#15: We Are Seeking A Bit of Mercy for Our Country

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When you face truly bizarre circumstances, you seek as much equilibrium as you can maintain. That’s what we need to do right now with our country. At a benefit concert for the International Rescue Committee the other night, a performer asked that we sing about finding a bit of mercy for our country. The audience of a hundred quietly joined voices singing this plea. When can we get back to a world where we are just trying to make our flawed democracy better, rather than watching a President and his supplicants seek to unravel it? This present situation is just awful. Western European leaders openly speculate that we cannot be a trusted partner. Singled out by the President for praise instead are the autocratic leaders of Turkey, Egypt and the Philippines.

We are at risk, undeniably. Even in his increasingly neutralized position, Donald Trump can rend our relationships worldwide and endanger all of us. He can prove to be the absolute worst person to deal with Kim Jong Un, or with Vladimir Putin, or Bashar Al Assad. He can either walk away from the Paris Accords, or barring that, pretend they don’t exist. He can set the bar so low with his budget proposal, seeking to massacre food stamps and the EPA and Medicaid, that any Republican alternative that smites the poor and the environment, but with not quite as hard of a smite, will be greeted like it was written by Pope Francis.

Happily, the resistance is at its highest levels. At this point, all of the day-to-day opposition from the American people compares favorably in its intensity with the great social and political movements of the past century. Yet even with all of its thousands of chapters of Indivisible and other organizing groups, the January Women’s march, the successful legal actions and the town hall battles, the staying power of our resistance is still to be proven.

I am not worried that I don’t always agree with every sign or petition or post or chosen battle of the resistance. It is in the nature of opposition like ours for it to be sprawling and often undisciplined. Sure, as the 2018 Congressional elections near, more will need to be said about our alternative vision of where our country is heading. We will start wanting to coalesce around specific elected officials (and potential Presidential candidates) who are principled and authentic and compassionate and articulate.

But, right now it is not at all a bad thing to fashion ourselves as the anti-Trump insurgency. And it is working. Two analyses tell the story. Read the findings of Nate Silver in 538 using the data to illustrate that the support from Donald Trump’s electoral base is significantly eroding. 

We need to take back 24 Congressional seats on November 6, 2018. At this point the best way to analyze how that effort is working is the “generic” Congressional polls which ask who voters would support if the election were today. Quinnipiac is just one poll, but it is very encouraging. 

Right now, let’s use all this Trump disapproval to send members of Congress a signal on the people-destroying federal budget that Trump just proposed. Let’s remember that a score or more of Republican members of Congress have promised that this budget is dead on arrival. But let’s also remember that Trump and budget director Mick Mulvaney are seeking a steep decline for domestic social welfare programs in an attempt to win when they lose, to end up in a “compromise” position that still eviscerates programs that matter.

There is no end to the bad things to be said about the proposed budget. It exceeds all previous budgets in the extent it trades off meeting social needs for huge increases in military spending. Moreover, it is a cynical exercise because it is disconnected from any meaningful attempt to get American government to work better. It is meant to symbolically signal a change of priorities. What it instead signals is the approach to life of a circle of mean-spirited, wealthy, Trump associates who are divorced from the real lives of other humans. Shame on them.

There are big ticket budget items like the proposed Medicaid cuts, and 3/5 of the cuts come from programs serving low and moderate-income Americans.  

Let’s focus in this missive on three cuts of somewhat smaller scale and let’s fight back, now!

1) Make America Hungry Again?
	Just over 50 years ago, Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Joseph Clark visited the Mississippi Delta and exposed conditions of severe malnutrition among America’s poor. Their effort was spurred by Marion Wright Edelman, a 27-year-old attorney who would go on to found the Children’s Defense Fund. It would set in motion efforts that would expand food stamps by over 500% and significantly decrease hunger in America. Food insecurity is still with us. The nation’s network of food banks has grown. The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) replaced and expanded the Food Stamps program. The proposed Trump cuts to SNAP would reverse 40 years of bipartisan support for fighting hunger in America. It would transfer billions of dollars in costs to the states and, similar to the proposed approach to Medicaid, it would permit states to make cuts to the basic package of food assistance and skirt the fundamental dietary needs for human health.   A cut of $193 billion over ten years for a program that provides at least a bit of food to 44 million people? This, in America? We would fund the first stage of a wall and hugely increase funding for weapons system while taking bread away from someone who needs it? We would do that? Some Republicans say we wouldn’t. They and their Democrat counterparts need you to reinforce that belief this week. Check these appropriations subcommittee lists to see if there is a member from your state in either the Senate or the House. If there is, email that member and tell them the nation is watching. If not, or if you are in a calling mood, phone House subcommittee staff director Tom O’Brien at (202) 225-2771. Don’t be shy about these things.
2) Protect This Small, Successful Program
	The winner of the award for most nonsensical budget cut is the proposed elimination of the Energy Star program, which costs $50 million a year and influences billions of dollars in energy savings. You may be familiar with this program because it provides the energy efficiency rating of the household appliance you are considering purchasing. Thousands of companies voluntarily participate in this program that encourages energy efficient purchases by existing homeowners as well as new homeowners, and commercial and industrial properties. This is a wildly successful program which spurs our energy efficiency and helps improve our energy self-sufficiency and it’s voluntary and it has everything to do with saving the planet and, and, and…. The Alliance to Save Energy has persuaded 1,000 companies to fight back against destroying this program. You can help them fight back.
3) And, About the Wall Which “We Will Build and Mexico Will Pay For”
	It is beginning to look like we may be able to stop this international embarrassment. Of course, Mexico was never going to pay for the wall. Donald Trump is still looking for money for it and has asked Congress for $1.6 billion in this round, which would build 74 miles, mostly in Texas, at the cost of $13,000 per yard. The estimated total cost of the wall would be over $20 billion. This would snatch protein from a low income kid, or essential services for a Planned Parenthood Clinic, or eliminate jobs of EPA staff who are trying to enforce the law. Let’s insist that enough is enough. Unfortunately, House Republicans have already realized that eliminating the wall proposal altogether would be a telling political blow to Donald Trump. Because of that, they will continue to put in enough money in the budget for design or for early stages. The only way to do anything about that is to make them the House minority on November 6, 2018, which we can surely do. In the Senate, Republicans have the same worries. They wouldn’t have chosen the wall themselves but they aren’t eager to deal Trump such an obvious blow. There are 6 Republicans and 5 Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has already protected Planned Parenthood. How about sending her a supportive e-note saying that you hope that she will oppose the wall fully and forthrightly? It’s just an email form she provides, but she will be noting the mail she gets on this subject.

It may seem that the battle is being joined the same way every week. But that isn’t so. Way too slowly, but still in a meaningful way, individual Republican elected officials are aiding the resistance. And as voter approval for Trump declines, more Republicans will do more things that are useful. It won’t be enough. It won’t be what their consciences beg them to do, but it will be more help than we had in January.

And of course, there is one other thing that makes everything fundamentally different than it was at the outset, Robert Mueller isn’t going anywhere. 

Our audience has grown with each missive. Please help me expand some more.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#14: Good People Will Stand on the Shoulders of Thomas Jefferson

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

And so it goes. Each week of the Trump presidency takes us into new territory. Our nation, our government, our citizens, and our world pay a new price for having momentarily discounted how much the aptitude of the candidate matters in picking a president. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says that our institutions are under assault internally. Way beyond his climate change denialism and unacceptable approaches to health care and tax policy, it turns out that Donald Trump does not have the skills of a president.

He is not even tempered. He is not curious or measured or well-spoken or empathetic. He is not energetic or intellectually driven or thoughtful or patient or disciplined. So much of the damage of his presidency has come from the demonstrable absence of basic skills.

Do not think all of this has escaped Republican members of Congress. They whisper to each other about his bizarre and sometimes delusional behavior, and quietly clean up after him daily. Most are fully aware of the danger he presents to the republic for which they are sworn to stand. All too many seem to have made the calculation that they can control for the worst while reaping the advantages of having a president from their own party, however dangerous he is.

For the most part, their public opposition to the worst that Trump has done has been designed to not give offense to him and to not put up meaningful obstacles. At this point, these Senators have not been providing profiles in courage.

What must Senators Ben Sasse or Johnny Isakson or Bob Corker or Lisa Murkowski or Rob Portman or Jeff Flake be thinking about as they head to work in the morning? How could one watch the Comey firing and the health care debacle and this week's misuse of classified information and read the tweets and not have a heavy heart? How could you look at your children and grandchildren knowing that you are complicit in threatening their future? How long can they maintain this awful charade?

As Donald Trump loses support (even among the original base of non-college educated white males) these Senators may well modify what is their underlying political calculation, but the pace of their movement toward protecting our country is agonizingly slow. However, the political price to be paid for standing up to Trump is lowering, and the political price to be paid for failing to do so is growing.

This week, we saw some more Republican restlessness, which will grow further with disclosures that Trump asked James Comey to cease the investigation of Michael Flynn. In promising news, Susan Collins, John McCain and Lindsey Graham blocked Trump's proposed repeal of the Obama administration's methane gas regulations. And chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr of North Carolina criticized the Comey firing  and agreed to the Democratic request to bring deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein before Senators for questioning.

It's possible that Lisa Murkowski of Alaska will keep up her battle to save Planned Parenthood funding. It could be that Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, assigned to come up with a Senate approach to health care, will truly reverse the House approach. And, as the treat of the week, we can appreciate Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker of Tennessee saying that with the Trump disclosure of classified information to the Russians, the White House lacks discipline and is "in a downward spiral."

The best political signal to send to all of these Senators is to mount awesome campaigns to defeat Trump-supporting candidates on November 6, 2018. Our excellent chance is to take back the House. As we show signs of being able to do that, it will have the effect of giving the above-named cautious but somewhat principled U.S. Senators more focus and more opportunities to step forward.

These three things that we can do today will help bring joy into your heart on the morning of November 7, 2018:

1) Respond Directly to the Unacceptable House Vote on Health Care
	The organizations Act Blue, Swing Left, and the Daily Kos have combined efforts to raise funds immediately to target members of Congress who provided key votes to pass the Trump/Ryan health care bill in the House. The effort is ingenious and attracted nearly 50,000 donations the day it was announced. Don't miss out. We need 24 seats to gain the majority in the House. Appropriately, there were 24 Republicans who voted for the bill who are from districts where Donald Trump got less than 50% of the vote. Act Blue, Swing Left and the Daily Kos organizations are setting up campaign accounts that will be donated in each of these 24 districts to the winner of the Democratic primary in 2018. Here is the Act Blue approach.
2) Sort Out Where You are Going to Put Your Energy, If You Haven't Already
	The excitement about taking back the House has grown because of recent polling of "generic" races between Republican and Democratic Congressional candidates. Even before the Comey sacking and Flynn disclosures, the Quinnipiac poll revealed that 54% of those questioned would vote for the Democratic candidate if the election were today, and 38% for the Republican. Anything close to that in 2018 would mean that Democrats would pick up 60 seats! Of course it is way too early to say, and we must advance these dreams through hard work rather than just dream them. It's always good to understand the cautions, such as these put forward by political scientist Larry Sabato. Swing Left has improved its methodology for targeting races, and has come up with these 65, with a handy searchable map. The issue for each of us is the specific actions we will take once we have picked a race. On local organizing, each of us can pick the organization with which we are most comfortable and which can utilize our energies. In some cases, as the Democratic Party gets its act together, they could be the organizer. At this point, the best thing going in terms of local resistance activity is still Indivisible.You can search their site for the chapter near you.
3) Remember Two Special Elections Coming Up Soon
	New polls show Jon Ossoff running even with his opponent in Georgia, in a seat that the Republicans won by more than 20 points last November. The election will be held June 20. If you know someone in this district, please contact them right away! This will be an enormous boost and signal if we can pull this off. If you are vacillating between sending a check or not sending a check, please send a check. Rob Quist's effort in Montana is a longer shot, but take a look and see if you are game.

As I prepare missive #14, the situation is now changing daily. The allegation that Donald Trump asked James Comey to "let go"; of the Flynn investigation could constitute obstruction of justice if it can be substantiated. At minimum, it means that we are traveling into all new territory of subpoenas and investigations. The Trump agenda will stall. The movement to draft a health care approach in the Senate will slow, as will meaningful work on tax policy.

We will each interpret this turn of events, and some will understandably worry even more about the strain or even the threat to our wounded system.

I believe that with all of its excesses and misbegotten approaches, for all of its lack of attention to people in need and maldistribution of wealth, the country we all have created together is worth treasuring and worth saving. I believe the republic will be preserved and will become stronger and that good people will stand on the shoulders of Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt and Martin Luther King and make it so.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#13: Our Strength Grows, Our Dreams Are Huge, And We Will Not Be Denied

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

On Sunday the New York Times featured a front page article suggesting that Donald Trump might, on some issues, be trending toward a process where he learns new information and approaches and "adapts to realities". They said that he had exhibited such a newly deliberative approach on matters related to Russia, North Korea, and moving the Israeli capital to Jerusalem.

Then, also over the weekend, Donald Trump destroyed the New York Times' evidence. He gave interviews saying that the false Obama wiretapping claim was "my opinion", ignoring the world of facts and verification. After a "very friendly conversation" by phone, he invited to the White House Federico Duterte, the Filipino ruler and proud extrajudicial killer of drug suspects. He called Kim Jong-un a "smart cookie" for surviving his rise to power at 27, even though the cookie accomplished that feat by executing his rivals. And, while suggesting slave owner Andrew Jackson (who died in 1845) could have avoided the civil war, he said, "Why couldn't that one have been worked out?"

Political leaders can make mistakes. They can dispute well established findings if they outline the nature of the dispute. They should and can and do debate research methods, the implications of the findings and the wisdom of the government response. The whole nature of our public policy debates and the associated political battles is the explication of differences in viewpoint, and the fashioning of collective response.

However, we cannot decide what and how to do together if you can just make stuff up, anytime you want. What if you make six things up a day, and what if you do that almost every day, and what if eventually the fact checkers can't begin to keep up? And what if the American people become desensitized to those inventions? And what if you are the president while doing all that? What if you expect the truth to be accepted as whatever you say it is? At a certain point, this disregard or even contempt for objective information will rend the democracy.

No longer are these outbursts the appropriate subject for a bemused email or an eye roll. If you are part of the resistance, you will need to up your effort to examine information yourself. You will need to actively follow and support the intermediaries (including newspapers) who try and sort out what is happening. You will want to use posts, letters to the editors and public meeting not only to offer your own viewpoint, but to provide core information.

By late fall, you will be able to summon your energies, to continue to get behind emerging Congressional races, and to entertain the growing sense that we will take back the House of Representatives on November 6, 2018. In the six months between now and then, I am asking you to become a more relentless truth-advancer than you are now. We must attend to the factual framework on each issue, lest we forget that there is one.

On the tax proposal front, that will ultimately mean that we can use real data to prove that the announced intentions in the new Trump one pager will provide huge comfort to the comfortable, not least in its elimination of the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax. We contemplate as much as $7 trillion in revenue losses and to this point, we've heard nothing about boosting the middle class or addressing income inequality.

Before we get into the tax discussions, we must obsess about the facts of proposed changes in the health care law, which in its new version threatens even greater loss of coverage than the previous draft before the House. Under the new plan, states could send people with pre-existing conditions into a high risk pool which presages much higher costs than under the Affordable Care Act and which for many will ultimately preclude coverage. How many people have pre-existing conditions? According to the Kaiser Health Foundation, there are 52 million! The new approach now before the House is a plan to generate untold human misery. Donald Trump seems to not have seen the plan he has endorsed, because he continues to say that those with pre-existing conditions will not suffer loss of coverage.

With this matter squarely before the House of Representatives, our missive identifies three things we can do to influence the outcome of the health care batte:

1) Shore Up Opposition to the New Trump/Ryan Effort
	In addition to allowing states to get a waiver permitting them to exclude pre-existing conditions in essential coverage, the proposal before the House would enable states to exclude mental health coverage and maternity care. There is no way the bill as written would pass the Senate, but the best way to defeat it is still at its inception. House Republican moderates are only a vote or two away from supplying enough votes for the bill to be defeated on the House floor, and a score more members are still considering voting no. Here is the existing tally to work from. The calls to Congressional offices opposing this bill are overwhelming the systems of individual members of Congress. One way to get through is: identify members of Congress from the above list. If they are already opposed, call and thank them for their principled stand. If they are still pondering this, call or email them and articulate your strong opposition in your own well-chosen passionate and articulate words. If you are going to limit your calls to two or three, start with members from your own district or own state. If there aren't any members that qualify, choose a state where you have some connection if you can. Rather than calling or email the member of Congress, look up their legislative director in the office directory or Google it. Email or call her or him instead of the member. The message will still be received and may even have more resonance.
2) Remember the Dreams of Universal Coverage
	With all the attention to essential coverage, one could forget another way the Freedom Caucus is trying to eviscerate health care protection in this country. The bill before the House also continues the attack on the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act that originally brought 14 million people health care coverage. Through the waiver provisions, the bill incentives the states who are bad actors and reduces resources for states who have expanded coverage for low income populations. This site identifies the 32 states who have opted for Medicaid expansion, and provides data on the level of expanded coverage. If you live in one of these 32 states, make certain your state legislators are keeping posted on what the House bill would do to your state, and make certain they are pushing back at the Congress.
3) Strengthen Advocacy Efforts
	Among the most effective opponents to the Trump/Ryan approach have been the major associations of health care professionals. It would be a nice thing to leave a message at the American Medical Association (phone: 800-621-8335) to thank them for their concerted efforts. Another important force is the AARP, which has registered adamant opposition. For those who love to see good solid analytical efforts on the impacts of the proposals that Paul Ryan floats, you can't beat donating to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Our movement is distinguished by the multiple forms of action our collective opposition is taking, the intensity of each. We will keep on marching, calling Congress, contacting the media, and showing up and countless town halls and other meetings.

Now and again, we may wonder whether our opposition is taking hold. The evidence is that our efforts are reaping rewards for our country. Were it not for the post November 8 sensibilities of millions of Americans, the Affordable Care Act would be repealed by now. The wall would be under construction and Planned Parenthood would be defunded. What we are doing together matters immensely. Our strength grows, our dreams are huge, and we will not be denied.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#12: It Is A Privilege To Live In A Country Where We Can Fight Back

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

Back when Donald Trump insisted that NATO is obsolete, that may well have been what he truly believed at that particular point in time. The fact that his belief and underlying values are subject to abrupt and dramatic change is not comforting, even if now and again he ends up doing something that temporarily makes more sense than what he initially intended.

We can't be anything but discomfited by a president who has nothing at his core. He should not be president. If a senior aide who is inaccurately labeled a "moderate" convinces him to do something less awful than what Steve Bannon and he initially fashioned, where is the satisfaction in that - that Donald Trump for 48 hours was not demonizing someone? What would you predict will happen after the 48 hours are up?

Please reject the media narrative that a moderate new breed is at Donald Trump's side. Let's remember the history of moderate Republicanism in America. Moderate Republicans like Jacob Javits and Charles Percy helped fashion the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act at their inception. Will Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn reverse the sought evisceration of the Environmental Protection Agency? Will they convince Trump to reverse his executive orders?

A week ago Donald Trump looked into the cameras with NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg by his side and repeated his fantasy that NATO had begun to fight terrorism at his insistence. Genuine moderates were a huge factor in building NATO. Will Kushner or Cohn or Ivanka Trump ask the President to stop making NATO-damaging claims?

How do these "moderate" aides feel about having several cabinet agencies whose secretaries were appointed not despite their contempt for the agency they will direct, but because of it? Authentic moderate Republicans provided key votes to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1963, Food Stamps and Medicaid. Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Cohn are not the new crusaders for justice. Continue your vigilance and activism at the highest level, please.

On November 9, 2016, it was difficult to determine the most effective path of the resistance. There are still always a hundred important things to do but, without a doubt, one approach must be elevated to an obsession. It is not inevitable that we will take back the House in November of 2018, but have you not seen and felt the possibility growing with every week?

If approval of Donald Trump's performance remains under 40% in the polls, we will take back at least 35 seats, and we need 24. We can render the "Freedom Caucus" inoperative. Special elections in Kansas last week and yesterday in Georgia show a massive shift of voter sentiment away from Republican candidates. In Georgia, Jon Ossoff did 15 percent better than the Democratic candidate last November and we have an excellent chance of winning the June run off.These are not swing districts! These are Republican safe seats! There are well over 60 Republican seats that will be easier to gain in November 2018 than these.

You can remember how you felt on November 9. If we all do the right thing now, these 2018 House races are going to make you feel a lot better. By now, you should have identified at least one Congressional race that is of special interest to you. You should have sent a check to enhance voter registration in several key states. You should fight back against Republican voter suppression techniques by donating to voter projects at the American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates. And, if you feel under-prepared for what lies ahead, there is a comprehensive, painful to read and very helpful "syllabus" on how this all happened.

Key environmental statutes were written with a lot of Presidential discretion because we learn more from science every day. Congress anticipated that the executive branch would use such environmental research and their rule making authority to improve a new law's impact! Times have changed on that, so here are three things you can do to protect the environment.

1) Advance Your Own Climate Change Agreement
	Donald Trump may decide not to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, which 143 nations have signed. Unfortunately, he and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt will do everything they can to impede our county's ability to meet the carbon reduction targets the Accord establishes. Even if Democrats take back the House in November of 2018, we will be facing three years of defense before our federal government again helps us to protect against this huge danger to our planet. Our own challenge is to make sure our states, our localities and we ourselves make up for the lack of federal action. See where your state and locality stand and understand how it could do better. Send a "we are counting on you" note to your state legislator. Call your city or county council member and see what they are doing on such issues as auto fleet management and supporting alternative fuels. The best action against the Trump approach on this issue is to do everything you can do to make certain his intransigence ultimately doesn't matter.
2) Help Save the Environmental Protection Agency
	The bad news is that Donald Trump has proposed to eviscerate the EPA, cutting $3.4 billion and 3500 jobs. The good news is that Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, chair of the relevant appropriations subcommittee of the Senate is not accepting his proposal, which would ravage multiple programs. There is enough outrage and leverage on this for you to put whatever time into it you can muster. First, thank Lisa Murkowski for standing up (so far):    Senator Lisa Murkowski    522 Hart Senate Office Building    Washington DC 20515    Phone: 202-224-6665 The Trump budget will not be approved by Congress in anywhere near its present form, but nonetheless EPA is in danger. Let's try something new. Every single Congressional office has a legislative assistant with the specific responsibility of helping her or his Congressperson or Senator influence the budget. Search the Member's website, find who that dutiful and fresh-faced staff member is, and email, write or call them. Ask them if they and their boss will do something to save our environment and the EPA.
3) Don't Forget the Lawsuits
	It turns out that Trump issuing an executive order to rescind an Obama executive order is not effortless. With some orders, each step can be challenged. As underscored in missive #9, you can fuel the litigators, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and EarthJustice.

It is a privilege to live in a country where we can fight back against the excesses that are abounding. There is not any choice but to make this fighting a big part of the regular course of our lives.

There are Republican members of Congress who say they are not worried about national polls and the declining support of Donald Trump by independents. That is not actually the case. The truth is that they are now living with those worries every day, and those worries are not going away. The level of caring and concerted opposition to this presidency is unprecedented. This is no time to let our energies flag.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#11: It Matters What Legislative Proposals Say and Seek 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. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts 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. 

In all the back and forth on who’s voting for what, and who is being investigated and who is being criticized, it would be easy to forget that there is an underlying, deeply consequential debate that has stretched over the decades. What will we do with and for each other through our government? What problems will we recognize as appropriate for joint, intensive action? What policies will we select to confront them?

It might be even easier today to forget the idea that government has underlying policies because it isn’t how Donald Trump thinks about things. From the time he announced a month or so before the American Health Care Act failed that he and Congress would replace “Obamacare” with something better and cheaper that would cover just as many people or even more people, he never had a chance of fulfilling that pledge. He did not necessarily understand the interconnecting parts of the law which would guarantee that his promise was empty, and it is not so clear that he wants to understand such things. Winning is everything. What there is that should be won is a lesser consideration.

In the end, he lost the health care battle (at least for now) because he did not care very much about what Speaker Ryan’s proposal contained. Commentators seemed surprised that Trump didn’t end up seeking to attend to people he promised to help during his campaign rallies. This misses the point. He does not see his role as sorting out what a legislative proposal will or will not do, and seeking to improve it. He is an incurious person. If the American Health Care Act had ended up responding directly to the needs of an unemployed Pennsylvania factory worker, it would have happened by accident.

The new health care “compromise” now being floated by the White House takes indifference to a new, even more creative level. They want to be able to say they are lowering premiums in insurance offered on exchanges. They are angling to get there by allowing states to individually redefine necessary coverage, giving them the option of jettisoning maternity care, mental health, and emergency room services. Let’s be relentless on this, and make Congress and the White House go back to the fundamental needs of people who are in need. In two minutes on the House floor, Representative John Lewis said it all. 

From the Homestead Act to the New Deal to Medicare, Food Stamps and the Civil Rights Act of 1963, opportunity and justice in our nation have been shaped by the policy choices our representatives have made for our government. This cannot and will not change, and seeking to provide health care for all is just one more major step along the path. We are heartened not by the Freedom Caucus blocking the bill, but that the concessions to the Freedom Caucus resulted in “moderate Republicans” walking away because they could no longer live with the substance of the bill and the policies it espoused.

What legislative proposals actually say and seek to do matters. The 2018 Congressional elections are not so far away, Republicans will either vote against defective proposals, or they will vote for such proposals and be held accountable by voters. It is a stroke of good fortune for the resistance that the next major policy issue will be tax reform. It is being touted as a much simpler issue than repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, but it isn’t. Moreover, the fundamental question the American media will ask about each tax reform proposal is who it is geared to help. Donald Trump’s initial position on necessary tax law changes would result in an enormous transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich. Let that battle be joined!

Here are three things we can all do, now:

1)Take on Tax Reform as a Major Obsession
	The concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of Americans is one of the defining issues of our time. Why would we want “tax reform” to exacerbate this existing, already nearly intractable problem? The tax reform proposals put forth by Republican leaders (including Donald Trump during the campaign) are “reverse Robin Hood” proposals - they take from people with less money, and give to people with more money. Proposals that comfort the comfortable have become such a fundamental part of Republican orthodoxy that they are presented without embarrassment. For reasons having to do with Senate procedures and spending rules, Republicans are hampered in executing their broader version of tax reform by their failure to pass their health care bill, which would have eliminated nearly a trillion dollars of taxes over the next ten years. However, even a stripped down bill will include these provisions that will widen wealth disparities: A reduction in corporate income taxes, which is not such an outlandish idea, since it could bring billions in corporate capital back home from international banks. Though not outlandish, this could still turn out badly. The issue is how to do it in a way that stimulates investment and avoids an increase in the tax burden of the middle class. Elimination of the federal estate tax, which has been reduced markedly over the years. Repeal would enable the tax-free transfer of billion dollar estates. Elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which keeps high income taxpayers from wiping out their tax liability with deductions. $30 million in taxes that Trump paid in 2005 were due to the Alternative Minimum Tax. Its levels may need readjustment, but without it, the tax participation of America’s multi-millionaires and billionaires would fall precipitously. In addition, the Trump approach could well include a tax on imports which is part of his punitive approach toward Mexico. The first thing and paramount thing we all need to do is argue that distribution of taxes among income classes is the single most important tax reform issue. As proposals are developed and debated, the unacceptability of further nest-feathering for people who already have the greatest assets must be constantly underscored. As advocates, we must be relentless in our attention to the narrative of tax equity. Let’s give fresh attention to our own representatives on these matters. If you have a member of Congress who you think is already sympathetic, call or write anyway, because this situation will end up being more fluid than health care has been. That is, there may be some elements of a new proposal that House leadership will ultimately put together that are appealing to some Democrats. Make sure your member of Congress knows how you feel about the basics. Check out to see if someone from your state is a member of one of the two tax writing committees, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. We have been having some success in these missives in bypassing the elected official and contacting her or his legislative director. If you are game, go into their office directory and give that a try. And, to top it all off, do your part in supporting equity by backing a state minimum wage campaign.
2) Choose a Congressional Campaign if You Haven’t Already Done So
	Right after Donald Trump was elected, it didn’t seem likely that Democrats would take back the House of Representatives in 2018. Now, as independents desert Trump, the chances have significantly improved. Past missives #4 and #8 have identified especially attractive races as we seek to win 24 seats. As you identify a targeted race near you and choose where to put your energies, focus also on two special elections in 2017 where there is at least a chance of taking back a seat. Send our candidates a check! In Georgia’s 6th district, the candidate is Jon Ossoff, seeking to fill the seat of Tom Price, who was named HHS Secretary. This is very promising, with the first round of voting on April 18. A somewhat longer shot in Montana in May is Rob Quist, who is the Democratic candidate to replace Ryan Zinke, who became Interior Secretary.
3) Learn About New Directions for Workers Whose Jobs Aren’t There
	Dynamic economies create and lose jobs constantly, and there is no place that job loss is more predictable than in the mining of coal. Donald Trump’s executive order is built around a nest of untruths. News of the week revealed that the small mining companies themselves are turning to green energy, looking at the costs of coal mining relative to the return, and increasing their investment in natural gas because its lower prices are winning over markets. Nonetheless, the 70,000 jobs that remain are not just any jobs. They are concentrated in communities that have too few jobs in the first place. They pay enough money to support a family, and they are available to workers with a high school education. We would be very happy to have more “family wage” jobs at all educational levels in this country. There aren’t a lot of new paths for a 58 year old coal miner whose industry is faltering. But our country can do better at providing education and career and technical training to younger and middle aged workers, often carried about with excellence by Community and Technical Colleges. Check out the retraining systems in your state and see if under-employed or displaced workers are being provided new opportunities to participate in the changing economy.

What is around the corner that we can work toward? How can we maintain intensity of effort? When will there be a time that we can read and watch the news without daily dismay? It is a long time until the next Presidential election. But it is not a long time until November 6, 2018, the day we can take back the House of Representatives and put on the brakes.

With Trump’s approval rating under 40%, capturing the 24 seats we need is entirely doable. But it is now when we find good candidates, organize, coalesce, learn, raise money, and register voters. Act on the possibilities, and prepare to have a big smile on your face on Wednesday, November 7, 2018.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#10: Let’s Go With Relentless, Aggressive, Principled, Despair-Diminishing Positivism

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

It is not within our collective powers to uncomplicate these troubled times, or to assuage all the fears we share. In the short term, we cannot magically create a responsive, justice seeking national government that will seek to boost and protect all of the people. But we can and we do stand together to make things far better than they otherwise would be, and to work to end this spell of governmental malfeasance as soon as possible.

Donald Trump’s awful 37% presidential approval rating in the Gallup Poll (down 7% in this past week) is good news of a sort, because more and more citizens are aware of what he has been sowing. And we all understand it is bad news of a sort, because he is rending democracy’s fabric. A college classmate of mine from 48! years ago wrote ruefully “hoping for dysfunction is not the world’s noblest goal” and I said “Yes, let’s go for---- it’s the noblest goal available to us under these circumstances.” It’s what’s we have fallen to out of necessity and we have no apologies.

Presidential approval ratings can fluctuate. President Barack Obama was at 40% in early 2014, even after years of steady economic growth, and his Gallup-measured approval had increased to 59% by the end of his presidency. What is difficult to see is how Donald Trump’s low following can increase significantly. The questions and disclosures about Russian hacking in the election and ties to Trump campaign officials are just beginning. And, in what could end up being more consequential, Trump’s own party is headed toward fracture.

That’s what happens when all that you really share is the fact that your party won. Republican leaders are staying with Trump (while contradicting his day to day statements) because he was supposed to be their path to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, and because he was expected to be an indispensable force for the tax reform that they have advocated for years. They have been cleaning up for him daily because those two goals are so important to them.

For certain members of Congress, we can make this a self-defeating proposition. Because of Trump’s declining popularity and because of the bundle of intentional misrepresentations that is his health care proposal, his coalition is fraying. Rather than it being just Lindsey Graham or John McCain or Susan Collins questioning a Trump proposal in the Senate, now its Tom Cotton of Arkansas or Ike Blunt of Missouri or Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. The next two or three weeks will tell the tale on health care, and will shape almost everything that comes after. Can we be emphatic enough to Senate Republicans that they must not pass the Ryan-Trump decimation of health care coverage? As outlined below, there is much to be done.

Organized efforts to resist are growing in their quality and quantity. I think some are still too indiscriminate in sorting out what resistance actions are most critical and how chances of success can be enhanced. I am going with Cocteau: “When you smash a statue, you run the risk of becoming one yourself.” Rather than appealing but self-defeating snarkiness, let’s go with relentless, aggressive, principled, despair-diminishing positivism. Just in time is this good review of which national organizations are cropping up and what they hope to accomplish. 

Here’s three things that we can do, right now:

1) Lets Change Both Health Care and What Comes After
	Obviously, providing health care to Americans is a monumental issue onto itself. But it is also a first big test of whether Trump can pass legislation and whether all of us together can guard against the worst disassembly of Obama era progress. In the face of current turmoil, the idea that tax reform will be passed this year is now in doubt, and it is already being conceded that any major infrastructure bill will wait until 2018. Trump and Ryan need House passage of their American Health Care Act, and I predict they will achieve that. I also believe that to achieve that, they will accede to so many conservative demands that they will force Republicans in swing districts to “walk the plank” and vote for something that will ultimately be politically dangerous to them. It is important for us to understand where the debate will head if the Ryan-Trump amended proposal squeaks by in the House. As passed, it will contain certain guarantees regarding coverage of pre-existing conditions and allowing children under 25 to stay on their parent’s policies. In a terrible move, it will shift from the current subsidized coverage model to a system of refundable tax credits. It will try to adjust these credits to address the costs for people aged 50-65 (much higher than with the Affordable Care Act) because it can’t pass the House otherwise. But it will leave alive the pernicious fantasy that refundable tax credits are workable. Paul Ryan already knows these credits are far more responsive to the situation of families with steady employment and strong cash flow, so the credit can be reflected in withholding taxes and the net paycheck. As bad as that idea is, it will not be where we can get political leverage if this proposal heads to the Senate. That leverage can be secured because the plan will prey upon the 14 million people in 30 states who have received their coverage through Medicaid expansion their states elected after the ACA passed. Perversely, Republican Senators such as the very conservative Tom Cotton of Arkansas are not necessarily focused on the specter of people with sick kids suddenly not having access to a doctor. Instead, they are worried about new holes in their state’s health and social welfare funding, the plight of rural hospitals and the transfer to the states through capped block grants of what heretofore has primarily been a federal responsibility. There are eleven Republican Senators who are very worried. They are up for election in 2018 or 2020 and their states would lose their present Medicaid coverage by 2020 or earlier if the Ryan/Trump proposal passes. Dean Heller- of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona are up in 2018. In 2020 it is: Shelley Moore Capito - West Virginia Cory Gardner - Colorado Tom Cotton - Arkansas Joni Ernst - Iowa Dan Sullivan - Alaska Steve Daines - Montana Bill Cassidy - Louisiana Mitch McConnell - Kentucky. If you live in one of these states you and your friends should be contacting your Senator right now and tomorrow and the day after. If not, keep the pressure up with your own Congressional delegation. Or take a flyer on a man respected on both sides of the aisle, chair of the relevant Senate committee, who once saw himself as a moderate Republican and still thinks that way now and again: Senator Lamar Alexander (of Tennessee) 455 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone 202-224-4944
2) Revisit Past Behests
	Sometimes, the ideas in these missives age nicely. If you haven’t acted on some of the previous ideas, three in particular should grab your attention this week. First, as I outlined in #9, we must Stand Up for Mexico. This is a country and a people that have counted on our country and people as friends. Donald Trump has become a personal wrecking crew of that political, economic and cultural relationship. There are Mexican international experts who think this situation will reach an acceptable equilibrium. May it be so. See what you can do on Cinco de Mayo (May 5) to kick start your own personal campaign to reach across the border. Second, as I underscored in #6, we must Help People Understand That This Isn’t Populism. To this day, in the media, Donald Trump is referred to as a populist. This term is generally used to mean “standing up for the common people.” Since 24 million common people are scheduled to be removed from health care because of Donald Trump, could you make your personal mission to cry foul about labeling Trump a populist? Please be on alert for such usage in the media and write to correct. Third, at this point the single most important thing we can do together is to win back the House of Representatives in November of 2018 by taking back just 24 seats. It is time to Start The Congressional Campaign Efforts as discussed in #8. Groups within Indivisible and numerous other organizations are mounting district-specific efforts right now. Please join up.
3) Learn Where to Reach Out
	Even with the pre-election Comey announcement and the Russian hacking, the candidate I supported for President got more than 3 million votes more than the man who was elected President. Even that large margin could have been expanded with better campaigning and participation. I don’t subscribe to any notion that American progressive thought is in a decline or that we are some kind of new and persistent minority in the political system. We are a new, persistent, better organized majority. In that context, you may want to read Adam Gopnick’s strong but dense recent commentary in the New Yorker where he decries “presentism” and reminds that waiting and forever are actually different things.  As a persistent majority, we could go through our days of waiting and resisting in a bubble where we only connect with like-minded people, not just in the context of Republicans, independents and Democrats but all places on the political spectrum, and on the human spectrum. And that wouldn’t be such a good idea. So now comes a way to reach out, called Make America Dinner Again.

I hope you don’t feel tired. I hope you feel energized by our growing collective efforts and the possibilities those efforts offer. Even in this phase where we are thinking and responding to a single term president, we are going to be doing this for what could seem a very long time. We are strengthened by doing it together, and we know how much it matters in our country.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#9: If All We Do is Watch This Unfold, The Joke Will Be On Us

The first thing we did in our house after the election was turn off the news and listen to classical music for a week. We felt profound sorrow for our country. Now we are in the midst of 100 consecutive missives (one every two weeks) leading up to the next Presidential election and describing in detail specific steps we can take to help the republic for which we stand. Those wishing to receive this series can ask to receive the e-mail blast, sign up for the blog, or follow me on Facebook. You can also read and share past missives on the blog page. We started with a list of less than 300 friends, and now have well over double that number, with many others sharing these thoughts through social media. Please continue to help spread the word!

It seems like forever since Donald Trump became President. It’s difficult not to have our sole response be to just watching, or exchanging “he said what?” jokes, or spending an inordinate amount of time viewing the various comedic bits that have been developed in response to the worst or most bizarre actions of the president.

If that is all we do, the joke is on us. This situation is not going to normalize. It demands that we sustain an every week activism that was probably not our previous pattern. If we sort our actions wisely, if our movement continues to grow, the republic will withstand the blows it is receiving. We will block and parry and resist and propose and advance. You can take a health-restoring break from this now and again, but please don’t stay away for very long.

The flood of calls and emails and letters to Congressional offices matter, as do the big crowds at town hall meetings. The House “replacement bill” for the Affordable Care Act is totally unacceptable, since it will Make America Sick Again. But, even that proposal begins with an opening position on coverage that House Republicans would have found unthinkable before they started getting very worried about angry voters. For instance, it maintains until 2020 the expanded Medicaid coverage that brought 11 million people health insurance. Obviously, that is not acceptable, because this coverage of low income Americans should be expanded to the states who did not initially select the option, and it should be made permanent. However, before this movement started, there was zero chance even this provision would have been included. That’s real evidence that the national movement counts, and we will make it count even more.

This replacement bill and whatever alternative the Senate leadership proposes must be fought on every level, because even outside of the Medicaid coverage issue the refundable tax credit it is built around is ethically bankrupt and will jettison millions from coverage. Paul Ryan already knows it is far more likely to work for families with steady employment (so the credit can be reflected in withholding taxes and the net paycheck) and strong cash flow. With this provision and no long term Medicaid guarantee, the bill turns its back on millions of the people who desperately needed the Affordable Care Act.

It won’t be long before tax reform will be back on the table, requiring us to display the same intensity of effort we have displayed on health care. What can we do beyond keeping unprecedented pressure up, issue by issue? As has been underscored in previous missives, we must embrace other essential elements of resistance to a president who is devoid of principle. We must continue to strengthen the political organizations that fight against Trump excesses, such as Indivisible, with its many thousands of new chapters. Now that Tom Perez and Keith Ellison have formed a partnership to lead the Democratic National Committee, let’s celebrate the notion that the DNC will become a stronger and more productive force.

Let’s keep it up with supporting the immigrant and refugee and assistance programs that have been buffeted, the organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union that are fighting unconstitutional Presidential orders, the organizations like Mi Familia Vota who are registering Latino voters, and the organizations like Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee that are starting to work on battling gerrymandering in 2020.

And, let’s target these three actions right away:

1) Stand Up for Mexico
	Of all the positions taken by candidate Trump and President Trump, the assault on Mexico may be the most preposterous and galling. In two weeks just spent in Mexico, I personally witnessed the hurt and bewilderment from citizens of a country which has long ties to ours and which has benefited (as has the United States) from an important, mutually productive trade agreement. It is painful to travel in Mexico when you know our own President has been a bully. What do you say? My friends and I apologized for Donald Trump. However, we heard Mexican experts in international relations predict that our countries will not estrange and that the State Department, international companies and reason itself will carry the day. May it be so, and may we all help to make it so. Senator Lindsey Graham has indicated that Senate Republicans who value this friendship and trade relationship will not accept the 10% import tax on Mexican goods that is being bandied about in the House and advanced by Trump. Let’s start by calling Lindsey Graham’s office at 202-224-3808 and thank him for being a leader on this. Then, try to reach someone who isn’t flooded by mail. Write a personal appeal on behalf of sanity in Mexico-United States relations to Christopher Tuttle, Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 423 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington D.C. 20510. Finally, start getting ready for May 5, Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the unlikely defeat of French forces by a smaller less experienced Mexican army of liberation in 1862. Let’s make it the day when those of us north of the border throw a party to celebrate Mexico’s exported products, its ties to the United States, and to publicly reject the mean-spirited Trump attacks.
2) Focus on Each Off-Year Election
	There are two off-year gubernatorial elections in 2017. Chances are great that Democrats will take back New Jersey, where Chris Christie is both unpopular and term-limited. Democrats will seek to hold the governorship in Virginia, where Terry McCaullife is term-limited. Here’s an initial handicapping of 2018 races, which will soon come into greater focus. Remember that states can be laboratories of democracy and are strong tools in fighting Trump excesses, especially in social welfare and environmental protection. There will also be six special elections to fill Congressional vacancies in 2017, including the Montana election to replace newly named Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on May 25. The special election that has attracted the most attention so far is in Georgia’s 6th district, vacated by new HHS Secretary Tom Price. Even though this is a Republican district, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than two percentage points. Support is building behind Jon Ossoff, who has been endorsed by John Lewis. Here’s where you go to donate. Any seat we can pick up now decreases the 24 we need to take back the House on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, which already looms as a critical day in the history of our country.
3) Make Some Choices in Supporting Environmental Organizations
	In missive #4, I emphasized that the President’s overall executive powers and the ability to issue executive orders are especially problematic in the area of environmental policy. This is because Trump is a climate change denier and because many environmental statutes intentionally left room for executive discretion to improve enforcement and keep pace with advances in scientific knowledge. There is hardly an area of governmental action where Trump can do more damage more quickly. He added multiple additional insults to injury by naming long time EPA opponent Scott Pruitt to be the agency’s administrator. The fox has a room in the hen house. For the time being, the underlying pillars of environmental protection in the United States (including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation Recovery Act) will retain their huge value because major changes are only possible through Congressional reauthorization processes. But under Pruitt’s leadership, each will be under-enforced or subject to creative misinterpretation. Thus, the case is strong for lending immediate personal and financial support for two kinds of environmental organizations, above all others. First, we can select organizations which are doing the best work in our state capitals, where new efforts must be advanced to counter reduced federal enforcement. The types of environmental organizations that lead in state capitals vary by state, but often they are a state environmental council bringing together several disparate environmental nonprofits. On the national level, it is time to emphasize environmental litigiousness. Where an unacceptable Presidential action or EPA decision can be vigorously challenged, it should be. Two litigation focused national nonprofits come immediately to mind, EarthJustice (“Because the Earth Needs a Good Lawyer”) and the even larger and very highly respected Natural Resources Defense Council.

It is not time for our energies to wane. Nor is it time to become so interested in the variety of ways we can express our horror to each other over day to day events that we set aside the arduous work of day to day activism. We all get it, so now we have to get it done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington