#19: A Republic If You Can Keep It

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During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was approached by a citizen in a Philadelphia square outside the closed meetings. The woman said “Well, Doctor, what do we have, a republic or a monarchy?” And Dr. Franklin said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And so, we have tended for 230 years to our collective commitment to self-determination and the freedoms it generates. As a country, we have done some awful things and harbored searing injustices, but we have kept the republic. As much as there is a beacon anywhere for long-lasting democracy, we represent that beacon, however great its disrepair. We will not let that light dim through the actions of a man who has not been and will not be fit to be president.

When he swore an oath, we swore one too. His is not going well. Tweeting away on health care, he has displayed no understanding of either the system he wants to replace or what would come next. Worse, he has no need nor desire to understand these things. He said recently, “They are always talking about death. Obamacare is death”. In his public discourse, he is one short step away from “So’s your old man.”

In Washington, he has been found out by his own staff and cabinet heads, who know he wants sycophants. The Congress is about to pass sanctions on Russia that take us in the opposite direction from the Putin political embrace for which Trump had been yearning. Things are getting harder and harder for him as weeks go by. He watches Fox & Friends for their creative interpretation of the world, and tweets the night away. With the Mueller investigation and the Trumpian raging at Jeff Sessions, it is difficult to see his performance or voter approval improving.

Our oath is going well. Under these circumstances it is hard to take much joy in that, but the preliminary results are in. All together we have created a movement that will be sustainable throughout the four or fewer years of the Trump presidency. Trump’s support from independents has deteriorated. As Gallup notes, the average presidential approval rating by independents is 53%. Trump’s has fallen to 36%. Further, the news story about how his Republican base is undaunted is misleading. Support has lessened, and fewer than 30% of those polled are identifying as Republican in the first place.

Currently, it is not a problem that ours is a movement that has just a little coordination, innumerable priorities, no single leader, and an indistinct affirmative agenda. Certainly, all those things will have to change over time. For now, it is a blessing that we are sprawling and spirited and that we are not a Democratic Party project. Indivisible has been nearly indispensable, but there are countless initiatives and an unabated fervor. If you have remained fervent yourself, please keep that up.

If you have found your fervency flagging a little bit over time, or you are at least a little less focused that you had been, you may be forgetting how much you matter. Sorry to say, but the only way this works is that we all must remain relentless. For motivation, how about reminding yourself how you felt the morning after the election? If you have stopped being a participant and started being a spectator instead, come back right now, please.

The successful motion to proceed to the amendment process does not mean that the Senate will repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, because they still don’t have 50 votes behind any course of action. Their first two major actions failed 57-43 (comprehensive bill) and 55-45 (repeal without replace). However, as described in missive #18, many Republican Senators are still thinking that it will be better for them over time if they pass a deeply unpopular bill to repeal and replace than if they refuse to do so. The national outpouring, the calls and emails and notes that you and your neighbors have sent, has already placed them in a deep quandary. Here are three things right now that will make it deeper:

1)Targeting State Fiscal Issues
	Mitch McConnell is going to use the upcoming amendment process to gauge how he can get to 50 votes. He has been inducing individual senators, trying to give them political “cover” by spending more on their key concerns, like the opioid crisis (Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia) or provider subsidies in areas with higher cost insurance (Lisa Murkowski of Alaska). The battle over extended Medicaid coverage is the most painful for Senators like Capito, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Dean Heller of Nevada. Their states accepted the Medicaid deal in the Alternative Care Act and do not want to turn back, since it would throw as many as hundreds of thousands of their constituents off their insurance. These Senators know what McConnell is going to end up with will be a bad fiscal deal for their states, because the revenues those states receive to cover low income citizens will be capped, and the expenditures will not be. Almost all states face constitutional requirements that their budgets be balanced annually. When revenues go down, throwing people off Medicaid is always a leading alternative. The current proposal would cost states $218 billion in federal support between 2020 and 2029. Dean Heller’s own Republican Governor Bryan Sandoval hates these cuts a lot. And, Heller is up for reelection in 2018. Let’s concentrate our voices here. As you know, send Dean Heller emails and do phone calls that are your own words. Something like “You know that with this one vote you would do fiscal harm to this state for decades.” Here’s three Heller calls to make or emails to write: Legislative Assistant (for health care) Rachel Green rachel_green@heller.senate.gov (202) 224-6244 Legislative Director Sarah Paul sarah_paul@heller.senate.gov (202) 226-6244 Chief of Staff Mac Abrams mac_abrams@heller.senate.gov (202) 226-6244
2) Reinforcing Lisa Murkowski’s Planned Parenthood Defense
	Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Susan Collins of Maine as the two Republican Senators who voted against proceeding with consideration of the bill. One of their primary motivations is protecting Planned Parenthood, whose federal funding for broader women’s health services would be cut to zero. They have received some good news from the Senate parliamentarian, who has ruled that a provision to Planned Parenthood is not subject to the budget reconciliation process and therefore would require 60 votes to cut off debate, not 51. Murkowski can and will use this for leverage, but her ultimate opposition to repeal and replace is not as predictable as that of Susan Collins. The quality of reproductive health care in America may depend upon her ultimate vote. Now is a wonderful time to reinforce the strong stand she has taken on this issue. Here’s who to tell: Morgan Griffin Legislative Assistant (for health care) morgan_griffin@murkowski.senate.gov 202-224-6655
3) Make a Progress Payment
	It is a possibility that the Senate will pass a bill that will be the worst piece of legislation in the past two decades. The number one idea of this bill is to enable the significant reduction in the number of people who receive health care in America. What a shameful thing this is. Let’s make a contribution to taking back the House as a declaration that this will not stand. Between now and mid-August, Congress will pass a bill to repeal and provide a “replacement”, or they will not. Let’s keep fighting for the latter outcome, but let’s keep getting ready for November 6, 2018. Giving through Swing Left’s district funds is an excellent way to give to races that are sure to count, and to stockpile money to help recruit the best challengers.

This is going to keep going on. The Trump speech to the Boy Scouts is just one more day-to-day example that this man is unmoored by any understanding of what being President requires of him. There will be some more of this, no? And, of course, we will spend the fall on Mueller disclosures and actions unless Trump fires him before then and precipitates a constitutional crisis.

And then there is the Congress, clearly and resolutely taking the opposite course from Trump on sanctioning Russia. A number of commentators have opined that this is a symbol of Congress’ heightened resolve. Since members of Congress face almost no opposition in their districts to their being harder on Russia, it might be better to eschew the praise on this front.

So, we will expect more praiseworthy actions, at least from the Senate. Even if more such blessings appear, our relentlessness will continue. This is no time to avert our gaze or lose our focus.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#18: A Sordid Implicit Deal Guides Republican Senators

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This upcoming week will be consequential, again.

It may seem like Mitch McConnell won't get a Republican health care bill through the Senate, but don't be certain about that. The reason he continues to look for a way forward with this horrible, horribly unpopular bill is that he is convinced that his party will be in worse political trouble if they don't pass it than if they do. That's counterintuitive, but it comes down to this:

If you are a Republican Senator, you can choose between 1) passing it, and having independent voters be disgusted with you at least until the 2018 midterm elections (with a hope that you will find a way to mitigate that disgust), or 2) failing to pass it and having the 30-35% of the voters who are your base be outraged at you for an even longer period of time because you promised them Obamacare repeal for seven years.

McConnell's Senators can't win elections without the base, so he will continue to look for an opening, even though the political dangers of losing the independent vote are also huge, and even though working together we will make those dangers even greater. These Senators didn't expect Trump to win and make repeal even faintly possible, and their countless votes to repeal when the Democrats held the presidency were just political theatre. They are the dog that chased the car and can't figure out what to do when it caught it.

For eight months, Republicans have wondered and wrestled about what to do about Donald Trump. What they have come up with so far is the worst sort of bargain. Nearly every Republican in Congress has decided to sign on to this deal.

They get to criticize Donald Trump for thuglike or boorish behavior or nonsensical actions. They can compose and send clever tweets to signal their disapproval, or display a raised eyebrow to the cameras. With impunity, they can mitigate the worst of his budget proposals, maintain sanctions against Russia and anticipate reports from Richard Burr's Senate Judiciary Committee and special investigator Robert Mueller on election abuse.

That is what is permitted. In return, these Senators will vote for any Cabinet nominee, however unqualified. They will maintain the known fiction that Donald Trump is able to fulfill the office of President of the United States. They will let Trump and Scott Pruitt decimate the EPA and environmental law. They will stand by as he walks away from the most important global environmental effort ever. They will say a silent prayer to Tillerson and Mattis and watch as Trump destroys our nation's relationships with long time global partners, even those whose soldiers have died in wars we asked them to join.

This is a sordid implicit deal that guides the Senate Republicans. You can be in Congress for a long time without being personally subjected to the harsh judgments of history, but these Republican Senators will not have that luxury.

This is not and will not be permanent change in the bold American democratic experiment that has continued for 230 years with all its dreams and blemishes.

The mid-year elections of 2018 will foretell the return of a democratic, Democratic presidency in 2020. At some time in the not so distant future, we will look back and wonder how Republican Senators could have put the country and the Constitution at such peril.

And the answer will be that they couldn't bear to not get a little benefit out of Trump being president. They want some judicial appointments, some reductions in budgets of least favored agencies, and some tax cuts for people who do not need tax cuts. In a time where many of them know in their hearts that the President of their party is not capable of governing, they cannot bear to put country ahead of party.

As the full implications of the Trump presidency become known, it may be that we will be seeing fewer empty actions of Republican opposition and more principled actions. Maybe this will begin now with Republicans standing in the way of the McConnell health care proposal. There are some additional Senators finding their voice. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said that her commitment is to vulnerable populations and that gives her the strength to provide the deciding "no" vote. John Hoeven of North Dakota is worried about the viability of rural hospitals if the bill passes, since as much as 70% of their revenue comes from Medicaid which will suffer serious reductions in funding. Conservative Jerry Moran of Kansas is worried about decreased protection for those with pre-existing conditions.

The rules of the Senate provide motivation for these Senators to set aside these concerns and go with McConnell. This is because the tax breaks for millionaires included in the present version of the Senate bill count as budgetary savings. Under budget reconciliation rules, they would be able to "use" these savings when they seek to "reform" the tax law by giving more tax cuts to people who don't need them. Because they have these savings, they would be able to pass a tax bill with 50 votes. I am not making this up.

We hope the access to care for many millions of people will prevail, and that we will return to health care that represents what we can do with and for each other. To help these notions carry the day, we need to do these three things.

1) Widening our List of Targeted Senators
	Let's respond to the relatively recent signals of three Senators, none of which were initially thought to be a possible "no" vote. Please call their principal legislative assistant for health care. Say that the Senator was right to voice her or his concerns, and that the problems with this bill are not going to go away. At this point it is all about the volume of calls, which is not a bad thing, because it reinforces the narrative that even in red states, Senators support this bad bill at their political peril. Call and/or email these three aides: Senator Hoeven: Dan Auger, Legislative Director daniel_auger@hoeven.senate.gov 202-224-2551 Senator Moran: Kyle Christian, Legislative Assistant kyle_christian@moran.senate.gov 202-224-6521 Senator Capito: Dana Richter, Legislative Assistant dana_richter@capito.senate.gov 202-224-6472
2) Speak Out for Rural Hospitals
	The dilemma faced by rural hospitals has received little attention during the health care debate. It has been overshadowed by Medicaid cuts, a diminution of protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and attempts to redefine and thus limit essential services. The Chartis Center for Rural Health has identified over 600 rural hospitals that are at risk. The National Rural Health Association vehemently urges a no vote.   See this as an issue that many Senators have ignored. Send the article to your own two Senators to reinforce their concerns if they have any, or to seek to develop some concerns if they have none.
3) Remember Key Environmental Battles
	Because of administrative rule making authority contained in many of the major environmental laws, Trump and Scott Pruitt have been able to make some inroads in weakening environmental regulations. Now environmental organizations are getting some traction on the Obama era rule requiring monitoring of methane emissions from public lands. Three Republican Senators joined Democrats in blocking the Trump rescission of the rule. When Trump and Pruitt moved to rescind the rule by executive order they were blocked by a lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and others. Let's celebrate by sending the NRDC a contribution to support this critical legal work.

The resistance continues. The recent disclosures on collusion with Russia may make Republican Senators a little bolder in any principled stands on Trump. Whether or not they become bolder we will prevail in these efforts. We do not have another option.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#17: This Battle Will Consume the Summer

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.

Republicans will control Congress during the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency. During that time, some proposal will be advanced that stands out for its unsurpassed venality. There will be competition, of course, because in the upcoming months, more things will happen that would previously have been thought to be unthinkable.

But nothing says reprehensible more than the relationship between two of the primary elements of the Senate Republican health care bill.

First, removal of a 3.8% tax on the investment income of wealthy individuals will give an average of $45,500 a year to each of the top 1% in income. Second, the bill would push 22 million people off coverage, including 16 million next year.

Is there no shame? Is this what we have come to in the level of avoidable human deprivation and misery we will permit in the wealthiest nation in the world? This battle will consume the summer, but why not stop this now?

Don't believe that the "moderate" Republican senators targeted by AARP as possible "NO" votes are indifferent about how you feel. They are terrified by how you feel! They know this bill is hugely unpopular. They are weighing the political damage of doing what they mindlessly promised to do (repeal Obamacare without having a replacement) against the political damage of not doing it. Put your hand on that scale.

It will take some acts of faith and some summoning of energy to keep on making the calls, writing the letters and standing in the way. We will all do it for the love of our country, and in fear for what it will otherwise become.

Know your arguments. The nine "moderates" (see #1 below) other than Susan Collins and Dean Heller are waiting to state their intentions in hopes that either 1) the outcome will be decided without them, or 2) majority leader McConnell will offer them a "side deal" that would make a yes vote more palatable. These side deals will all be ruses:

• If the Senate puts more money in to a special fund for the opioid crises, they will ignore the role that private insurance or Medicaid plays in paying for treatment.

• If they put some more money into Medicaid, but continue their planned cap on payments to the states (thus ending Medicaid's status as an entitlement program) they will delay bleeding people off their coverage for a few more months. But when the first recession comes and states must balance their budgets while receiving less tax revenue, Medicaid hemorrhaging will ensue.

• If they maintain that people with pre-existing conditions are guaranteed coverage, they will enact a provision that enrollees must go six months of getting sicker and sicker before their coverage begins.

If we had a parliamentary system, this government would fall right now. But, November 6, 2018 will come soon and with it a Trump-blocking House of Representatives.

Sure, taking the Georgia seat or one of the other special elections would have been rewarding. However, we are running way ahead of the Congressional elections of November, 2016. At this point, the new Democratic margins applied to contestable seats would give us 40 new Democratic House members, and we only need 24. Refer to Missive #8 for how to pick your race, and put yourself in motion.

For now, it's all about the health care bill. Under pressure, Mitch McConnell has delayed the bill until after the 4th of July recess, giving us a chance to make the vacation memorable by doing three things:

1) Contribute to the Congressional Barrage
	As outlined in Missive #16, the AARP and several health care organizations have targeted 11 Republican senators as the prime candidates to provide the three votes needed to defeat the Senate proposal. The virtue of adding your voice to the AARP position is that their effort is already well articulated, and is seen as powerful. When we call these senatorial offices, or email them, we are joining the barrage. If there is any chance to talk to a human, it won't be by calling the main number. Use the numbers below to call the district office for the senator. Dean Heller - Nevada (702) 388-6605 Lisa Murkowski - Alaska (907) 271-3735 Dan Sullivan - Alaska (907) 271-5915 Jeff Flake - Arizona (602) 840-1891 Joni Ernst - Iowa (515) 284-4574 Chuck Grassley - Iowa (515) 288-1145 Rob Portman - Ohio (614) 469-6774 Lamar Alexander - Tennessee (615) 736-5129 Bob Corker - Tennessee (615) 279-8125 Shelley Moore Capito - West Virginia (304) 347-5372 Cory Gardner - Colorado (303) 391-5777 Or, call the Senator's principal aide on health care, using this directory handily provided by Indivisible.
2) Making Certain There Are Consequences
	After the House passed their ignoble version of the health care bill, three organizations upped the ante on making certain votes to decimate health care would not go unnoticed. Act Blue, the Daily Kos and Swing Left have set up targeted escrow accounts to make certain strong candidates are well supported in swing districts, including districts where the Republican congressional candidate won, even though Clinton beat Trump, or other swing districts where Republican Congressmen voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here's the Swing Left site. Let's each pick a dollar amount, multiply it by the number of times, Trump tweets in the next week and send the total amount in.
3) Bolster Health Care for All in Your Community
	Community Health Centers have been spread across the United States since the War on Poverty. They provide health care to the uninsured and the underinsured and they do their indispensable work in 9,000-neighborhoods and communities. Find out who is doing this critical work near you. Whether or not you can send them a check right now, make it your personal business to find out what their unmet needs are and who can help. Spread the word.

Early in the Revolution, Thomas Paine called for his fellow citizens not to be "summer soldiers" or "sunshine patriots."

We aren't in pitched battles with muskets and we don't need to be admonished. But it doesn't hurt to recall our anguish and fervor the day after the election, and the pledge we made to ourselves then. We can and will win this, but let's continue to fuel ourselves from that anguish and fervor.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#16: We Are a Part of a Massive Community of Conscience

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.

Even in the aftermath of November 8, many of us did not imagine what has since been wrought. We underestimated the extent to which Donald Trump would not know or would not care about how government is run. For the entire period of his presidency, his indifference to how government is managed will continue to be a critical factor in the ways his presidency is damaging the country.

Ironically, on some days this sloppiness provides as big of a barrier to him executing his agenda than the unacceptable nature of the agenda itself. It isn’t just the awfulness of his underlying ideas that are stalling his agenda, it is that his lack of knowledge and wholly unappealing temperament that keeps him from adopting courses of action that have a chance for success. We should not lull ourselves into thinking that health care reform or tax reform are inevitable losers for him. The resistance has tripped him up, but so have his own shoelaces.

Presidents Obama and Clinton and George W. Bush all had low approval ratings sometime in their presidency, but their ratings were impermanent and they always had an idea as to how to make them change. Because of the Comey testimony and even more so because of the Mueller assignment as independent counsel, Trump will have headwinds throughout his presidency. After Comey’s testimony, we were subjected to a bizarre ritual of obsequiousness in which Trump went around the cabinet table and asked each member to offer new words of praise. Past cabinet members from both parties would have walked away from this exercise. That he wanted or needed that ritual tells you what you need to know about this man.

Even with all this good bad news about the ways in which he has been neutralized so far, the damage to America is very real. Internationally, the job for Rex Tillerson and James Mattis is to clean up for him. Our international alliances are tattered. Trump finally confirmed that we will adhere to Article 5 of the NATO charter pledging mutual defense. Going forward, his bizarre application of “The Art of the Deal” to long time international relationships will get people killed.

It seems like all weeks post-election have been pivotal, but the period of time between now and the 4th of July Congressional recess will have great consequence. That’s because Senate Republicans will try to pass a health care bill to give the White House the illusion of legislative progress. They are in a very difficult position. If they can’t get a bill because they can’t or won’t meet the concerns of the Republican “moderates”, they won’t have the budget “savings” they need to use the reconciliation process to pass a tax reform bill with a simple majority. This is one of the times that Senate rules matter. Unless they pass a health care bill, they will need 60 votes to pass tax reform, and they will never get 60 votes for a tax bill that comforts the comfortable.

The situation Majority Leader McConnell is in would be difficult to make up. You could rephrase it and say “Unless Republican Senators figure out a way to throw more than 20 million people off health care, they aren’t going to have a way to provide a huge tax benefit for the most wealthy of Americans.”

So, Mitch McConnell has empaneled 13 male Republican Senators (and none of the 5 female Republican Senators) to meet behind closed doors to forge something that can rally 50 of the 52 Republicans Senators. It is a sad day that this is even thinkable for a minute, but it most certainly is preventable. This missive emphasizes three things you can do to defend health care for Americans:

1) Stop the Trump Health Care Charade
	Donald Trump just had a luncheon meeting with Republican Senators on the health care bill. Sources have indicated that he called the American Health Care Act which the House has passed “mean” and that he told Senators to pursue a bill that is “generous, kind, and with a heart.” The House bill that he called mean was previously described by Trump as “incredibly well crafted.” The level of cynicism behind this strategy is breathtaking. Trump’s strategy is to gain votes from Senators who love that the government offers protection to sick people and from Senators who hate that it does, the “non-mean” and the “mean”. The Senate working group will fashion a proposal that walks away from the 13 million people who have been provided Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, but the provisions will slow the pace of the walk to perhaps a seven-year phase out. This is all about Making America Sick Again in a more measured Senate Republican way, with Donald Trump claiming a trophy for generosity in advancing a bill that could not be more hard hearted. What if they end up improving on the House bill so much that “only” 12 million people become uninsured? Is this the new credo for Republicanism---- “We are going to turn away from a lot of sick people, just not quite as many as you may have feared.” Please help get the word out now on this cynical approach. Call foul! Don’t let any impression stand that Donald Trump is doing a compassionate intervention. Select a local newspaper, a big city newspaper, a call-in show, Facebook and other social media sites, or public meetings to make sure people are understanding what is happening. You can’t be writing letters to the editor each week, but you can write one this week.
2) Help the AARP Target 11 Key Senators
	The AARP is not the bastion of American progressive thinking. It is the bastion of 35 million people over 55 whose organization is very angry about the House Bill. It is a leader in the coalition of organizations battling against the Senate proposals under consideration. The AARP is very concerned about the House’s diminishment of coverage for pre-existing conditions, and they are livid that the House proposal will permit insurers to charge premiums for 50 year olds as much as five times higher than those for younger people.  In response, AARP has targeted 11 Republican Senators who are on the fence. Please view the new AARP television ad calling for these Senators to do the right thing. Since these Senators are already well aware they are being targeted, call the number of the Senator’s main district office, tell them you have seen the ad, and that you fully support its concerns. Hooking onto the AARP ad will make your action doubly effective. District offices keep count of the calls and report to their Senator. Your calls will help make each of these 11 Senators nervous, and we only need 3 of them to do the right thing. Dean Heller - Nevada (702) 388-6605 Lisa Murkowski - Alaska (907) 271-3735 Dan Sullivan - Alaska (907) 271-5915 Jeff Flake - Arizona (602) 840-1891 Joni Ernst - Iowa (515) 284-4574 Chuck Grassley - Iowa (515) 288-1145 Rob Portman - Ohio (614) 469-6774 Lamar Alexander - Tennessee (615) 736-5129 Bob Corker - Tennessee (615) 279-8125 Shelley Moore Capito - West Virginia (304) 347-5372 Cory Gardner - Colorado (303) 391-5777
3) Make Certain Your State Legislators Have Joined This Battle
	As previous missives have stressed, one of the major problems in the Republican “alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act is the assault on the protection for the millions of Americans who have pre-existing conditions. The House bill established a process in which states could allow the exclusion of these Americans from an insurance pool. They instead would have access to a high-risk pool with some federal subsidies and with escalating costs. Ultimately, millions would be unable to gain coverage. The second major objection to the assault on health care is the elimination of the promise that brought 13 million low income Americans coverage after the Affordable Care Act was passed. The anticipated reduction or phase out of this expanded Medicaid coverage will burn up insurance cards in low income households in the 31 states who used this option to provide health care to the working poor. The block granting of a portion of these funds to the states and the phase out of the program is a sop thrown to Republican elected officials in these states who want to be able to argue that they prevented elimination of extended coverage. They will have extended coverage a bit, for some people, and will have extended the carnage in health care for low income Americans. They will also have created significant problems for their own state budgets. Right now the economy is strong but there is always a recession around the corner. If they allow the destruction of Medicaid expansion, the states will be trading a cow for some milk. At some time in the future, they will be faced with higher unemployment, more people eligible for assistance, and far less money to pay the bill. Families USA has detailed the situation of each state. Call your state legislator who is much more accessible than a member of Congress. Make sure they and their colleagues have told your states' member of Congress that they are heading your state toward an all new fiscal crisis.

Dr. King said "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that fervently. One way or another, I have been involved in how the public summons itself and works for a better, fairer more just government for 50 years. At one time or another, I have despaired for this nation and what it has done to people, and I have celebrated this nation and what it has done for people.

In all its inevitable messiness, I believe that the opposition that has emerged after the Trump election has the potential to become one of the great social movements of a century. Whatever role each of us plays in the resistance, we are doing this together, as a part of a massive, principled, tireless community of conscience. We take strength from knowing each day that there are millions of us who will continue to attend to this critical business.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#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