#87: We Must Remember What is at Our Core

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You could say that this is no time for politics. More accurately, it is time for extra care in attention to politics. We can’t stop some things from being politicized, but we can always remember what is at our core--- how we conduct ourselves as a community; how we give the most to others when every post and headline turns us back to ourselves; and how to rejoice in life as we protect it.

After this crisis is over, there will be plenty of time to sort out the government’s response. Inevitably and appropriately, we will evaluate the approaches taken by the president. We will examine the extent to which his disrespect of science and government agencies and his relentless untruths increased the level of human misery. And we will do that with a heavy heart.

For now, we must press on and make social distancing work, because it will eventually flatten the curve of new cases and thus make it possible to provide care. To make it work, we focus as usual on how Nancy Pelosi sees it, with her top three priorities being testing, testing, and testing. Things would be far better if we had been able to test at the scale of South Korea from the outset. We all hope that in the next week the shortage of testing kits will have been resolved. 

There’s a longer-term lesson, of course. Government is nothing more or nothing less than what we are promising and contracting to do with and for each other. We should expect a lot from government, and we will pay when we disrespect what we need it to do. As much as it has been sullied or compromised, self-determination came to us as a gift. It will take some time, and countless individual steps, but we can restore it. Won’t it be a splendid thing when we do that?

For a lot of us, social distancing means struggling to maintain income. It means keeping ourselves safe and healthy, supporting our communities, schooling and otherwise caring for children and grandchildren, and countless other tasks. However, some of us have time on our hands, and we can set aside some time each day toward the task of winning an election.

There is a formula for winning, and we must take advantage of it. We’re winning now because Joe Biden appeals to a broad cross section of voters, including independents. Look at the news from Arizona, where Biden has a nice lead, and where Senatorial candidate Mark Kelly is leading Trump-genuflecting Martha McSally. Look at Florida, our regular loss by micro-margins. Buoyed by the support of retirees for Biden, we’re ahead there too. Due to the calamity of 2016, much of the focus has been on the industrial Midwest, where Biden is also strong. Winning Florida and Arizona would scramble the map, and provide us with scores of winning combinations of states.

Biden has captured the right theme, calling himself the bridge to the next generation of leaders, and bringing Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke to his side. Wisely, he has courted Bernie Sanders quietly and persistently, trying to take advantage of their long-term friendship. Before we all got to the point of insisting that he promise to select a woman as vice president, he made exactly that pledge.

We’re winning because 2020 will be all about voter turnout. Our failure to go to the polls in 2016 cost us dearly. In the congressional and gubernatorial elections of 2018, in Virginia in 2019 and in this year’s primaries, we have demonstrated that we get the need to turn people out, and we get it done. The math is ours. We have a much larger pool of potential voters than the other side. And we have the best Get Out the Vote campaign chair there is, Donald J. Trump.

We had thought we would be fighting all the way to the convention over who would be our nominee. Instead, those of us who have time during our social distancing can direct ourselves toward tomorrow’s dreams.

Of course, there are the missteps to avoid:

• Could it be that some political websites are not worth the breathless link or post? Many of the claims against Trump are true, but now and again one is untrue and challenges our credibility in its retelling. For instance, Trump did not successfully cut Center for Disease Control funding prior to the emergence of the virus. He did propose funding cuts, but Congress restored them. Check PolitiFact. Of course, there may well be other damaging claims against Trump we haven’t heard about… 

• Let's stop it with the “establishment” and the “elite.” Biden has received over 10 million votes in the primaries to 7.5 million for Sanders. Are rural Texans and Florida pawns of Tom Perez at the DNC? Are elite North Carolina voters besotted with brie and chilled white wine?

• A lot of us preferred a candidate other than Joe Biden. This missive, for instance, hankered for the selection of Amy Klobuchar. But, can we remember that fallen candidates had flaws, as well as the talents we recognized? Elizabeth Warren hung on to every sentence of her Medicare for All plan for weeks after it was draining her support. Pete Buttigieg needs more years of leadership. If he can’t get it in Indiana, maybe it will happen in Biden’s cabinet.

• Could we assess underlying circumstances before we launch our ideas? Elizabeth Warren can’t be Joe Biden’s vice president because Massachusetts has a Republican Governor who in short order would appoint a Republican Senator as her replacement, perhaps foiling our efforts to get a Senate majority. That’s one reason people are advocating for Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar, neither of whom face that dilemma.

• Can we eschew the call of celebrity? Senior positions in government require specialized skills, none more than Ambassador to the United Nations. Nicholas Kristoff (of all people) suggests Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for that position. She is a spirited, committed, popular member of Congress with zero background as a diplomat.

• Won’t we start believing in ourselves again? Unbelievably, there are Democrats who believe that Donald Trump will be re-elected. Why would anyone think that? With Comey’s help (inadvertent) and Putin’s help (intentional) he threaded the needle in 2016. Get your head back up! We have built the largest electoral movement in our nation’s history. It will determine the outcome.

If we can spend the time in addition to dealing with our nation’s huge health crisis, these are three things that we can be doing:

1) Make Certain That Congress Doesn’t Head Down the Wrong Path in their Coronavirus Response
	Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic House majority have had considerable success in shaping action on the virus. In the first phase, Congress put together a research and vaccine development package totaling $8.3 billion. The second phase, just approved, includes testing reimbursement and strengthens the Unemployment Insurance system, which will provide monthly payments to millions of workers. To the considerable disgruntlement of Mitch McConnell, it makes possible emergency paid sick leave in companies with fewer than 500 employees. Phase three is already being developed and will involve considerable bi-partisan negotiation. Republicans who would not vote for Barack Obama’s economic stimulus to help us out of the Great Recession have developed new love for such measures. Given that the tax giveaway of two years past has already helped create a trillion dollar deficit, the additional stimulus of a trillion or more will be borrowed entirely from our children and grandchildren. A large part of this stimulus will be direct payments to individuals, in the range of $1,000 apiece. Luckily, Congress will end up understanding that we don’t need to send such checks to our higher income citizens, but not without Nancy Pelosi watching over this decision. Unbelievably, there is considerable “progressive” support for sending these checks to everyone, which of course would be regressive, not progressive. A second major battle is over how to help the airlines, who have used over $4 trillion of profits since the Great Recession for stock buybacks to enrich shareholders. They don’t have enough cash to withstand the period where the public has stopped flying, and no one wants a string of bankruptcies. Democrats will emphasize relief for small businesses and trade-offs will be made. It’s time to check in with your own members of Congress. Email them on one or both issues, making sure that this stimulus bill (which will be passed for certain) responds to the needs of those who are hurting the most.
2) Show That It’s Not All About the Bernie “Bros”
	Too much has been made of the most hardcore of the Bernie supporters, the young white male Bernie “Bros”. Responding to them as a cohort gives undue and unwise attention to their existence, which regardless of their numbers, will continue as long as there remains a political reporter in America. Instead, we need to focus on connecting with the Bernie supporters we know. Select two or three. Check in with them and don’t take their viewpoint for granted. Respectfully discuss with them the significance of President Biden’s early moves, including figuring out who will replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg; re-joining the Paris Climate Accords; restoring countless environmental regulations that Trump has rescinded; bolstering NATO; and re-negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran.
3) Support Michelle Obama
	Michelle Obama’s voter registration organization When We all Vote has programs across the country. In the summer or early fall she will be the nation’s most important and influential voice for registering and voting. She is the perfect person for the job. You can get behind her all the way by joining and donating.

These are hard, hard times. Quelling the virus and helping sick and unemployed persons is our first task. Our other task remains, which is giving the country the leadership to make our country glisten and show us the path forward.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#86: It is All Out There to Fight For

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The “appeal” of Donald Trump when he was “elected” was that he was outside of the American government. The thinking by the foolhardy was that this outsider position would be a benefit, enabling new freedom to tackle our dysfunctions and imagine something fresher and newer. But, Trump has been all visceral (or eviscerating) thought, and self-delusion. He didn’t know about government in the first place, or flu deaths, or what happened at Pearl Harbor, or climate change, or NATO, or France, or constitutional limitations on his power. He isn’t interested in learning anything, except if it is discovered in Kankakee or Minot that someone loves him.

In most ways, Bernie Sanders is the antithesis of Donald Trump, mercifully. He is not a con man. He can articulate his beliefs and knows exactly why he believes those things. About the only way in which they are similar is that Bernie also doesn’t have enough room in his mind for other viewpoints. It is all about the raised voice and the pointed finger. He is running for debater-in-chief.The plus side of that approach is he has made us think much harder about the shortcomings of our nation. How many of us anticipated he would suddenly run into another force on Super Tuesday, that many millions of us had it within us to throw aside debates, policy proposals and political ads for a single notion---  that Joe Biden is more likely to beat Trump than any Democrat not named Obama?

The new Fox Poll shows that we are in an excellent competitive position. 32% of those polled say that they will absolutely vote for Trump, and 45% say they will not. Before Super Tuesday,  Biden led Trump by 8 points and Sanders led Trump by 7. Among other things, this poll that Trump hates demonstrates that we are still in a favorable position even after the messy debates and the infighting we were hoping to avoid. With our candidates polling ahead of Donald Trump, it’s useful to analyze what our greatest weaknesses are. Our greatest vulnerability would be nominating Bernie.

--- First, the separation of Democratic voters into Sanders supporters and the “establishment” or the “elites” is nonsensical. Many millions of us are no more elite or establishment than Sanders’ supporters, if not less. We just don’t happen to support Bernie.

---the Gallup Poll just found 54% of voters would not support a socialist. Those polled said they were more likely to support an atheist or a Muslim! In response, Sanders and his supporters are bent upon having a nice thoughtful examination of how “democratic socialism” is different from the kind of socialism around which voters are so unenthusiastic. Disappointingly, we have no chance of being granted this opportunity to explain. Do we think Trump and his supporters are going to announce mid-summer that they now fully understand the differences? In the middle of the most consequential presidential race in our history, are we going to bet it all based upon a narrative about socialism that is totally out of our control?

--- We won by more than nine million votes in 2018 because we were able to appeal to independents in swing states. All we have to do to win in 2020 is retain these voters. The Sanders bet is to embrace policies that turn away from those independent voters in favor of attracting youthful “progressive” voters who thus far have eschewed the ballot box. None of the turnout levels in the primaries have signaled the arrival of such a new wave. Jettisoning independent voters is the mistake Donald Trump dreams we will make.

---After winning back 40 house seats by expanding affordable care and protecting pre-existing conditions running on Medicare for All is not such an outstanding idea. It would force union members to give up the coverage they fought hard for, including union members in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (do we remember those states?) It would push seniors and independents away as well, all for a proposal that has no chance to pass the Democratic Senate if we can win back the majority, and we will be likely to win the majority if we advance this proposal. Bernie is dealing us a losing hand.

Post super-Tuesday, against all prior expectations we are finally and suddenly in a new stage. It is possible to believe that we will nominate well, pick an exciting vice-presidential candidate, and head into the late summer and fall still holding a lead over Donald Trump. Then it will all come down to the work that we know that we must and can do, with the extra motivation of saving our country.

There is much to do in our own states. There will be money to be raised and sent and postcards to be written and our own independent voters to persuade. There’s no state in the country without swing state legislative districts to be defended or flipped, or a congressional seat that we need to keep in our column or add to our column. 

Nonetheless, the will to travel is very strong. It’s a monumental election that could be determined by a miniscule victory margin. All of us need to make ourselves as large as we can be. Can you imagine if we had five thousand more field volunteers in the right place in 2016? Let’s not be sitting disconsolately in mid-November wishing we had been in Sedona in September or Orlando in October.

On the other hand, let’s not take our bright and shiny selves out for a trip and come back all travel weary and unfulfilled politically. It is all in taking the correct steps in advance. There is nothing quite as discouraging as getting connected to a volunteer coordinator who doesn’t know what she or he is doing. You don’t want a beleaguered campaign coordinator to give you a walk around list that was utilized three days before. To have the highest possible impact, start working on this right now. Ideas gleaned from previous travelers:

1) Pick the Right Place to Go
No one has done a better job of identifying swing states than Swing Left, with their Super State Strategy. They have been especially interested in twofers like Arizona and North Carolina and Georgia, where we can capture electoral votes and take a Senator away from Mitch McConnell. Competitive Democratic candidates at multiple levels feed off each other’s strengths, help increase turnout and add to the meaningful workload that volunteers can take on. If you find yourself being persuaded to go to a state not seen as in play, un-persuade yourself immediately! Assign yourself as though you are a valuable resource, because you are.

2) Stay at Least a Couple of Weeks if You Can
If you end up in the right place, each day you will be more comfortable and more valuable than you were the day before.

3) If You Can Find a Group, Go With a Group
The last missive underscored the work of Common Purpose, a Washington state organization which is scheduling group trips to sixteen swing states, each with advance briefings. Each is hosted by a local sponsoring organization which manages the work assignments. Look for an organization in your own state that is sponsoring field work. See what Indivisible has to offer. Call your state Democratic Party office and see what they know about who is sponsoring groups.

4) Check the Local Sponsor
Ideally, you can find a sponsor that has been around and knows a lot about local politics. In most but not all cases, independent organizations will be superior to a candidate’s own campaign office, which is even more likely to be besieged.

5) Make Necessary Adjustments
If you accidentally end up in a campaign situation that is dysfunctional, don’t stay silent. Find out if there is someone who can fix it, and if not look right away for another assignment.

6) Advertise Your Special Skills
If you are an experienced event organizer, or a data specialist, or speak Spanish or have any eyebrow-raising skill, make certain people know about it.

7) Do it Like it Matters
Think of every single doorbell, every single phone call or sign waving event as the action that could put us over the top. The margins could turn out to be incredibly thin. Remember that we lost on turnout in 2016 and we’re going to win on turnout in 2020. You will be out there making that happen.

We can do three things right now to give our fellow travelers the best chance to have an impact. The more voters we register right now, the better chance they will have to generate turnout in the fall. You already know about Rock the Vote which has made possible hundreds of thousands of online registrations. To make certain we are getting extra power and enthusiasm in the swing states, pick one of these three and support them now. Or to show you know what year it is, pick them all now.

1) In Arizona, Get Behind One Arizona
	One Arizona is an excellent coalition effort featuring 23 advocacy organizations. These include the state Mi Vota Familia organization, that has registered hundreds of thousands of Latino-Americans across several states.
2) In Georgia, We Could Pick Up Two Senate Seats
	As mentioned in a previous missive, Georgia is prime territory, because voter suppression was victorious there in 2018 and we can’t let that happen again. Stacey Abrams, barely defeated for Governor in 2018, is an amazing leader. She is an internationalist, an entrepreneur and the former chair of the Democrats in Georgia’ House of Representatives. Presidential electoral votes and two Senate seats are up for grabs. We can win them in a fair fight, and that’s what Abrams’ organization is going to give us.
3) Why Not Go Out and Win in North Carolina
	For a couple of days, Republican Senator Thom Tillis indicated he might argue against Trump’s misappropriation of federal funds to build a wall. Trump changed Tillis’ mind. On the matter of Tillis in any way acting as a part of the legislative branch, it isn’t going to happen. Democracy North Carolina is working to add more registered voters and to get more people to the polls.

We have things to do. Get behind the nominee, and her or his vice president. Plan to spend some time in a swing state or do everything we can from wherever it is we are sitting. There are only eight months left, and everything is out there to fight for, every day.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#85: Alert: We Do Not Control How Socialism is Defined

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Soon, Roger Stone will find his home in the slammer, which is what happens when you make false statements to the FBI and indulge in some witness tampering. The rule of law will be upheld in the face of a relentless assault by the President. 

We are left to arguing over whether Attorney General Bill Barr genuinely chastised the President over his tweets about federal cases, or whether his push back was designed to cover his own attacks not just upon the Department of Justice, but on justice itself. It turns out both things are true. Barr’s remarks were unapproved, and may even rankle Donald Trump, since everything else does. But those remarks will help Barr do bad things regarding Mike Flynn, or the FISA court, or some other Trump grievance. 

Barr may even have a tiny bit of regret as the President boxes him in and destroys the rest of his reputation. Those who have received Presidential blessings in the past—John Bolton, chief of staff John Kelley, General Jim Mattis, even Steve Bannon realize that ministrations must be offered and accepted weekly or no comfort will ensue. Mike Pompeo, be forewarned. Others have thought that they could still make a little public policy and be a sycophant all at once. When you make a list of who has done so, you realize no one is on that list because just when they think their counsel is valued it will be discarded, or mocked. Mike Pence, Trump’s base doesn’t care for you at all. What will you do after we take back the presidency?

Three big cases are going just fine, demonstrating that judges remember the oaths they swore. In United States vs. Roger Stone, Judge Amy Berman Jackson does not have to listen to Barr’s revised sentencing recommendation, way below the guidelines set in federal statute. Because she doesn’t have to, she won’t. 

On March 31, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on three separate court rulings requiring Donald Trump to release his tax returns. Actions to compel Trump have been filed by New York State attorney Cyrus Vance, by the House Oversight Committee, and separately by the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committee. These are promising because Trump’s attorneys have been seeking to establish an unprecedented level of presidential immunity, well beyond the level that Chief Justice Roberts is likely to accept. The Court is expected to rule by late June.

There is good news as well in the relentless Trump-led effort to find people who need food and take it away from them. A three-judge federal appellate panel has rejected an Arkansas effort to impose Trumps’ onerous work rules on food stamp recipients. The rules had cut aid to 18,000 people. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, the new rules will remain frozen.

There have been notable successes in using the courts as the last and often best defense against Trump. These include the ruling overturning the participation-limiting citizenship question the administration tried to add to the Census. Unfortunately, the courts ultimately approved a revised and a tiny bit less onerous Trump travel ban and his misuse of appropriated funds to build the wall.

All resisters understand that it would be a spectacularly bad idea to let the assault upon the rule of law to go on another four years. That would be unbearable outcome. As we all know, it is entirely preventable on November 3.

We learned a lot in the congressional election of 2018. Not least, we learned how to attract five million more votes from independents, many from the suburbs. Are we going to forget it all, and instead bet that we can tutor Americans on their understanding of “democratic socialism?”

Our ranks are filled with smart people who can explain what parts of our society are socialistic, and why the American public should not feel concerns about Bernie Sanders’ self-professions. These attempts are of note because the Gallup Poll just found that 53% of Americans won’t vote for a socialist. 

The problem is that even with that continued counsel from Sanders supporters, we are not even close to controlling this narrative at present. We will be even further away from controlling this narrative in the middle of the summer if we serve up to Donald Trump a premium way to divide us from the voter. “Democratic socialism” is a club with which to hit us over the head, each day from now until November 3. We must not and cannot have this be the central bet we will place in the most consequential election of our lifetimes.

Let’s be strong from within our extraordinary movement. A tiny number of delegates have been distributed, so we can keep on listening to debates and sorting our candidates. Advocates, let’s keep our thumb off the scale when we report on candidate’s voting records. (That includes you, Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund and your “case” against everyone except your two favorite candidates). Let’s show some care as well with our own personal candidate evaluations. With regard to Mayor Pete, when did earnestness get identified as an undesirable trait? We all get to decide whether we should be swayed by Michael Bloomberg’s ad buys, but calling him “corrupt” generally means he is doing something illegal, which he is not. We might also want to stop pretending that Michael Bloomberg ever supported redlining, which he did not. Stop and frisk was wrong in its time and during any time. It’s up to us to judge what he is saying about it now, and whether it disqualifies him from our vote.

No one is telling us we can’t glory in our passions, and fiercely debate who we should pick. Might that be Senator Amy Klobuchar, fresh from as good a three minute debate speech as we have heard this year? Millions of us are going to do everything we can between now and November 3 to defeat Donald Trump. Since flocks of us will be traveling to swing states, this missive will soon address how to make sure such traveling campaigner adventures can generate the highest possible election value. The first thing to remember is the selection of an on-the-ground partner. It is hard to do worse than going three thousand miles and then be handed a doorbelling list for a neighborhood which has just been covered.

If you are in a blue state from which travelers will migrate, look for groups in your area that are traveling together, that are well briefed and organized, and that have already secured a solid in-state partner. Washington State’s Common Purpose is an exemplar of this approach.

In the meantime, now that we are nine months away from independence, let’s do these three things:

1) Support the Major Defense Against Trump’s Offenses
	State Attorneys General have been an indispensable litigant trying (and often succeeding) to keep Trump within the constraints of the rule of law. They have filed over a hundred lawsuits. Many are pending. This excellent summary from Canada’s largest newspaper charts the considerable success of these states. These include highly notable cases in the areas of immigration and the Affordable Care Act, and great “under the radar” wins, such as blocking the Trump administration from allowing the online release of blueprints for making guns with 3-D printers. It’s time to check the performance of your state’s Attorney General, see the extent to which she or he has been a player, and thank them for standing up to Trump.
2) Give Fair Fight a Fair Chance to Battle Voter Suppression in Georgia
	Led by their Secretary of State, Brian Kemp (himself running for Governor), Georgia Republicans spent all of 2018 working on new ways and time-tested ways to suppress the African-American vote. Over five years, they closed 214 polling places and thus decreased voting access. As a direct result, Democrat Stacey Abrams ending up losing the Governor’s race by just 50,000 votes out of nearly two million cast. Stacey is fighting back with her new voting rights and voter registration organization, Fair Fight. This organization would be a key place to invest in any year. This year they are even more important since a resignation and a retirement leave open both Georgia seats in the U.S. Senate. You can boost Stacey’s efforts and help put Mitch McConnell in the minority all with the same click!
3) Figure Out Multiple Ways to Help Amy Klobuchar
	Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis is right. It’s suddenly obvious Amy Klobuchar is the Democrat’s best bet. One could read similar sentiments two missives ago! There’s nothing wrong with supporting another viable candidate. We’re all trying to figure this out. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with giving Amy a look if you haven’t already.

You can feel it intensifying as the weeks go by. You could let the Trumpian mean-spiritedness and daily assault on our country wear you down. The alternative would be to cause it to propel you, every day until November 3. Let’s choose that option.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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