#89: We are Going Out and Getting Ourselves a New President

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There’s a narrative out there that says that Donald Trump is doing the same things that other presidents would do in a pandemic. This school argues that we are blinded to his actions because we irrationally apply our dislike of him to everything he does, or because his style doesn’t meet presidential norms, or because he is talking too long at press briefings.

This narrative is untrue. Trump is not even close to doing the same things as other presidents would do. We are not blinded to his actions, we are painfully aware of them. Every step along the way has been far too slow, and has cost lives. February (the most important month for the countries that have done well) was a lost month. By then, Trump had the information upon which he needed to act. Through misrepresentation, he was trying to protect the economy from the health crisis, and by this malfeasance, he ended up worsening both. 

Of course, Donald Trump is not the only one to fall dismally short, thus costing American lives. But he is the only one who has the powers of the President of the United States. For months now, we have been lacking testing kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for our caregivers. The Defense Production Act gives the president clear authority to attend to the supply chain in a time of national emergency. This is the one thing that he could have done that would have been most telling and which was clearly within his powers. Instead he said he would not be a supply clerk and sent 50 governors into a scarcity-plagued open market, all the time sniping away at them. His son in law denied that the national stockpile was intended for the use of the states, even though that is precisely its purpose.

It is common during dark hours for everyone involved to remind that they themselves stolidly and persistently sought to warn and protect us all. Donald Trump can rail at the press all he wants. His problem is not fake news, but the news--- he is on tape in February saying it will all be gone when the warm April weather comes. It isn’t. He can counter punch reporters and Governors each day, but it’s the under-equipped medical teams and the body bags that are etched in our consciousness and will remain so. There is no better analysis of the missteps and the missed steps than that of the New York Times.

Then of course there is the astonishing representation by the president that he has absolute powers to overturn gubernatorial stay at home orders. He’s walking away from that by now, after being told of that pesky 10th amendment to the Constitution, reserving powers to the states and to the people. How sad that the richest and most powerful nation could not have been a leader when the world needed it most. In this country, we are standing together, fighting for life itself, and determining a direction, he is nowhere in our group of guides. His compass points to himself.

What to do is to honor the caregivers and essential workers who are serving us all and follow the rules that Governors have set down. We can help each other every day and we remind ourselves that this will not be over when the stay at home restrictions are reduced. As all of these things are taking place, we can go out and get ourselves a new president.

We are making excellent progress in that regard. Consider the news of the week:

• Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Joe Biden was full throated and left no doubt that he will be behind Biden from now until November. We have now officially skipped the three agonizing months of back and forth that we suffered in 2016 and which dissipated Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Now it’s time to show Bernie’s supporters what they already know--- there are monumental democracy-saving differences between Trump and Biden.
• The fact that Barack Obama has been silent until now makes his pointed, eloquent endorsement that much more powerful. It is available on You Tube. When there is a podium, Obama will be at it. His ability to focus us on what counts is a huge boost. 
• The Senate races are looking good. Susan Collins unfortunately spent the last four years trying to not upset Donald Trump, and thus sacrificed her principles weekly. She is running behind former speaker of the Maine House Sara Gideon. Amy McGrath is definitely in play in Kentucky against the soulless Mitch McConnell.
• Rather than getting our promising outlook just from polls, we can look to the latest in real time election results. In Wisconsin, after Republicans carried out their voter suppression strategy, Democratic Supreme Court nominee Jill Karofsky won. This was even though Republicans refused to turn to mail voting and the Milwaukee polling places were shrunk from 180 to 5.
• Polls show Biden ahead of Trump in several states that we lost in 2016, such as Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

It’s difficult. We have to attend to our lives, our families and our communities, and not let political matters distract us from the vigilance the virus continues to demand. Yet, we cannot ignore one of the most glaring truths that the virus has brought us. It matters who is president. A President who is a learner, who understands and can sort out evidence and recommendations from health professionals, who is aware and thus can exercise his specific, very considerable constitutional and statutory authority, who knows what government can do and how it can do it would be an extraordinarily valuable person during a pandemic. Recognizing that the world is a very, very dangerous place, let’s get a president like that and do these three things:

1) Make the Checks Stimulating
	Legally, Donald Trump cannot sign the stimulus checks. So, he has ordered his name put on the subject line of the checks! We cannot stop him, but if we have the means, we can make sure a portion of the checks he has put his name on go to help our country defend against him or recover from him. There are scores of organizations to whom donations are tax deductible and which are trying to strengthen America in the age of Trump. For a part of your stimulus check, consider Michelle Obama’s voter registration effort, When We All Vote.  Or send a part of your stimulus to the best effort right now to add to the number of states with mail-in ballots, the Brennan Center for Justice. Or, give some hungry people some food that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are trying to take away.
2) Celebrate a Nutrition Victory and Learn More
	Ever since Trump was elected, environmental, health, science and nutrition groups have been pushing back against his wholesale attack on governmental regulation. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has just secured a victory in at least temporarily restoring school nutrition standards.  Science in the Public Interest seems like such a novel concept in these times that you may wish to honor it by getting regular briefings from the Center.
3) Put Yourself on Joe Biden’s List Now
	We need to make certain that Joe Biden (and his running mate Kamala Harris/ Stacey Abrams/ Amy Klobuchar) have a list of millions of small donors. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you wouldn’t want to go through 2020 without recognizing that this is the place to be.

You can’t help but be worried about America, and weary of the struggle. But you can decide what to do to handle those worries, and to generate all new energy from the weariness. And, you can recognize how much difference that will make.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#88: We Will Keep Our Communities Strong

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Our collective national calamity is robbing us of loved ones, making fear ever present and threatening to deprive us of the feeling of community that we cherish. We are not accustomed to mustering the strength that is being demanded of us. We cling to any information that we are influencing the curve, that testing will become commonplace, that the number of hospital ICU beds equipped with ventilators will continue to grow, and that we soon will reach the peak.

South Korea and the US got their first confirmed case on the same day, January 21. There will be enough time between now and November to understand what happened then. In South Korea, they ran 55,000 tests in February, identifying cases, initiating quarantines and flattening their curve from the outset. During the same time, Donald Trump was saying the virus was going to disappear, that we have it under control, and that Democratic efforts to underscore its danger were a hoax. With Fox as Trump’s science adviser, we tested less than 1,000 people in February and are only now doing testing at necessary levels. Because it has taken us much longer to act, our curve has yet to flatten and tens of thousands of people will suffer preventable death.

As time passes, there will be plenty of say about Donald Trump and this national health crisis. To this day, as body counts rise, protective gear shortages persist, and emergency hospitals are being constructed, Trump is being his own self. While America is sheltering, mourning and weeping, Donald Trump is tweeting his press conference ratings.

The most telling of all of the morally reprehensible acts Trump has committed has just been visited upon us. A month after assuring us the virus was under full control, 10 days after telling us we could well re-open by Easter, he has a new announcement, that as many as 100,000-240,000 people might well die. Unfortunately, this statement does not represent an epiphany for him, or at least it isn’t all it represents. In advance of summer or fall campaign ads, he is setting himself up with a high number so that he and Kelly Conway can seek to claim later that his hard work averted the worst. 

The end of this worldwide scourge will come, and with it will come Trump’s downfall too. You can’t counterpunch Dr. Anthony Fauci or even Governor Andrew Cuomo, even though some Trump supporters have tried. Even more compelling, there’s no workable con when it comes to the number of body bags. All spring and summer they will be a reminder of what government at its best can do and what it can fail to do when it is not at its best.

It is unlikely that the Congress will put together a fourth legislative package any time soon. If it happens, we can be sure that Nancy Pelosi will stand up strong, as she did in shifting much of the $2 trillion stimulus package from Mitch McConnell’s wishes to the needs of the people. Joe Biden has put an excellent plan forward on what we should have done and what we can do next. 

On the election side, the Fox News poll is holding up well, with Biden leading Trump 49% to 40%.  Other polls demonstrate that our margins in 300 swing counties are strong. The issue will remain whether we can get people voting, which we were able to do in record number in 2018, 2019 and in this year’s primaries.

With heavy hearts, we summon ourselves to do these three things:

1) Put Bernie on a Different Course
	A previous missive outlined the long list of things that we can say to the small but still meaningful minority of Bernie Sanders supporters who are unsure of where they are headed. There are some things we should be stressing to Bernie himself. At this point, he has two avowed motivations, to pursue a slim chance of being nominated and to make certain that his policy ideas get traction with a broader range of Democrats. The fact is, there is no path to victory. Maintaining his campaign in this period of national crisis does not strengthen his already considerable impact on our collective agenda. It weakens it. He has been friends with Joe Biden for decades. The way for him to increase his influence is to come together now. Write him on his “comments” page, pick an issue, and tell him it is time to be with us.
2) Preparing for the Possibility of an Election During a Pandemic
	We are likely to have been freed from social distancing in October and November. Since we don’t know that for certain, we need to be preparing now for how our elections will be well managed. Luckily, states manage the election process, not the Trump “led” national government. No one is doing a better job of monitoring the states and proposing improvements that can be made between now and November than the Brennan Center at New York University. Analyze the state by state guide they have just published. Decide what you need to say to your state legislators and governors, and say it today.
3) Send Mitch to a Back Bench
	There are a number of Senatorial seats in play where we can win back our majority. Maine, Colorado and Arizona are extremely promising. Things are looking better and better in North Carolina, where the Republican incumbent Thom Tillis has fully bought into Trump’s chamber of horrors. He signaled that he might object to Trump’s usurpation of Congressional powers but caught himself in time. Cal Cunningham is our candidate. He is a former State Senator and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. If you have some money to spare, it would be a very good idea to send it to his campaign.

It will be like it is now for several weeks at least, if not months. Our family, our neighbors and our communities come first. We will emerge. When we do, we will not have lost our obsession with putting our imperfect and beloved country back on the right path.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#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

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.

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