, reach out even to the other side, however lost in darkness it has become.

We will do everything we can to elect a new president. During the impeachment trial, we will hear a week of evidence that will overwhelmingly demonstrate that Donald Trump is unfit for office. It is fashionable to say that the electorate is locked in on all sides and that impeachment arguments do not move the needle. It is fashionable, but it is not even close to the truth.

With the swing state margins that have become commonplace in American politics, every major event moves the needle. In these states, millions of independents walked away from Trump in 2018 and must not be drawn back to him. Countless other potential voters, including those aged 18-30, are deciding whether to register and vote, which they did in great numbers in 2018 but did not in 2016. The impeachment, advanced under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, can help those voters decide to help us win.

1) Making Sure We Have Our Facts Straight
	It would be nice to avoid disputes among Democratic candidates about false claims in speeches and in political advertising. Unfortunately, in the heat of the campaign, things can get said that shade the truth. Bernie Sanders has made some claims about Joe Biden's position on Social Security that Politifact has sorted out. Politifact is a great independent source that can help us sort out our positions and our understanding of events throughout this upcoming year. You can connect with them on Facebook, Twitter or receive their RSS feeds. You will be helping take truth off of the scaffold.
2) Make Certain the Impeachment Trial Has Witnesses
	Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney are very likely to vote to call John Bolton as a witness. As has been so often the case, they need one more Republican Senator to join them. This is a situation in which Mitch McConnell is complicit. Three Senators are free to vote their conscience, and any fourth Senator will be excommunicated for doing so. Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander is retiring. He grew up under the Tennessee politics of Howard Baker, who was the fair-minded senior Republican serving with Democrat Sam Ervin during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Watergate hearings. It is time to ask Lamar Alexander to be true to that legacy, and to vote to call John Bolton as a witness. Call him at 202-224-4944.
3) Do What You Can to Make Amy Klobuchar President
	You can sign up to volunteer for Amy Klobuchar or give them your email so you can hear more. If you are going to make a donation to anyone during this presidential campaign, now is the time to do it.

For those who would like to read an excellent, very well-reasoned and well-researched daily analysis of the challenges we face, go no further than Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American, Across this country, we are all paying attention now, and this year we are bending history.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#82: Who Could Reign In Trump?

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If you were choosing very carefully, you wouldn’t select a President who will fly into a rage when he is watching television. You wouldn’t choose anyone who would act almost immediately upon that rage, and who is incapable of sorting out why he should or shouldn’t. You wouldn’t want a person who ushers out of the room anyone who disagrees with him, for fear that she or he is closing themselves off from viable options. You wouldn’t entertain the candidacy of an incurious person, or a grudge-nurturer, or anyone whose self-regard monumentally exceeds his skills. 

It’s too late! We ended up with such a person. Each week we are wounded anew. We save a place in the darkest part of our hearts for those elected officials who show allegiance for this president. When Donald Trump does the worst of things, we long for any of a score of Republican Senators to intervene.

These Senators slowed down our country’s support of the Saudi’s war in Yemen, and have insisted we maintain economic sanctions on Russia, however, there is no chance at all that they will meaningfully influence Trump’s hugely dangerous approach to Iran. He didn’t ask what they think because he doesn’t care what they think. The War Powers Act of 1973 gives Senators no path to intervene in any timely way.

Nonetheless, even in the face of Iranian missile attacks, there isn’t going to be a war, because Iran is so inferior militarily to the United States that they will not seek it. Instead, in response to the assassination, Iran will destabilize the Middle East way beyond the levels first generated by Dick Cheney’s made up war in 2003. The 5,000 US troops in Iraq will be reduced or removed, and ISIS will be the number one beneficiary. Iran’s hold on Iraq will grow. The remaining constraints embodied in the 2015 nuclear weapons agreement will vanish.

In Dick Cheney’s war, there were three men (besides George W. Bush) who had the standing to slow down Cheney’s momentum and expose the lies regarding weapons of mass destruction--- John McCain, Tony Blair, and Colin Powell, who got played by Cheney and regrets it more and more with each year. None of the three stepped forward.

Today, there are also just three that could slow Trump down and let us get us all the way to the November elections with the world in a single piece. Not Senators. The sycophantic Mitch McConnell and the surprisingly obsequious Lindsay Graham aren’t close to making the list. Not cabinet officials--- Trump’s support for Mike Pompeo doesn’t stem from him being challenged by his Secretary of State. Who did you say is Secretary of Defense?

First, there is Rupert Murdoch’s son James, who now runs Fox News. Since the plan to assassinate started with Trump watching Fox News’ accounts of protesters at the embassy, it seems fitting that the last word could ultimately fall to Fox. The company is seeking a little distance from Trump. There is no question they are recalibrating, albeit very slowly. Second, there is Benjamin Netanyahu. He needs these conflicts to have certain constraints.

Most importantly, there is Vladimir Putin. Angela Merkel is flying to Moscow on Saturday to discuss these “Middle East tensions” with him. It is in Putin’s self-interest to not let things get further out of hand, all the while reveling in the ineptitude of his White House admirer. Who would have thought the former KGB colonel would become the world’s temporary peacekeeper? It might be seen as a bitter irony that one of his previous interventions put Trump in the presidency. One could conclude that such things should not be permitted.

As Putin, Merkel and others stabilize the situation, we will have an impeachment trial to complete and an election to conduct. The positive outcome of the November election is not inevitable, but we are in an excellent position to help our country take itself back. 

By late summer, we will have settled on our ticket and the impeachment trial will be behind us. We will be well aware of everything we need to do between August and November. At that stage, we will be building upon what worked so well in 2018. We will advance strong candidates; help them in every way we can; make certain they have unprecedented financial support. We will register voters and make certain they vote. We will understand our changing circumstances and adjust to them.

By summer, there will be a lot of election year narratives besides the impeachment trial. Nonetheless, the upcoming actions trying Donald Trump in the Senate will be consequential. Now that public servants like Fiona Hill and Alexander Vindman have done their duty, Mike Pompeo, Mark Esper and Mick Mulvaney will resist doing theirs. Whether or not it is because he has a book coming out, John Bolton has a different story. If subpoenaed, he is willing to testify before the Senate, 

After all that elaborate artifice that the House Republicans built, it turns out Trump froze the aid 90 minutes after the phone calls. The newly released emails are telling. In addition to holding the key on whether Bolton will testify, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney(!) and perhaps others will make certain that this new evidence isn’t quashed from the outset.

Trump’s approval ratings remain in the basement. It is not clear that even if he were interested in such strategies that there is a way for him to keep his supporters and simultaneously win votes from independents he lost after displaying himself to be a con man, a misogynist and a thug. More important than disapproval, as many as 52% of voters think he should be impeached and removed. This is from Fox News!

If you were a betting person, you would bet that there will be additional whistleblowers and scandals. Even worse, the bad situations in Iran and North Korea are threatening to unravel further. What happened to Kim’s “beautiful letters” that engendered “love?” Is there clearer evidence that this man is lost in the duties of the presidency? Can you imagine such an exchange between Dwight Eisenhower and Mao Zedong?

Staying on top of this unfolding American tragedy calls us to do at least three things:

1) Fight Voter Suppression in Wisconsin
	A Circuit Court judge has ordered the premature and unnecessary purging of 234,000 voters as Wisconsin Republicans continue to do everything they can do suppress the November 2020 turnout. These voters are disproportionately located in the two Democratic strongholds of Madison and Milwaukee. Wisconsin is one of a dozen or more key states in this election, so attention must be paid now. The Wisconsin Democrat Party intends to connect with all purged voters if the court decision holds. Either way it’s time for us to follow their efforts or give them a boost.
2) Find another Republican Senator to Demand that the Trial have a Witness
	Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney are all open to the Senate calling witnesses in the impeachment trial and interested in John Bolton being a witness. Unfortunately, this is yet again a choreographed situation. McConnell may well get unanimous Republican support to pass the rules, but this will presuppose a delay of the question of when and whether to call witnesses. McConnell can only withstand three defections, so these three Senators have “claimed” those positions. It will be far more difficult to be the fourth Senator, who would upend McConnell’s tight hold on the process. It behooves us to look for a candidate, and find one in Martha McSally of Arizona. After she lost to Democrat Krysten Sinema for Jeff Flake’s vacant seat, McSally was appointed to the seat made vacant by the death of John McCain. In the November 2020 race she is being challenged by astronaut Mark Kelly, who is Gabby Gifford’s husband. This will make her more attentive to pleas for fairness than what otherwise would be the case. Call her Senate office at 202-224-2235 and say that the Senator should want to hear John Bolton’s story. McSally’s email does not automatically reject people from outside Arizona, so you could instead email her by clicking on this page.
3) Give Amy Klobuchar a Chance
	There’s no sin in a resister already making up her or his mind and choosing one of the several Presidential candidates who are engaging us, as long as that candidate will come together at the end if they are unsuccessful. Nonetheless, many of us are still shopping. For those of us in that position it is time to take a fresh and new look at Amy Klobuchar. Amy has delivered solid debate performances time after time. She has a record of advancing legislation that stands up well in comparison to each and every other Senator who is running. She is witty, smart, committed and she has already shown she can win again and again in a swing state. As she tries to get a good result in Iowa, now is the best time to give her a boost.

As Trump tears up any international alliance, treaty or norm that comes to his attention, we could end up feeling powerless. But, we’re not. In our collective hands and actions is the biggest story--- whether we will elect a President of the United States who can restore the integrity and promise of our republic.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#81: Other Whistles Will Be Blown

After publishing every two weeks for the last 3 years, we are going to skip a missive which would otherwise be sent on December 25. Instead we will “publish” #82 two weeks later, on Wednesday, January 8. That will enable essential refueling as we begin the most consequential year.

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

There’s no joy in Justin Trudeau making fun of Donald Trump, since the joke is on us. Joy is not what we are collectively seeking anyway. Instead, we seek nothing less than the restoration of our democracy. In its scope and what it demands of us collectively, this is a magnificent obsession. It is nothing less than starting again to protect the environment, cherish and advance human rights, and build the global alliances these times require.

The times are bad, but the news is good. In this fall’s general elections selecting Democratic governors in Kentucky and Louisiana, Trump’s rallies were self-defeating, bringing more Democratic and independent voters to the ballot box than Trump supporters. In 2020, he will be our get out the vote champion. Trump’s actions to maintain his way too small base dwell on actions that are anathema to independents. 

The impeachment vote will come before the holidays. In January, Mitch McConnell will figure out something for Republican Senators to do with all this. Their defense will be more muted than the House, in deference to Susan Collins, Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski. It will be Ukraine lite, with no florid Jim Jordan and no shady Devin Nunes. They will walk away from “Trump didn’t do this” and land upon “Whether Trump did this or not it doesn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.” They will acquit by the end of January.

Of course, it does rise to the level of an impeachable offense. Once Schiff and his colleagues teased out the three months of maneuvering to put Trump’s election interests ahead of the nation’s security interests, Speaker Pelosi had no choice. There are those that initially feared we would pay a political price for adhering to the Constitution, but we have seen no such evidence in the polls.

The year draws to a close, the election year looms, and there is considerable Trump weariness. It’s hard to believe that we have to endure a year of him mean-spiriting and conning his way across America. But it is now clear he won’t just be the same old Trump. As discussed in a previous missive, there will surely be new events and disclosures that will capture our attention. There is no chance that the passage of a new Canada/ Mexico/ United States trade agreement will underpin a new longer-term narrative about Trump and trade policy. The dotard/rocket man exchanges are rearing again, Giuliani may be arrested any day, and you really can’t predict what other whistles will be blown. Why would you think Ukraine would be the only one?

With all that has happened, it isn’t really much of a stretch to say “anything can happen.” One big part of the world we face will be court rulings. Will former White House counsel Don McGahn be compelled to testify about obstruction of justice? Will emoluments rulings hold Trump accountable for using his position to enrich his businesses? How about legal action from women he pretends he never met?

Most critically, there are two separate federal appellate court rulings requiring Trump’s accountants to turn over his tax returns. These have the best chance of all to expose all new Trump misdeeds. As early as Friday, December 13th, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear one or both of the two cases requiring the release of Trump’s tax records, either by the accounting firm Mazars or (in the second case) by Mazars, Capital One, and Deutsche Bank. These firms are not resisting the court orders. Trump has been able to secure a stay (ironically, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose turn it was to hear such petitions) temporarily preventing their release.

All of this started with Michael Cohen’s testimony. In Trump v. Vance, state of New York district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. took note of the hush payments to Stormy Daniels. Among other things the grand jury that he caused to be empaneled is evaluating whether these payments were an unlawful, unreported campaign contribution.

In Trump v. Mazars, it is the House Oversight Committee that is the litigant. Their primary interest is the Michael Cohen testimony that Trump was decreasing his tax liability by misrepresenting his capital assets. Trump has argued for a level of immunity way beyond what presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton ever sought, and neither of them were successful in convincing the Court to block release of documents that Congress was seeking. It seems like too much for Trump to be asking of John Roberts, whose public statements as recently as September have argued that partisan politics have no place at the Court. 

It will take four votes of the nine for the Court to decide to hear the case. Legal analysts are not expecting Trump to prevail on the merits, but some are convinced that the Court will accept one or both cases and hear oral arguments in June. If the tax documents are released only to the grand jury and not the Congress, they will not be disclosed to the public. 

In the three years of our collective resistance of Trump, the federal courts have slowed his regress on numerous occasions. They have blocked Trump’s census schemes, kept even worse things from happening at the border, and protected much of the Affordable Care Act. Obviously, this is far from the whole story. The Court is going in the wrong direction of gun violence and the right to choose is imperiled. Nonetheless, we must continue to use the federal courts as a way to curb Trump’s constitution-shredding malevolence every opportunity we get, including these three:

1) Protecting Undocumented Children at the Border
	The conditions that continue to exist for children seeking asylum are our nation’s shame. Released tapes of the recent death of a 16-year-old who had contracted the flu showed an inconceivable disregard for human life. The Trump policy has spawned dozens of squalid camps across the border. It is the intent of our government to inflict as much misery as it can. The establishment of the camps across the border where migrating families await their asylum hearings has widened and deepened the problem.  The very small Los Angeles based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has been ever present in monitoring conditions. They are a major player in the court battles for the minimum standards required in the Flores ruling. They are key, and do not have the access to resources of some of the larger organizations.
2) Fighting the Food Stamp Rule
	After a two-year battle, the Trump administration has issued its final rule altering conditions of food stamp (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) eligibility. The adjustments on when states can issue waivers of work rules were confirmed on December 4 and will go into effect on April 1. This Grinch like action follows the regular Trump administration pattern of finding people who need help and taking it away from them. 700,000 people will have the food removed from their table.  There will be a final effort to block these rules in the federal courts and in the Congress. Because of the McConnell grip in the Senate, the courts are the better option. The new lawsuits are just being formulated, and there is time to make our own statement before this next phase. We need to each make one trip to our local food bank to help them stock their shelves and to demonstrate our commitment to food security. Many have shopping lists you can take to the grocery store. Feeding America, the national network of food banks, can guide you to local food banks and keep you posted on the action agenda.
3) Securing Fair Elections
	The underpinning of all good things in a democracy is elections free from misdeeds. Our vote casting and counting has gone well relatively compared to other countries. As far as we know, the Putin interference is a new thing. Setting up improved systems that resist efforts by other countries to sway our elections has gone too slowly. Trump and a shocking number of Republican members of Congress continue to deny the well proven (and prosecuted) Russian intervention. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook persist in hosting the fake advertising that is an elixir for their balance sheet and a poison for the ballot box. Voter suppression also remains with us. Efforts have grown to prevent inappropriate purging by Republican officials of voter lists, unnecessary provisions that discourage voting, and efforts to decrease the number of polling places. The Brennan Center’s efforts to ensure that every American can vote are unsurpassed. You can increase their resources or get on their list to make certain you understand the chicanery they are resisting.

It is indisputable that all of this is exhausting. You could let Donald Trump bring you down every day. Instead, we’ll let him be our prime motivator. The election is now less than a year away.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#80: Fiona Hill Showed Us All

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

Eloquent, courageous, committed State Department and National Security Council officials taught us all a lesson in the last two weeks. It’s heartening that they are there and that they are looking out for their country. The juxtaposition of their integrity with Trump’s failure to muster any at all will stay with us for a long time.

Even though these hearings are coming to a close, the Ukraine disclosures will continue. Most notably John Bolton will feel inclined to relate what Trump said when Bolton asked for the release of the $400 million necessary for Ukraine’s defense. Bolton is interested in protecting his own defense hardliner reputation. More than any other Trump appointee, he has a “brand” independent of Trump, and is not acting beholden. If not him, perhaps we will hear more from Rudy Giuliani, who has camped out in the danger zone that has taken down other public officials. At this point in time, it is more important to him that he is on the news than what he says or what is being said about him on the news. Only sleep prevents him from saying more things damaging to Trump. He could very easily end up arrested. Beyond Ukraine disclosures, there’s also there is a very good possibility that the Supreme Court will refuse to hear arguments for shielding Trump’s tax returns, which itself will open up a new Trump-world of turpitude.

It’s important not to get confused about what the American people think about impeachment, and what it has to do with the most important presidential election of our lifetime on November 3, 2020. 70% of Americans believe that Trump did an unacceptable thing in Ukraine by asking a foreign government to intervene in our domestic politics. More than 50% think these actions warrant an impeachment inquiry, and up to 50% conclude that Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from office. This is in comparison to the 29% who wanted that outcome for Bill Clinton.

What do the public’s views on impeachment have to do with the upcoming election? Just because voters in battleground states are less enthusiastic about impeachment than in blue states doesn’t mean that they think Trump is prime presidential material. The Ukraine narrative is just one important dimension of how voters feel about Trump, but it will be an critical element of the 2020 campaign.
Has anyone seen Nancy Pelosi slip on any banana peels lately? Her intent is to impeach the President because his impeachable offenses are obvious and thus unavoidable. She plans to conclude the official House processes as soon as she can. She believes the monumental evidence presented will boost our case on November 3, even as the Senate votes to acquit. We are in good hands.

Even so, we have let ourselves fall into the “Trump voters never change” fallacy. Five million or more Trump voters changed when we took back the House, flipped Virginia, won the state house in Kentucky and defended it in Louisiana. Where do we think those voters are coming from if not from the ranks of independents and Never Trump Republicans? Sure, it is nice for Trump or any elected official to start with 38% of voters supporting her or him no matter what. But that didn’t work so well for George McGovern and Barry Goldwater, because you have to have a way to expand from there. The issue is how many additional Republicans and Independents will go to Trump’s side in November, and the extent to which impeachment is one more reason for them to flee.

Even the sainted NPR has grown befuddled by the myth of Trump’s base and the way it could help him in the upcoming year. Their own coverage stresses that American opinion is set in stone, even though the poll results say the opposite. In the poll, 39% of independents and 24% of Republicans said that they could imagine evidence that could change their mind on impeachment. That isn’t a low number, it’s a high number. And, as has been the case for some time, Trump’s strategy for keeping the base is a huge impediment to him attracting anyone else.

Articles of impeachment will be passed in the House, and the Senate will acquit Donald Trump. It’s an election year, and the Republican Party is not going to implode itself, which is what would happen if Republican Senators removed Donald Trump from the Presidency. The sequence has been set up to go like this for some time: 

1. The Mueller report and ultimately the Ukraine debacle solidify the opposition to Donald Trump. 
2. Aggressive explication of these and other Trump misdeeds becomes our order of the day.
3.  The impeachment trial, though not securing a conviction, fully exposes Trump’s malfeasances. 
4. Further abuses become known. 
5. In the face of these disclosures, Trump’s disapproval ratings remain low, or go lower. 
6. As the election gets closer, Trump’s path to 270 electoral votes becomes narrower and narrower, an order of magnitude more narrow than the firewall he and Putin overcame in 2016. 
7. We select an excellent ticket, continue to register voters, fix our 2016 turnout problem with 2018 style turnout strategies, and win our country an election.

Impeachment is about defending the Constitution because we must, and using the subsequent disclosures and debate to win the election, because we must. It puts that many more purple states in play, and thus creates many more paths to victory.

Which states to keep in play? There’s been considerable statistical analysis of the Obama/Romney and Clinton/Trump races to see how levels of approval/disapproval correlate with vote totals from a year later. This study shows that if we win Michigan, where we won the governorship by a solid margin in 2018, and hold onto states Hillary Clinton won, we would likely be at 249 electoral votes, and would need only 21 more from these states:

• Pennsylvania - 20 electoral votes
• Wisconsin - 10 electoral votes
• Florida - 29 electoral votes
• North Carolina - 15 electoral votes
• Georgia - 16 electoral votes
• Arizona - 11 electoral votes

This demonstrates how many more ways we have to regain the Presidency over and above winning the firewall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which we collectively lost by 80,000 votes in 2016. For instance, if we pick up the states Hillary Clinton won and (as predicted) win Michigan, then Florida alone will put us over the top (and we have been losing it by tiny margins) or Pennsylvania and Arizona, or North Carolina and Arizona.

It’s all very encouraging and makes us want to imprint a state deeply into our psyche and our action plan. Pennsylvania would be a good place to do three things, on the way to winning the presidency there in 2020. Then, soon, this missive will take on Arizona.

1) Follow the Lead of Swing Left
	We lost Pennsylvania to Donald Trump by 44,000 votes in 2016. It never should have happened, since Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania by 5.4% in 2012 and John McCain by 10.7% in 2008. We have recovered nicely since, winning races for Governor and Senator by wide margins in 2018. In the next year we will take nothing for granted.  With its “Super State” strategy, Swing Left continues to be a “go to” organization in our effort to gain the electoral votes in targeted states. You can sign up to send letters to independent voters and/or contribute to campaign funds that will be spent in Pennsylvania once candidates are chosen. Don’t wait until November 3 to pay attention to Pennsylvania.
2) Support Registration and Turnout in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
	On election night, things might be going very well. Or, you may find yourself hoping that there are still unreported votes from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. The National Coalition of Black Civic Participation is organizing around registration and turnout in multiple cities and states. You can give them your email and see when they need your help and go ahead and donate today so you don’t forget. The click to donate is under “Get Involved.”
3) Make Certain Candidates Understand Pennsylvania Issues
	At this point, our candidates have presented policy positions on scores of issues. Ultimately, employees of manufacturing companies and other unionized laborers are going to want to hear what the specific Democratic agenda is for the working woman and man. One could make an argument that voters in 2016 did not recognize a coherent, impassioned approach from Democrats about how they would focus on jobs and employment, Take a look at what our candidates are saying today. It’s time to watch our favorite candidates on these issues to make sure that this perception or belief doesn’t wound us in 2020.

Fiona Hill, Ambassador Marie Yovanovich, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman are exemplars. If our faith in American public servants had been waning, they have restored it. They all put themselves forward, and they were all counting on us to do the same in the next year, to stand up. That’s what we will be doing.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#79: We Will Win This Election the Old Fashioned Way

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

We learned an extremely painful lesson in November of 2016 and took great advantage of that lesson to take back the House in November 2018. What comes next is no mystery, no enigma, and no puzzle. There won’t even be a tingle of spines unless we make it so. On November 3, 2020, (less than one year from now) we will win the most important election of our history by doing what we already know how to do one more time.

For that result to happen like it should and like it must, we must stay on the path. Keep the independents we won back in 2018. Register voters. Fight voter suppression. Persuade more independents. Support strong candidates. We have a huge pent up demand for a President who will immediately tend to payment of our overdue obligations to the environment and to health care in America. In selecting a candidate, let’s remember that every conceivable Democratic nominee would do exactly that.

So, let’s use our terms carefully. There are no “moderates” in the Democratic field. Except for the self-identified Socialist Bernie Sanders, all of the top ten candidates are liberals by the usual definition. The use of the word “progressive” to describe some and not others is an appropriate extra smooch from advocates that is mostly related (but not entirely) to the candidates’ policy positions. All of the major candidates would protect the Dream Act, reform student debt, reverse Trump’s LGBQT discrimination, advance universal background checks, restore global alliances and make a massive commitment on climate change.

Thus, the “lanes” that candidates are said to occupy can be misleading. Earlier in the campaign season, there were huge blocs of Sanders voters for whom Biden was the second choice, and huge blocs of Biden voters for whom Sanders was the second choice. There is not much difference in the Senate voting records of Booker, Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders and Harris. There are policy disputes among our candidates that we should understand and sort out, but let’s not overstate them. Clearly the top two are specific ways to tax the wealthy and the major disputes over Medicare for All.

As we go down the path, let’s keep our heads up. As many as 57% of voters have indicated that they have no plans to vote for Trump. Unbelievably, there are Democrats and independents who can’t stop themselves from predicting Trump will win. Are we so wounded that we can’t even recognize the advantaged position we assumed last November? Last week we took back both the Virginia House and Senate. We won the governorship in Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump carried by 30 points three years ago. These are not random happenings or liberal fantasies. They are what is taking place in our country, today. Our candidates are polling well in head to head match-ups with Trump. We hold the majority position on most of the issues confronting America, and we are running against an incompetent and venal man.

As we go forward with our heads up, let’s make the correct and critical choice regarding the central element of our strategy to take back the presidency, the Senate, and thus save our country. Trump’s unpopularity gives us a huge head start. Are we going to re-visit and re-invest in what we know how to do, and which just won the suburbs and took back the House? It is pretty simple. There are several other states to put in play, but if we win two of these six Trump will have virtually no path: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona. We won all of these in 2008 and all but North Carolina in 2012. 

This month’s polls show we’re starting in good shape. That’s where Medicare for All comes in. We decrease our chances with working people in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania or with seniors in Arizona and Florida or with independents in all these states by telling them we plan to carry out an enormous expansion of the federal government. Are we going to advocate this approach when respect for government is at the lowest? When independents and some Democrats say they aren’t interested, are we going to tell them they don’t understand what they need? If our candidates demur and instead favor huge expansion of health care coverage, are we going to accuse them of using Republican talking points?

Committing to Medicare for All is especially bizarre because it is entirely divorced from what would happen in the United States Senate if we do exceedingly well in 2020 and end up with 52 or 53 Democratic Senators. Even if a Medicare for All proponent were President, there is no chance that the Senate would pass such a bill. Further, our own Senate candidates in battleground states do not support it, instead opting for mammoth steps toward universal coverage. 

Whether or not we argue for Medicare for All in 2020, in 2021 the Senate would end up with the same very significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act that Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar espouse. Knowing this in advance, are we really going to jettison our health care political advantage for a campaign around doubling our taxes and outlawing private insurance? Are we going to depend on our lecturing skills to convince the voters that it will all balance out once health care costs are reduced? Are we thinking the other side will come to the table with a nice articulated pro and con issue brief rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars taking advantage of an issue we would have created for them?

It is time to stop this. In even considering running a Medicare for All dominated election, we are putting a beleaguered country at risk. Let’s remember this as we contemplate this risk. We are deciding on a president who would betray the Kurds, or not, who would deport Dreamers, or not. After November 3, 2020, we will have a president who will nominate someone to the Supreme Court who will or will not respect the settled law on Roe v. Wade. We will select a woman or man who launches a national effort to curb climate change or denies that it exists. Donald Trump will be president, or not.

There’s an argument that whatever independent voters we would jettison in advocating Medicare for All would be offset by new voters we would attract. The problem is, the scale of the latter is not close to matching the scale of the former, especially in battleground states. Sure, we would take this risk in a heartbeat if it was the only way to do what is right and just on a fundamental issue, but in this case the same health care reform steps will emerge in Congress in 2021.

There is a better way. We can have a ticket that nicely covers our plentiful common interests. We can move dramatically toward universal health coverage after the election without subjecting ourselves to self-inflicted wounds during the election. Let’s enmesh ourselves further in the race for the presidency by doing these three things:

1) Register Voters in Florida
	Barack Obama won Florida by 2.8% in 2008 and .9% in 2012. Donald Trump and Russian operatives won by 1.2% over Hilary Clinton in 2016. We can take back this state. Former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum lost his race for the governorship by half a percent. 700,000 more Floridians have registered to vote since this. Gillum’s new Bring it Home Florida has pledged to register a million more and to re-engage those already registered, which has not always been accomplished by the Florida Democratic Party. Gillum’s organization is a good place to follow Florida. Donating is a good way to boost our chances to win the state in 2020.
2) Commit Today to Fight Gerrymandering
	Several national organizations did great work to help flip both houses of the Virginia State Legislature. Notable among these was the Sister District project. Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s PAC is aptly named the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He wants to flip state legislatures because of the way Republican controlled legislatures abused the redistricting process after the 2010 census. In addition to donating to candidates, this PAC litigates and helps build the “political infrastructure” to prepare for the redistricting that will take place after the 2020 elections. Now is the time to connect with this important effort. There’s a way to get on the e-mailing list even if you aren’t donating.
3) Evaluating Candidates Not in the November 20 Debates
	The November debate is going to look a lot like the October debate. Missing will be Beto O’Rourke who dropped out and Julian Castro who didn’t reach the polling threshold. Eventually the field is going to narrow. If you are still shopping, this is a good time to think also about Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet. Neither of these men has been advantaged by late starts. If one was in the thinking mode, one could also look at Michael Bloomberg, though there is a down market for billionaire candidates, or Deval Patrick, who would need to decide to run with lightning speed. There isn’t a website for Michelle Obama…

So, now it is less than a year until the election. As reviewed above, it is time to resolve our Medicare for All dispute in favor of not overreaching. Our energy level has not waned. Given the events of the last few weeks, our motivation could not be higher.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington