#96: How We Will Seek to Redeem a Country’s Soul

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Find out below how to participate in our Zoom session with swing district Congressional candidate Alyse Galvin!

John Lewis said we are fighting to redeem the soul of our country. Right now, we are not fighting hard enough. Nicholas Kristof reminds us that as we win on November 3, there will be promise ahead of us. In no way do we have to give in to midnight in America. Rather than the despair that abounds, we see a long but very real path forward toward ending the virus, restoring the economy, and addressing systemic racism in new and powerful ways. We can choose to take that path.

We will wake up on November 4 and tackle America’s enormous unfinished business. No single action taken by President Biden or a Senate rid of Mitch McConnell’s grip will re-establish us as newly worthy of the attention and respect of the world. Countless actions taken over years will do so. Even as we restore environmental protection, show global leadership, significantly expand health care and battle racism, the bulk of the work to meet John Lewis’ soul redemption plea will remain unfinished. This is not a short term project, but we are all in.

We’re all in, unless we have joined the ranks of reactors rather than participants. Railing at Donald Trump and fighting to defeat him are not mutually exclusive propositions. Nonetheless, getting or giving likes or shares or re-tweets or other approvals of a clever or snarky takedown of Donald Trump is not an act of resistance. Listening to Randy Rainbow parody songs, meditating on Melania, commenting on Trump’s hair, and mulling over Trump’s cognitive tests may feel necessary in order for one to bear another day of this awful president. But these things must not be conflated with the actual well-known steps necessary to win an election. There is no such thing as a social media warrior, unless or until they turn their justifiable antipathy toward Trump into actions. Without action, it is just another echo chamber, of which this nation has plenty,

John Lewis exemplified the difference between righteousness and self-righteousness. The first is emboldening and energizing, the second draining and distracting. We have the next 3 ½ months to practice the first. 

Maybe we always intended to participate in an organized resistance group, and it never happened. As the election date neared, the pandemic overwhelmed. Now it may seem like there is nothing to do but watch it all unfold.

It isn’t too late, of course. There is still a great opportunity and need to engage, rather than observe. Polls do not represent an election, but the difference between where we stood at this time in 2016 and where we stand now is pronounced and encouraging, as Harry Enten discusses. In the face of these data, our duty is to 1) remain uncomfortable, and 2) drive home whatever lead we might well have.

If we intensify our already high level of activity, then we will win back more Senate seats than the net of three that we must secure. Past three, every additional seat makes it that much more possible to do some soul redemption for our nation. There are juicy opportunities beyond the highly rated efforts to unseat Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis and Martha McSally with John Hickenlooper, Sara Gideon, Cal Cunningham, and Mark Kelly. We can defeat Mitch McConnell with Amy McGrath, Steve Daines with Steve Bullock, Lindsay Graham with Jaime Harrison, and that is still just the start.

Engaging more intensively is still possible because of the many postcard-writing, texting, calling, voter-registering, turnout-inducing and personal campaigning efforts underway. It is helpful to be affiliated. It isn’t too late to sign up with Indivisible, Swing Left, the Sister District Project, with a specific campaign, or an exemplary regionally based organizing unit, like Western Washington’s Common Purpose, now renaming itself Common Power.

And it isn’t too late to be unaffiliated but still helpful. Postcards to Swing States is a project of Indivisible in Chicago. They will send individual campaigners postcards and addresses, all to be mailed in October and all focused on generating the necessary turnout in then ten most critical states. Also, some individual campaigns are overwhelmed with volunteers, but not all. Those unattached at this point can shop around and find a good candidate set up to deploy volunteers well. And we must all remember the state legislative races that are nearby.

With all of that, there is one other things all of us can be doing even without joining a group.
There is someone out there who you know who (unbelievably) doesn’t plan to vote or (even more unbelievably) believes there isn’t much difference between the two candidates. There is more distance between Biden and Trump than there was between Washington and King George III! Please find those people, make sure they are registered, and get them to vote. Any questions as to how to register can be answered by Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote. 

Honoring John Lewis properly will take some time. There will be initial attention to the possible renaming of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma after Lewis, and then the attention rightly will turn to what will be named the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. It is intended to restore the strength of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, for which Lewis nearly gave his life. Originally, the Act required federal “pre-clearance” of election law changes in several states. In 2014, the Supreme Court invalidated this provision, ruling it was no longer related to evidence of discriminatory practices in those states.

The battle over voter suppression has widened considerably since the Supreme Court decision. Advocates have found new ways to push back against restrictive voter identification laws, poll closures and other suppressive tactics. A re-charged Voting Rights Act named after Lewis would be the perfect way to provide further momentum for all of these efforts, as well as holding specific states to account as the law initially provided.

Since Mitch McConnell refused to recognize that voter suppression exists in America, taking back the Senate is a must for John Lewis to be remembered in this way. Here are three things we can do head in the right direction:

1) Avoid Losing the Focus on Racism
	Republicans have adopted multiple strategies to reduce voter registration and turnout because the more people that vote, the less likely they are to win. The long-standing Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition of 200 civil rights organizations which will make sure that identification of racism is a central element of the ongoing struggle. You can be certain that you understand every dimension of the effort to create a strengthened Voting Rights Act in John Lewis’ honor by staying in touch with the Leadership Conference.
2) Drive the Message Home in Alabama
	It is ironic that the one thing that destroyed Jeff Sessions’ political career in Alabama is the act of which he should be most proud. As Attorney General, he recused himself from the Mueller investigation. That is why Donald Trump made sure former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville won the Republican primary. Since Tuberville is out of his league, it enhances the chance that Democratic Senator Doug Jones can hold onto his seat. We need a net of 3 seats to take back the Senate, and it will make that a lot easier if we can pull this off, but it will be difficult. Now is the time to help.
3) Add to our House Majority
	The bigger the House majority we are able to build, the more likely we are to sustain a House majority over time. Flipping additional House seats requires us to pay attention and not let ourselves be fully distracted by Senate races. This missive is sponsoring three Zoom sessions over six weeks featuring and hosting swing district candidates who have already demonstrated their excellent potential for flipping a seat. The second session features the tireless Alyse Galvin, who has come from behind to run neck and neck with long time Representative Don Young in Alaska. This one-hour Zoom is scheduled for Thursday, August 6, at 6:30pm PST. To get the Zoom link, RSVP on our Facebook event or email me at dsh347@gmail.com.

It is just over a hundred days until we throw off this crushing burden we have been carrying around for four years. Imagine the new promise it will bring and strive to make it so.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#95: We Must Keep Our Eyes on this Prize

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Find out below how to participate in our zoom session with swing district Congressional candidate Carolyn Long!

Braxton Bragg was a terrible Civil War general, much unloved both by his soldiers and his fellow officers. He was a slaveholding plantation owner. His temper was legendary, and he specialized in bitter and unwarranted criticism of people he barely knew. He was a bad strategist, so Jefferson Davis ultimately relieved him of his command. If ever a military installation begged for renaming, it is Fort Bragg in North Carolina. If ever there was a man who would refuse to do it in order to protect our “heritage,” it is Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, the truth is that shielding our eyes from much of our past IS part of our heritage. Thus, we have chosen this time in our history to own up to the inconvertible fact that we have not been the land of the free. We embrace what has always been the best of the American experiment, our huge aspirations, our love for the idea of freedom and self-determination. We are not even close to finished with the American experiment. With agonizing slowness, our nation has kindled dreams for all, not just the Protestant white male property owners that were by far the most privileged after our independence from England. There was a reason why the Statue of Liberty was always seen as a beacon. It is not extinguished and we will not let that happen.

That’s why resisters are already emphasizing what we can become and what we can accomplish during the four years of the Biden presidency, before he stands aside for a younger leader. (All of this depends of course on us keeping our focus and thus maintaining our lead between now and November 3.) We recognize that there is a necessary unfinished agenda from the Obama presidency. Not the least is the salvaging and grand expansion of the Affordable Care Act. The repairs of Trump’s misdeeds will be paramount and must be addressed daily. The pandemic must be ended and the next one prevented. Every day, we must show that our country remembers what happened to George Floyd.

And there is so much more to be done early in President Biden’s term: protection of a woman’s right to choose, constantly under fire. Undoing the executive orders that accelerated environmental degradation. Getting us back into the Climate Accords and improving them. Shielding Dreamers. Restoring our position in the world community. Renewing global friendships and distancing ourselves from dictators. Addressing the income inequality that otherwise will surely unravel us. 

We feel the urgency to remake America, honoring what Barack Obama was able to achieve and going beyond it. We’re already mindful of the ways we will be constrained in January 2021 and beyond. Notable barriers will remain even after Trump takes his legendary misdeeds and untruths and starts to occupy his own rightful place in history, as the malevolent nativist divider of the American people. 

As we take on the post-Trump restoration of the American presidency, we will face three major obstacles, each of which is already causing misery among those that want to accelerate the coming reforms. In all three cases, the constraints are meaningful but manageable, if we are well led, stay together and get at least a slim majority in the United State Senate.

First, we are hampered by the constitutionally ordained makeup of the United States Senate, in its award of two Senators for each state regardless of its population. This was a necessary condition to form the Union in 1789, and gives oversized power to often conservative voters in rural states. This condition has no chance of being changed, since any constitutional amendment process would have to be agreed to in those same rural states. There is no point in being heartsick over it. It is important to note that some of the rural states that are lumped as one by critics have some purple coloring, including Alaska, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Maine, and New Hampshire, or are blue, like Vermont. Even South Dakota had a Democratic Senator up until 2018.

Second, we are constrained by Supreme Court, whose narrow conservative majority seems unlikely to shift in the next decade. We will live with the unnecessary arrival of Brett Kavanuagh and Neil Gorsuch into our lives for a generation or so. We will experience countless painful rulings from the Court during Joe Biden’s presidency. However, Roberts and Gorsuch recently played the key role in expanding employment protections to LGBTQ Americans under the Civil Rights Act. This is as consequential a ruling as there has been in years. Kavanagh helped Roberts block Trump’s continued attack on Dreamers. Splendidly, in a 5-4 decision Roberts treated certain protections for abortion clinics as settled law. This court will not necessarily erect major obstacles to a reform agenda led by Biden and Senate Democrats.

Third, we are constrained by the Senate’s own self-imposed rules, which in many cases require a supermajority (60 votes) to close off debate. It would take 50 votes to apply the “nuclear option” and eliminate this rule. Such Democratic Senators as Diane Feinstein and Joe Manchin are reluctant to do it, because it has worked in our favor to block Mitch McConnell, most notably in preventing the decimation of the Affordable Care Act through countless attacks, and in saving the Iran nuclear deal. Other Democrats believe now is the time to exercise the nuclear option, as they angle for major legislative action on climate change. 

This is an issue to watch closely, not getting caught up in former Majority Leader Harry Reid’s rhetoric, beseeching us to use the option. Reid was smart enough to never do it while he was in power. Democrats like Delaware’s Chris Coons (close to Biden) have defended the rule in the past. In showing a new interest in changing the rules to close debate (perhaps short of the nuclear option) Coons is signaling that Democrats will not accept McConnell using his minority powers to block major legislation on gun control, immigration and climate change. If we get the new Senate majority, guaranteeing that we won’t use the nuclear option represents disarmament, since its threat can induce concessions by Republican leaders. Eventually having to use it is an awful choice, because we will want desperately for 45 votes to have sway sometime in the future.

So, it behooves us to embrace and build from all that we can do within the existing rules of the Senate:

--- As with Trump, Biden needs only 50 votes to confirm federal judges and presidential appointments. If we gain the majority it will give him the opportunity to name the successor to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

--- Biden and his Vice President, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor can immediately restore our standing in NATO, renew our friendship with France and Germany, rescind Trump’s departure from various international agreements, re-visit the six nation accord with Iran; and develop a coherent US trade policy.

--- It will take time, but Biden and his EPA administrator and Interior Secretary can reverse all of the executive actions that Trump and his minions took eliminating environmental regulation.

--- Biden can find means to use the budget reconciliation process (which is not subject to the 60-vote rule for closing debate) to advance major fiscally oriented policies as Republicans recently did with the tax bill. For instance, reconciliation could be used to battle climate change by creating a huge green infrastructure “bank,” or modifying tax policy that advantages fossil fuels. This is in addition to returning to the Paris accords and working to boost the efforts of the states.

--- Absent action from Congress (and under Supreme Court scrutiny) Biden can use executive orders to protect transgendered persons, shield Dreamers, sharply increase the federal role in reinventing policing, and advance gun regulation.

--- Importantly, many of the provisions of the greedy Trump/McConnell 2017 tax law will expire in 2025. That will give Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer leverage on tax policy from early on in the Biden administration. McConnell simply blocking tax reform (as he would otherwise do) rather than participating in bi-partisan discussions would mean he would have almost nothing left of his corporate tax approach by mid-decade.

Beyond all this, within his existing powers and within the rules of the Senate President Biden can usher in an era where we have a President who acts like a President. We can step away from daily division, and enter a world where we can have some pride in our government and get some protection from it.

Let’s do these three things to find that place:

1) Continue to Flip House Seats
	The bigger the House majority we are able to build, the more likely we are to sustain a House majority over time. Flipping additional House seats requires us to pay attention to key races and to not let ourselves be fully distracted by Senate races. This missive is sponsoring three zoom sessions over the next six weeks featuring and hosting swing district candidates who have already demonstrated their excellent potential for flipping a seat. The first is Carolyn Long, running in Washington State’s 3rd Congressional District, centered in Vancouver, Washington, which is just north of Portland. Carolyn’s fresh and exciting candidacy gained her 48% of the vote in 2018. In 2020 we will put her over the top.  Would you like to join us at 4 pm Pacific time on Monday, July 20? Register here and we will spend an hour with Carolyn.
2) Warm Yourself in November by Winning Florida
	Donald Trump and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis are boosting our already good chances in Florida. Unfortunately for those over 65, they have done so by demonstrating early on that opening up businesses quickly is a priority over the health of older Floridians. Understandably, this virus mismanagement is sending older voters toward Biden. Of course the new hullaballoo will be Trump’s upcoming efforts to unmask Jacksonville during his convention speech. Lenny Curry, the Republican mayor of Jacksonville has indicated the health of the public is his primary concern. It is a great time to email him and remind him that the nation is watching and hoping he will stand up for what is right: MayorLennyCurry@coj.net.
3) Make Certain Voters Can Vote
	Voter suppression efforts are underway in several states, not least of which are Donald Trump’s efforts to misrepresent the safety and security of mail ballots. One way to prevent suppression is to guarantee voters can overcome obstacles in their path, including often confusing voter ID requirements. Vote Riders is the inventive national assistance program on voter ID, and it partners with voter registration and turnout organizations in multiple states. It is a good idea to make sure they have the resources to do their job.

If election day were today, that would be a very good thing. The polls look excellent, the Biden campaign seems well managed, and Donald Trump is insulting NASCAR. Four more months to continue our intensity of effort and end this nightmare.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#94: Americans Want and Need a Presidential President

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For the most part, it’s not good that many Americans lack a fundamental knowledge of the workings of government.  At least we have a leader on this front, since, as John Bolton says, the President’s own lack of knowledge is “stunning”.

For just a minute, Donald Trump’s lack of knowledge, incuriousness and even contempt for knowledge on the workings of government has turned to our nation’s advantage. This is the good news and the bad news. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Trump-expulsion of Dreamers could have been prevented by any of hundreds of thousands of high school civics teachers, bloggers, or small town lawyers. Luckily, Trump listens to no one and insists that his minions listen to no one but him. The court’s finding that Trump’s actions violated the Administrative Procedures Act by being “arbitrary and capricious” offers a simple solution that Trump could have followed all along--- don’t be that way.

In his executive order protecting Dreamers, Barack Obama knew that he had no clear statutory authority and that he was stretching presidential powers as far as he could, since Congress had failed to act. All Donald Trump had to do was carefully and meticulously prepare his executive order, following the procedures of the Administrative Procedures Act by providing a “reasoned explanation”. The majority of the Court has a low standard for the extent to which it wishes to adjudicate the reasoning. The Court simply maintained that the reasoning can’t be absent, which it was.

Of course this means Trump still has a path to expel Dreamers. Luckily, he is running out of time, since a federal district court is likely to enjoin his next action, making that injunction subject to appeal, and putting these matters off until after November.

All of this is bizarrely similar to Trump’s 5-4 loss on adding an immigration status question to the Census. Here too Justice Roberts ruled that the Trump administration’s reasoning was “contrived”.  Trump could have been successful by paying even minimal attention to the details of the law, or at least permitting his supplicants to guide him. He now has tweeted that it’s all proof that the Supreme Court “doesn’t like him.” Since he is thoroughly unlikable, they shouldn’t like him, but of course that is not what has caused these two significant defeats.

There will be plenty of painful times ahead with this Court. They may do some more damage to the Affordable Care Act or the right to choose. They will likely give Trump’s tax records to a federal grand jury, but perhaps not to Congress, which has sought them. There will be further victories too. It would be hard to find one more monumental than last week’s ruling unequivocally providing LGBQT employees protection under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Trump’s losses in court are richly related to the varying stages of his mismanagement of the pandemic and his antipathy to Black Lives Matter. In all these cases, he starts by dredging his approach from the nearly empty pool of his knowledge of government, polluted by his visceral notions based upon falsehoods. He tests the approach out on Sean Hannity or Rudy Giuliani and calls it good to go.

It isn’t working. Knowledge is making a strong comeback, as it has proven necessary to fight a pandemic. Whether they are mask wearers or not, voters don’t agree with Laura Ingraham that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a part of “medical deep state”. They think he is an expert on infectious diseases. Women with a high school diploma, part of the backbone of Trump’s support in 2016, are now trending toward Joe Biden. They want a presidential President, especially in these troubled times. 

That’s the secret of our impending success. We are running a man who knows all about how government works at the exact time that voters have finally noticed that the present President does not. Trust in government still polls at low levels, but there is an accompanying notion that government should be an indispensable force for good in trying times. From COVID 19 victims to George Floyd, the memories of the dead are still with us. No Trump tweet, rally or prevarication will erase that.

In the face of the Trump decline, there is also no danger that the positive polls will lull us. In fact, instead of being lulled by a lead, many of the same people who are giving us our current significant polling advantage are simultaneously worried that Trump will ultimately prevail, even though millions of independents have extricated themselves from him. Some are even convinced Trump will win, not daring to let any hope enter their heart.

Every election is different from every other. What we have done since 2016 is learn all over again how to convince people to get out and vote, and to fiercely fight the voter suppression techniques that are the shame of the Republican Party. 

This is the year that we will do huge things for our country. Here are three things that we ought to be taking on right now:

1) Help Ban Chokeholds Nationwide
	In the past, chokehold bans have not eliminated the application of chokeholds by police officers. This is different. The over eight minutes during which Derek Chauvin carried out the slow murder of George Floyd won’t be forgotten. Citizens will be empowered to monitor the streets, and cell phone cameras will play a new role in preventing misconduct. With your help, cities and towns across the country will explicitly ban chokeholds.   Check and make certain your own city has taken the right steps, or check whether your state has passed a law that covers all cities and towns. This chart by 8 Can’t Wait compares the use of force policies in scores of cities. It is a good time to call your mayor.
2) Add to Your List of Targeted Senate Races
	When Republican Joni Earl got herself elected to the United States Senate in 2014, she used her farming background to say she would “make them squeal” like a pig by challenging federal budget deficits. She ended up making corporations and the wealthiest donors squeal with joy instead, as they hogged the advantages of an Ernst supported tax bill unbalancing the budget by another trillion dollars. Donald Trump has at least one fact straight, that he is in trouble in Iowa. That’s why he pleaded with Xi Jingping for China to buy agricultural products to help him get re-elected. Farmers and farm communities who stood with him believing in his blustery trade war with China are reconsidering as the Trump administration now argues with itself where the trade deal stands. Joni Earl is an enabler of it all, and a good choice as resisters seek to flip another Senate seat, building upon our promising positions in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. A new poll has Joni Earl’s long time lead evaporating. It is time to send a little love in the direction of Theresa Greenfield.
3) Get on Joe Biden’s List Today
	The Biden campaign has enough work to do without having to worry about whether we support him. The more voters he can lock down, the more time he can spend on people who he needs to persuade either to vote for him or to vote at all. Even if you have found a different way to invest in getting the outcome we need this year, give a donation directly to the campaign of the next President and “sign your name to stand with Biden”.

The surreal behavior of Donald Trump is everywhere, every day. To his huge disadvantage, so is reality--- a resolve by Americans by people in community after community to beat the pandemic that is ravaging us, and a new commitment to address the racism that we have never expelled. 

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#93: You Must Know That There is a Way Forward

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It is all overwhelming, but you must know there is a way forward. The killing of George Floyd has exposed the never healed wound of racism in America. If we make it so, this will be a point where we turn in a new direction. The massive outrage will be translated into new rules, laws, protections, and oversight of policing in America. We will find that this time is different, that not only will policing change but that as a society we will renew the way we are addressing systemic racism and huge wealth disparities.

The pandemic will continue, and with it a similar sorrow of preventable, agonizing deaths. Trump’s tale of an error free pandemic response is not believed, or believable. There are tens of thousands of caskets which should not have been put into service. Scarily, at this stage of battlefield exhaustion we are newly vulnerable. Somehow, millions of us feel invulnerable, or we suppose that we have done all we can.

There is an uncomfortable parallel between our spiraling out of control on these two fronts. We do not accept as much responsibility for racism as we must. And, we are not worried about the virus as to the extent that we should be. In both cases, we are still telling ourselves an untrue personal story, and a fable about our nation in the world.

Every time we as a society hear news that we have been bad at doing something good, we think that it is anomalous. We say, “No, that isn’t who we are.” Even if we never speak of American exceptionalism, the idea of it is so ingrained in us from our school days forward that we may as well have “We’re number one” printed on our garments.

That makes it essential to understand why the idea of the United States as a beacon can remain genuine even as we see our greatest failings exposed. It’s because of kindled dreams, the true story that those who are born here and those that come here can lift themselves up. It is more difficult nowadays to make the dream come true, but tens of millions have enjoyed more freedom, more opportunity, and more education than the generation before it. That’s our brightest beacon, and Donald Trump won’t have succeeded in extinguishing it by the time we remove him on November 3.

We will be left battered, with the virus still infecting us, systemic racism unchecked, our greatest environmental hazard unaddressed, and our role in the world diminished. The test for us as citizens after November 3 is to find our way into a new era. The challenge of our elected leadership, including a new Democratic majority in the Senate, will be to help generate the momentum that will help carry us forward.

We are eager to hear of the selection of the Vice President but are otherwise cheered by where the election stands. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we couldn’t help but notice that there has been some deterioration of the Trump position after the bible was brandished and the New Testament ignored. It doesn’t hurt that there are two things wholly present in Joe Biden and entirely absent from Donald Trump-- knowledge and appreciation of the workings of government, and empathy for human suffering.

The formula for our impending electoral success remains. There is plenty of persuading of independents to be done, mostly to reinforce their movement in considerable numbers away from Donald Trump. Even more dominant is our need to generate turnout, which we have been ably rehearsing these past three years. 4.3% of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 did not vote in 2016. We will fix that.

The troubled times call us not to pause our efforts but to redouble them, relentlessly seeking to bend the arc of history toward justice. Presently, we can do these three things:

1) Sustain a Huge Political Movement
	New registrations and higher turnout are much of the focus of the immense organizing effort that is underway. Indivisible and Swing Left did not exist until November of 2016. Their work has been indispensable. Other organizations have come forward, like Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, the Sister District project, and at the regional level, such exemplars as Common Purpose.  New attention must be paid and is being paid to how sharply focused, sustainable grassroots efforts will be fostered and supported over time. That is why we should support the focus of the Movement Voter Project which has vetted and is generating assistance for 450 local and state progressive organizations
2) Protect Government Watchdogs
	The system of internal government watchdogs has had strong bi-partisan support since its inception. Now, Donald Trump is firing inspectors general one at a time, every time one of them offends him (easy to do) or a cabinet secretary. This amounts to a lot of carnage, because the entire idea of inspectors general is to push back against the misuse of power and the misappropriation of funds. Standing in the way of the new rounds of firing is Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who intended to have as his political legacy the creation and protection of a strong system of internal oversight through inspectors general. The law requires Donald Trump to provide justification for inspector general firings, and Trump thus far has said his justification is that he “lost confidence” in each appointee. Grassley has no choice but to put a “hold” on selected Trump appointees until Trump complies with the law.  Grassley’s enthusiasm for standing up to the President may fade. It’s time to use Charles Grassley’s comment system to thank him for his efforts thus far, and to urge him to continue to seek protection of inspectors general.
3) Be a Part of Our New National Commitment
	George Floyd’s murder started something that isn’t going away, and shouldn’t go away. We must recommit to finding the racism within ourselves, and tirelessly ferreting it out in our country. With regard to police brutality, from the outset we must work at the level of every single community to re-examine the nature of policing, including its priorities, staffing and funding. Unfortunately, this necessary intense effort has been branded by more than a few as “defunding”. In his life, the writer of this missive has twice been confronted by individuals who inexplicably indicated a strong interest in killing him! Calling 911 was and is an outstanding option for people in such situations, and it’s unwise to confuse Americans by telling them that 911 is going away, even if that is not necessarily what one means by defunding. This discussion over the language of defunding will continue, and eventually a language of massive reform will emerge. In the meantime, it behooves all of us to understand and be engaged in what is being sought city by city, notably by the 8 Can’t Wait Movement.

Now we have an agenda before us that must be addressed both immediately (by banning chokeholds) and over several years. Both the pandemic and George Floyd’s murder have signaled us to be wary of embracing a false equilibrium, some new level of satisfaction in ourselves. Instead, let’s remove the divider in chief from his position, and go back to looking together for what America can become

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#92: Trump Ordains Disease and Death for the Faith Community

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Infamously, Donald Trump said in 2016 that he could “shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue” and not lose his supporters.

On Thursday, he did it, though he switched the scene of the crime. He increased the virus death rate of church, synagogue, and mosque-goers by maintaining that such places of assembly are “essential services” which should be opened by Memorial Day weekend. He threatened Governors who have correctly understood that places of assembly of large groups of people are paramount venues for the spread of the virus. 

In an act of unsurpassed cynicism, he has steered people toward disease and death in order to seek political favor. It does not excuse him for a single second that he does not know which of them will draw their last breath, or how many, or even that some welcome his sentiments. He knows that the virus can and will be transmitted through such gatherings. His 5th Avenue is now places of worship across America. 

As Sunday’s New York Times demonstrates heartbreakingly, the virus has ravaged America. It is astonishing that the President of the United States would exacerbate a pandemic. But, from all that we have seen since November 2016, it isn’t surprising.

We have taken the measure of the man, again and again. We’re not going to be discovering hidden virtues. That a huge proportion of likely voters have made up their mind convinces commentators that this will be a turnout election, not a persuasion election. In his excellent analysis in the American Prospect, Democratic strategist Robert Creaner comes down on the side of turnout as the most consequential, but not until he underscores the value of each approach. 

These strategies matter a lot, now that we have demonstrated that our own nation can fall into a tailspin over 80,000 votes in three states. Getting it right demands that we take both the persuasion and turnout approaches, while we obsess over one fact--- that the majority of Americans who are uncertain about voting will vote with us if they vote at all. As we do our campaign work, this is the single most important characteristic of the 2020 election--- Trump does not have a significant pool of prospects he can add to his core voters, and Biden does. Turnout is extraordinarily important, but persuasion is still hugely important. They are not mutually exclusive.

To underscore the critical nature of persuasion, 3.6% of Obama voters in 2012 switched to Trump in 2016. 1.9% of Romney voters switched to Hillary Clinton, so 5.5% of voters declared their independence. Obviously, there is enough persuading going on that we could win an election just by reminding voters daily about Trump’s malfeasant non-management of the response to the pandemic. Importantly, persuasion of independents turned in our direction in 2018, playing a big factor in winning back the House of Representatives.

Even with the unbelievable switch of 3.6% of Obama’s vote in 2012 to Trump, we could still have won the election handily. Another 4.3% of those voting for Obama in 2012 did not vote at all in 2016. Democrat turnout was down considerably in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia and thus the “firewall” was breached.

Our turnout has turned up. In the off-year elections of 2018, our turnouts were huge. They were 40% greater than the regular off-year turnout for those aged 18-29. The Asian-American and Latino turnouts were the highest off-year participation ever.

It’s comforting on both the persuasion and turnout side that we just have to keep on doing what we have shown we can do since November of 2016. Of course, we aren’t in the mood to leave anything to chance. For most of us, that means emphasis on the turnout side, as we do postcard projects, calls, and (virus permitting) trips to battleground states to provide campaign assistance to local groups and candidates. Our primary participation on the persuasion side is to donate directly to Biden and other candidates, to help them get their message out.

Our emphasis on winning largely through increasing turnout has given Trump a principal goal in life beyond a new round of misogynistic, jingoistic, racist tweets- voter suppression. As anti-Democracy as it is, at least Trump has settled on a single, actual fact-- the lower the turnout, the better his chances. As he and other Republican leaders seek to change the law or abuse the law to stifle turnout, we have a secret weapon we can deploy--- Donald Trump! His constant attention to what sort of untruth or insult will motivate his “base” is itself the number one motivator of Democrat-leaning voters. Get yourself out there in the public, Donald Trump. Do not be shy.

Beyond getting Trump out and about, our strategies are strong as are the organizations that boost them. State by state, we battle Republican efforts to purge as many voters from the rolls as they can, sometimes for the most minor of address defects. In some states, Republicans have limited the number of polling places, or sought to establish all new identification standards. Since the pandemic started, the biggest of all battles has been over mail-in ballots. Predictably, Trump (now a Florida voter) has both mailed in his ballot and asserted without the benefit of evidence that such ballots are a major source of voting fraud.

The truth is that Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State and other election officials have been administering vote-by-mail systems without incident for years. In 5 states (including Utah) vote by mail is the preferred option. In another 29, voters can get an absentee ballot simply by requesting one. Already, activists are getting absentee voting applications in the hands of potential voters. There has been some progress in 11 of the 16 other states, as these states consider the impact of the virus.

Now is the time for each of us to up our effort on turnout. We can be sure we are protected in the courtroom by such outstanding efforts such as the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and the American Civil Liberties Union. As is customary with this missive, we can emphasize three things:

1) Help Advance Absentee Voting In Texas
	Happily, there are scores of local organizations working on voter registration and turnout. They are coupled with high profile national efforts, which will drive media attention, thus boosting local activity. Michelle Obama’s national When We All Vote is the perfect national partner. They are ready to take your pledge to fight for fair elections and boost ballots by mail. They have all the informational resources you need and have identified a number of steps you can take today.
2) Enforce the Florida Constitution
	In a stunning vote in 2018, 65% of Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment restoring the voting rights of felons once they have served their sentence and completed their probation. Ever since, the state’s Republican leadership has been trying to keep this civic rebuilding project from happening. They passed a law limiting the voting restoration to felons who have paid all fines and penalties, even though there is no state system for tracking what, if any, penalties pertain. Now, a federal district court has ruled the law violates the constitutional amendment. Florida activist groups are back to helping these former felons to register. You can do calling or texting by signing up with the very good Florida activist organization We Got the Vote.
3) Boost Latino Turnout Nationwide
	Julian Castro has joined forces with Voto Latino, a national organization that aims to register one million new Latino voters between now and November. Among the swing states where the Latino vote will prove critical are Texas, Colorado, Florida and Arizona. This is as good an investment as you can make,

Yes, things can seem a little surreal, as Jared Kushner talks about the White House success stories, the death toll exceeds 100,000 and Donald Trump seeks to crowd 10,000 people into a convention hall. It’s up to you to get us back to a day where we can rediscover our promise, together.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#91: John Kasich, Here’s What the Country Needs You to Do

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.

Donald Trump has turned out to be much worse than most of us feared. It seems like ages ago, but some opined that once he was elected President, he would honor the norms of the office. That line of “reasoning” is that he was modifying his persona from businessman to con man to get elected, and was fully capable of behaving between the lines when the situation required. It turned out that he does not have any such ability to control himself. There have been scores of instances where he has acted “presidential” for much of the day. Then the dark hours of the night arrive, and he again pours out what he really thinks. Donald Trump tweets at midnight. He insists that he didn’t say what he said, figures out someone to disparage, makes up some new stories, and shoves America toward the abyss. It isn’t hard to determine that this man is not well.

In 2016, others believed that the enormous responsibilities of the office would make him better. By all accounts, Trump was touched by his meeting with Barack Obama on the day of his inauguration. Not so much since! Meetings with groups of global leaders have not lifted him. The other leaders know he is unprepared, and they are unwilling to demonstrate the level of obsequiousness that he requires. The leadership role afforded to American presidents has not and will not be offered to him.

It was also argued that after “winning” such a narrow “victory” he would tack toward the center, as a means of being competitive in his attempt at re-election. That didn’t happen because he craves adoration of his declining but loyal base. It has trapped him, because the misogynistic, jingoistic, self -adoring person that he serves up to his base is the same person that is driving independent voters away from him.

The favorite argument of all that hoped for a far better Trump than the one we got was that the appointment of White House staff and cabinet secretaries would itself improve Trump. Wily veterans would caution him against awful policies and make certain that he would stay within the Constitution. James Mattis, John Kelly, Dan Coats and Rex Tillerson say that’s what they did. If so, the evidence is submerged, and in any event, they are long gone. What’s left in the White House is the sycophantic Stephen Miller, who wouldn’t object if Trump were to decide to strafe the House of Representatives tomorrow.

If we ever harbored such a notion, the idea of an improved Trump left us long ago. Ironically, years after we recognized every sorry dimension of Donald Trump, the virus delivered him the ultimate opportunity to step up like a leader does. Instead it revealed all the dysfunctions that make up the man. He’s left without his usual tools, because you can’t con a country about 80,000 body bags.

There are hundreds of Republican elected officials in the House and Senate and in state capitals that know that he is not fit to be president. Imagine the deal you have to make with yourself as you head to work if you are Senators Susan Collins or Lamar Alexander or Charles Grassley. You have been around for a long time, you have seen presidents come and go, and you have treasured the notion that you have served the people in your own careers. Now, during the end of your career (involuntary, for Susan Collins), you lose a little bit more of your soul every day you pretend that Trump is a functioning president.

You tell yourself it has been essential for you to go from independence to servility. You say to your loved ones that your continued presence in the political system has mitigated Trump’s worst actions as in Susan’s Collins real but uneven defense of the Affordable Care Act. You conveniently forget the hundreds of times when you needed to stand up and you sat down. You relish the episodes where Mitch McConnell lets you object on principle, even though you know that only happens when your objection has no impact on the final result. You have rationalized it all you can, but the truth is that when the need for you to act was greatest, you chose your career self-preservation over the needs of your own country.

Trump’s power within the Republican Party is not an illusion. Republican members of Congress rightly perceive they can be defeated in the primary by Trump’s tweets, even when pushing back against him is favored by the broader electorate. Thus, the Obamacare votes of John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney’s stand on impeachment are the only profiles in courage among Republican elected officials in the past four years.

After all of this time, there is a new opportunity. Biden forces are very serious about their organization of Republicans for Biden. This will have much greater scale than similarly focused efforts in past years, because Biden and his campaign aides will find plenty of Republican-leaning supporters outside of the ranks of elected officials. 

Biden has already secured endorsements from former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and former Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. This is just the beginning, not least because the news cycle on Republican rebels is being driven by presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George. This story will be a gift that keeps on giving. George Conway and former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt and a host of other former Republican aides have formed the Lincoln Project. They have already attracted rage tweets from Trump after their political ad accusing Trump of pandemic mismanagement. They raised $1 million in donations the next day.

The juicy detail that George Conway is married to Trump’s trusted advisor will spark the Republican opposition effort all the way until November. Donald Trump will not be able to contain himself from elevating Conway’s group through his counterattacks, which will increase their donations and make them even more able to field political ads.

The activities of the Lincoln Project will be a strong complement to whatever the Biden campaign can accomplish in obtaining endorsements from former and present Republican elected officials. Here are three things we can do to support all of these productive adventures.

1) Ask John Kasich to Do the Right Thing
	Former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich supported impeaching Trump, and he has severely criticized the President over his mismanagement of the virus response. Now that he has done those two things, he and Trump will not be hanging out together. He is not going to be elected president, so he is destined for the not terrible life of a commentator and influencer. So why not influence what is the most important election in his lifetime? Now is the time for a former Republican Governor of the stature of Kasich to tell the truth about Trump. Happily, John Kasich says he likes to hear from people expressing their dreams about America. You can tell him that this is his own defining moment by writing him at info@johnkasich.com. Even more compelling is that on his website he is offering us all a chance to text or send a short video of our own uplifting story! What could be more uplifting than him deciding to tell voters the complete truth about Donald Trump?
2) Make the Lincoln Project a Fixture from Now Until November
	This group of former Republican aides has already made the decision that calling out Trump for what he is will be more important than the arc of their individual careers. They are unflinching. It is up to all of us to provide them the resources to underscore Trump’s malfeasance on a regular basis. Give them your email and your dollars and let them continue to drive Trump tweets.
3) Provide Your Personal Testimony
	Any number of the recipients of this missive have once seen themselves as Republicans or have assiduously voted for the candidate, not the party. For those for whom this is the case, the Republican Party in which they once harbored interest has vanished without a trace. Amazingly, there are Republicans and independents who still think they are seeing some remnants of a party of strong global alliances, fiscal moderation, and adherence to the rule of law. It is time to make a list of your friends who cling in any way to those lost dreams and get personal with them on these matters. For some, Trump’s continued mismanagement of the pandemic response will provide a new opportunity for a heartfelt exchange.

The new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that we are in excellent position for the last six months of the campaign. It is ours to win. There is no doubt at all that we have the energy and the motivation to get this job done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington