#38: We Will Regain and Rediscover Our Own Country

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Now that we have drifted further into uncharted waters, it’s appropriate to examine the additional dangers of a presidency that unquestionably is unmoored, rather than one that one might think is merely but perennially misguided.

If you are unmoored, and you are in uncharted waters, you can collide with anything, often without any advance warning. The consequences of such collisions are not known in advance. And what if there are too few people watching out for hidden or even obvious obstacles and barriers?

All of this explains the dilemma of those of us who are resisting. How could we not be askew in the face of this “morally unqualified” president, where the willful lies pile up and where the bullying is relentless and where the learning is absent? This has gotten scary. The Sara Huckabees scurry to tell us Trump tweets on Syria are all consistent with each other and with foreign policy plans, but all sentient beings (even including members of Congress) know better. Who doesn’t get it that every day is a new day with its new bizarre behaviors? 

Mercifully, Donald Trump is not a part of a new and growing movement in America. With the help of the Russians, and of James Comey! (with his announcement a week before the election), and weaknesses in the Clinton campaign, racism, and sexism, he threaded the needle. He won an election he did not expect to win and would not win again. He, and we, are saddled with him having a job that he did not expect to have. Weirdly, his challenge and our challenge is nearly the same - to get through all of this without injury to himself and others. It is not just Senator Bob Corker that has called attention to the president having “minders”. There are cabinet secretaries and staff members (James Mattis and John Kelly, even in his reduced role) who serve in that role every day.

Our job now is to have even more people standing between him and the Constitution he would seek to shred, or between him and other nations he would strive to vilify. That is what we have signed up for, from now to perhaps as long as January 2020. Occasionally, we have even taken delight in other more unlikely and inconsistent intervenors. Paul Ryan, thanks for any time you talked the President down when he forget the Congress and the Constitution. Susan Collins, your swing vote has not been there as much as we would have liked, but when it has appeared, we certainly have appreciated it. You too, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. To House moderate Republicans who are deciding not to run again - now that you are unshackled, could you vote what you believe more often, eschewing your ritualistic genuflection in the direction of the White House? It has becomeembarrassing. What can Trump do to you now? To the cabinet secretaries who believe the agency they head should exist, please identify yourself! And thank you. As the New York Times said on Monday, isn’t it time for you to step forward a few steps more?

Still, you can look in the mirror for the ultimate intervenor. You are the one, with the millions of other resisters by your side. Together, you are the ones that saved the Affordable Care Act, kept the wall from being built, and got a budget passed that funded the Environmental Protection Agency and social services. You are the ones that make the rest of the world understand that America intends to be a beacon again sometime in the future.

You are the ones who are creating an enthusiasm level about winning back the House in November that has petrified Congressional Republicans and accelerated retirements. You’re obsessed by swing districts, and you are working in small groups and marching and registering voters and sending money. You are as dangerous, or even more dangerous to Donald Trump than Robert Mueller and Stormy Daniels. Donald Trump wants you to be quiet and go away. Is that sufficient motivation?

We ended up with a federal budget where almost none of the worst of the Trump/Mulvaney cuts materialized. But remember their playbook. The new tax law will be shepherding in trillion-dollar annual deficits. Then the assaults on social welfare spending will begin anew. Tax cuts for the rich will drive budget cuts for the poor. That all can be forestalled until a new Congress is seated next January. This is one more reason to take back the House. 

In the meantime, Congress is paralyzed on a DACA bill, and most everything else. The eyes are on Mueller, on Michael Cohen’s paramour payoffs, on Trump himself and on whether he will fire deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. Let’s do three things that will help continue our resisting momentum:

1) Thoughtfully Thanking Thom Tillis
	As this missive discussed above, we need Republican elected officials to defend the Republic, for which we stand. The candidates for this all too rare stalwart behavior most often come from the ranks of Senators who don’t plan to run for reelection, such as John McCain, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. Now comes an unlikely candidate, North Carolina conservative Senator Thom Tillis. Tillis has joined Lindsay Graham and Democrat Chris Coons in introducing the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, which would set up additional roadblocks to Trump firing Robert Mueller. The bill isn’t going to pass, but it is a fresh and important signal to Trump. Tillis irritated a not inconsiderable number of his supporters when he went in this direction. Here is his explanation in the Rocky Mount NC newspaper. Thom Tillis has other problems, such as being mixed up with Cambridge Analytica, but nonetheless it is time to write and thank him for his efforts in upholding the role of law in the face of Trump’s threats to fire Mueller. Write Thom_Tillis@tillis.senate.gov.
2) Give Some Counsel to Swing Left
	In the darkest days after the Trump election, two organizations stepped forward to help grow a movement. The work of Indivisible (which was founded by savvy former Congressional staffers) has been indispensable. So has the work of Swing Left, which is fully focused on us taking back the House. The people who started Swing Left were relative political unknowns, and they have delivered every step of the way. They invented “district funds” which are escrow accounts you can contribute to in swing districts prior to the selection of our candidate, so she or he will get an early boost. Now comes Swing Left with an all new question posed to the resistance.  They are already targeting 70 Republican seats, all in districts where we clearly can compete.  They ask us all.   Should they expand the map of targeted races too try to generate the bluest of all blue waves?  Unfortunately, they have framed the question as if this year is like any other Congressional election year. Their worry is that helping candidate in race #77 (whose chances are a longer shot) could weaken our efforts for candidate in race #28 (whose chances are very good.) This worry pays insufficient attention to the fact that every close race we create is one Republicans will have to defend, and that expanding the map is a great way to make the blue wave the election narrative of the year. If we can do that it will fan additional voter registrations and higher turnout, and that too will help in Swing Left’s present list of targeted races. It’s time to write Swing Left at team@swingleft.org and tell them that it will not diminish current targeted races to expand the map.
3) Dare to Dream About the Senate
	There has been reluctance to dream about taking over the Senate.  This is because we are preoccupied with the re-election of several Democrats who won in 2018 and who are seeking re-election in states that Trump carried in 2016.   These include Heidi Heitkamp of North Carolina, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of MIssouri and several others. Beyond playing defense, now it appears that there are take-back opportunities, beyond winning the open seat in Arizona that Jeff Flake is vacating, and beating Dean Heller in Nevada. The wild dream is that Representative Beto O’Rourke has started so strong in Texas that he may have a chance to beat Ted Cruz. An even more promising opportunity has appeared in Tennessee. Former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen is leading in the polls in the race to fill the seat left open by the retiring, Trump disaffected, Bob Corker. Now would be an excellent time to give Phil Bredesen a financial boost.

Every week Donald Trump unravels a little bit more. He gets a little angrier with his staff, a little more disconnected in his public statements, a little less grounded. Every week it seems even more astounding than it was the previous week that this man became president of the United States. It doesn’t work to respond to these woeful circumstances with despair. Instead each of us finds within themselves with new energy to resist, to fight back, and to regain and rediscover our own country.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#37: The Time is Coming for Donald Trump to Tell it to the Judge

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From the first minute of the Trump presidency, we have resisted. It was not as though we wouldn’t have had some satisfaction if he had tacked toward the middle or showed the slightest interest in the obligations of the job or some desire to improve his skills. From the beginning, it was worse than we feared at least in one very notable respect- he has no commitment to democracy. All of the worst presidents from James Buchanan forward have at least recognized the nature and the wondrousness of the great democratic experiment, however they have tarnished it.

It doesn’t seem like a commitment to the self-governance of the American people is too much to ask, but it is now clear that it will not be forthcoming from this president. This is an unprecedented time, where aides fall by the wayside as soon as they aren’t fawning enough, or they vary in the slightest from his Fox-spawned world view. Donald Trump is not willing to be any kind of President, and he is proud and protective of that unwillingness.

It is extremely unlikely that he will be impeached but is not even a close question as to who would be a less dangerous president between him and the vice-president. Mike Pence would be the most politically conservative president of modern times, but nonetheless he would attend to the requirements of the job more fully in one day than Donald Trump has in any month that he has been elected. You could pick your poison, but if you did, why not reduce the danger to security and our democracy by choosing Pence, who at least recognizes there is someone in the world besides himself?

That choice is not likely to come before us. Donald Trump’s presidency will survive. We will not ever know all of his offenses, whether or not they are “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Those we know for sure will be discounted by a sufficient number of Republican Senators to protect him from being removed from office, however much they end up fleeing from him in every other way.

Even without much prospect for impeachment, the role of the courts in checking Trump’s abuses of power is growing. At least for now, the president is constrained by federal courts from walking away from DACA. The courts have forced the modification of his various travel bans, and they have slowed the Trump/Pruitt pillaging of environmental regulation.

On the personal culpability side, those who are seeking to hold Donald Trump legally responsible for doing the things he relishes doing are all making progress. What has emerged are several solid opportunities for the judicial system to be used as a check against the misuse of power.

First, Stormy Daniels, as much as she has captured the nation’s attention span, will not necessarily be a lasting problem, since evangelicals have already given Trump a get out of jail free card. Nor is he facing a big problem from former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who is also seeking release from her non-disclosure agreement. Donald Trump has not subjected either woman to tweet-assault, and both have stressed that their relationships with him were consensual. However, Trump still has a groping issue before the courts. A New York Supreme Court Justice thus far has refused to throw out Summer Zervos’ defamation lawsuit. If Trump’s appeal of the Court’s denial of his stay is turned down, a deposition would be next. 

Second, the resistance has been making the emoluments argument since Trump was elected, and that case is still alive in federal court. The Constitution prohibits officials from receiving “gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states.” Maryland and the District of Columbia have argued that Trump is receiving such gifts as foreign governments gravitate to the Trump International Hotel. 

Of course, the biggest personal challenge for Donald Trump is the Mueller investigation itself. Given the methodical way that Robert Mueller has proceeded so far, it is surprising how much conjecture there is in the mainstream press that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia. Why would one conclude that Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn never got Trump’s consent about Russia, since it is abundantly clear that Trump was otherwise involved in every aspect of his campaign? It would be wise to wait to draw these conclusions. And while we are waiting, it would be good for us to school ourselves on the obstruction of justice by Trump and his sycophants. This includes a dozen or so separate incidents including the timing of the Sally Yates and James Comey firings. It includes the memorable statement crafted by Trump and Hope Hicks that the meeting between Russians and Donald Trump Jr and others was about the adoption of Russian orphans. And it is all laid out in two stunning podcasts on collusion and obstruction on NPR’s Embedded program.

Any or all of these three legal actions could end up being a major barrier to Trump’s worst intentions. Happily, they all have their funding sources, and no bake sales or bike-a-thons are necessary. Thus, all of us could turn to other fronts to boost the legal challenges to Trumpism, including taking these three steps:

1) Keep Fighting to Protect Public Lands
	Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke decided to “go big” in his reduction of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% from its original 1.35 million acres. This decision was all about advancing the interests of oil companies. The battle to save Bears Ears is instead about listening to the Navajo, Hopi, Ute and other tribes who fought so hard to create the monument in the first place. Your participation in this effort will not only show solidarity with the tribes, but it will send Zinke and Trump a signal that you stand behind federal land conservation protections. The tribal coalition offers you the opportunity to sign up for regular updates, contact your member of Congress, and underwrite the legal action.
2) Save the Modern Day Census
	A lot of people are confused by the dust up over the Trumpian effort to add a citizenship question to the Census in 2020. Why not change the short form (which is designed for us to complete in ten minutes) to find out who is a citizen? This citizenship question has not been asked since the 1950s, since the Census is intended to establish our total population, regardless of our citizenship. The data is then used to allocate Congressional districts among the states, and it is used in numerous federal funding distributional formulas, so that the funding can be responsive to people and communities in need. Adding the citizenship question is intended to decrease the count (and thus the relative political influence) of areas of the country with heavier immigrant presence. We do not want or need to widen the growing gulf between the government and immigrant communities. The addition of this question will generate an undercount in the census.  It’s time to see whether your city and/or state is among the several who have already joined the coalition to battle this new provision.
3) Continue the Fight Against Voter Suppression
	Previous missives have emphasized two major organizations fighting fiercely against voter suppression. It seems odd that election officials and some state legislatures would work to inhibit voters from voting, but that’s exactly what can and does happen. Both the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and the American Civil Liberties Union have been instrumental in rooting out these practices. The efforts of another long-time player are growing. The League of Women Voters has the status, the experience and the local networks that are all essential to expanding voting in America. Find out what they are doing in general, and what they are doing near you.

To stop the daily Trump assault on the American democracy, we will use every single legal tool that is at our disposal, so why not maximize the use of the legal system itself? Our fore-parents expected that it would be an inhibition to the misuse of power, and for that, there is no better time than the present, don’t you think?

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#36: Responding to the Sounds of Republicans Whistling in the Dark

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You can definitely understand their motivation if you hear someone whistling as they walk through a long, dark, foreboding, seemingly endless tunnel. Shapes appear in the murkiness and it is difficult to keep your footing. Why wouldn’t you try to develop some reasons why everything is going to be all right? Or in the alternative, at least you would entertain a narrative by which you could take certain steps, things won’t be as bad as you had feared. 

The seat that Democrat Conor Lamb just won in Pennsylvania is somewhere around 119th on the list of possible wins by Democrats! Republicans are in the dark tunnel, and are terrified of the potential of a blue wave. So they are trying to tell a different story saying that the Democratic victory was due entirely to the appeal of Conor Lamb's centrist policies. But Republican Congressman Charlie Dent counters those tales--- “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. I have seen wave elections before.” 

Any giddiness within the resistance about November prospects is unwise. Do we remember that the Access Hollywood tape was supposed to have made Donald Trump unelectable in the first place? But, what we are displaying as the creators of a blue wave in the fall is not giddiness, but relentlessness. There’s a difference.

The tactical argument, made by Republican consultant Jeff Roe in Sunday’s New York Times, is that Republicans will significantly reduce their November losses if their candidates stay with Trump rather than fleeing from him. The issue here is whether a Republican incumbent needing some of the numerous Trump-discontented swing voters in a heavily contested district could find such voters by ending their Trump genuflection. Roe argues that such a dive in the direction of the center by incumbents could jettison core Republican votes and end up being self-defeating. Roe brings forward his fantasies about the tax bill and even the appeal of Trump’s beginning the construction of a wall. Yes, please, we are all hoping fervently that Republicans will all get behind wall construction, and Mexico paying for it, as their central campaign theme. But, his more important argument is the idea that this election is primarily about who energizes their base. If that were true, that wouldn’t be so bad, but the truth is even better --- the election this fall is only partly about who energizes their base.

Trump and his henchpeople are trying to summon their base when they trash Mueller, or act as a Fox News broadcasting outlet. They saw the election results in Pennsylvania, and last fall in Virginia, and it has become self-evident that the resistance to Trump is translating to higher motivation and participation of those opposing Trump. They understand that the fall elections aren't just who one supports, it is who casts a ballot. Trump fears that if he stops tweeting untruthful things, his supporters won’t cast ballots.

Swing Left has been targeting 65 Republican held seats. The Cook report has been arguing that somewhere around 80 are in serious play. Somewhat belatedly coming to the conclusion that things are getting interesting, the House Democratic Campaign Committee is now talking about 98. We need to win 24. How do we do that besides energizing the base?

• We make our base bigger by getting 18-24 olds to register at a much higher level than their present 24%. The resistance is focusing on this goal across America.
• We fight back against the voter suppression efforts in swing states like Wisconsin that are dedicated to discouraging people from registering and voting.
• We support intensive voter identification and get out the vote efforts everywhere.
• We contest every single independent voter. Trump got a last-minute surge of women voters in November of 2016 after FBI director Comey made his late announcement on the Clinton emails. We are winning those votes back through Trump continuing to be Trump. By 56% to 32% women voters would prefer to see Democrats controlling Congress. 
• We expose the truth about Trump legislative “victories”. We must continue to remind independent voters that the tax bill is heading us toward trillion-dollar annual deficits.

Meanwhile, Congress continues to attend sporadically to the legislative role in running the country. Accordingly, Congress is putting our environment at risk, and not just through actions they generate on their own.   They are allowing Trump, Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke to work their will on the enforcement of environmental laws that were devised over forty years by Democrats and Republicans working together. We can do three things right away.

1)Stop the Poison Pen Riders
	Congress needs to pass a spending bill by Friday, and they can’t do it without Democratic votes. Even with that situation, House Republicans have proposed 80 separate appropriations “riders” that are designed to weaken environmental protections.   For instance, last year Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Susan Collins joined in helping Democrats protect methane gas regulations that Trump and Pruitt were trying to eviscerate. Now there is a House rider being advanced that would exempt oil and gas companies from methane rules. This is one for the member of the House of Representatives from your own district. Call or email her or him and insist that they oppose the riders. Or, since Charles Schumer and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate are in a strong negotiating position, call your Democratic Senator’s staff and tell them how much this means to you.
2) Keep the Focus on Climate Change
	Who knows what will happen with Donald Trump and the Paris Climate Accords going forward. There were some signals that he might be softening about removing the United States from the agreement, but then again there were arguments that he might help protect Dreamers through DACA or might limit gun purchases by 18 year olds, so don’t hold your carbon-added breath…  Instead, please boost the growing coalition of Governors who have formed their own Climate Alliance, who aren’t waiting for the federal government, and are showing their own leadership on climate change. Seventeen Governors have already joined the coalition. Check the list to see if your Governor has joined. If she or he hasn’t call their office today and seek to rectify the situation. While you are at it, do a check to see how your city or town is lessening its own carbon footprint. If your councilpersons don’t know the answer to this question, they should find out the answer and give it to you. Trumps climate position will be increasingly isolated if more states get with the program, the more Trump and his climate position will be isolated.
3) Time to Join the Herd
	For a moment it seemed as if Donald Trump (spurred by Laura Ingraham!) was with conservationists in battling what he called the “horrors” of the trade in elephant tusks. But the danger has increased that the import of elephant tusks will again be allowed. Ryan Zinke has included trophy hunting proponents in his “advisory committee” and import permits may soon be issued.   There are a lot of good ways to help elephants survive. Right now, it seems as if being part of a world-wide movement to block markets for tusks is an outstanding approach. Wild Aid is an inventive advocacy organization that is using social media to get you to Join the Herd. This is your chance.

It does seem endless, this Trump-opposing quest we are on. It seems as if he has been the President of sorts for a decade, at least. The rewards of being part of the opposition have been there from the beginning, as the Affordable Care Act was wounded, but saved by our collective efforts. With the November elections approaching, and the primaries preceding them, the rewards will start to increase--- if we keep on doing the right thing, every day.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#35: How We Are All Turning a Campaign into a Movement

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Martin Luther King said that “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.” Enmeshed and sometimes overwhelmed in the world of 2018, we should find it comforting and healthy to understand that gains in justice and human rights over 5+ decades have been monumental.

Our trajectory toward justice has not been permanently altered by this President, but it is not wrong to see our collective response to Donald Trump as a battle over that arc. Certainly, one must be careful in assigning any U.S. political campaign of the past 50 years any place at all in the world of justice-seeking or justice-denying. However, if you were to choose a time to make such a judgement about when campaigns can turn into a movement for justice, today would be an excellent choice.

There have been plenty of presidential candidates over these decades whose election one could find disheartening. One could cite specific actions the newly elected officials subsequently took that were ruinous. For instance, George W. Bush made up an entire war. But, at least each of these past presidents took pride in leading the country, had expectations for themselves, read things, and subscribed to some core notions about democracy. This is a different time, but not because of destructive executive orders, bad legislation and scary appointments. It is because of Trump’s unrelenting, contemptuous approach to the nature and the dreams of the republic for which we stand.

That is what has concentrated opposition into the resistance. It is what has turned that which otherwise would be a political campaign into a movement. The extent to which it can maintain and sustain itself as a movement will determine the outcome in November. In terms of how to maintain and sustain this effort, it may be difficult to believe but there are lessons from the peace movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Closer examination reveals more than history's judgement that the focus of 1968 was on sex, drugs and dropping out. Instead, the most telling focus of 1968 was the movement to end the war, and to dramatically change the American politics of that time. There were two ways that this movement was uncommon, both lessons for us now.

First, the peace movement reached way beyond the rolls of people who would have been expected to participate in it. Like the Women’s Marches of January 2017 and January 2018, and the organization of Indivisible and other resistance cells, it activated into its ranks millions of people who had previously thought themselves to be non-political. In some cases, it caused people to change a political persuasion that had long been adhered to in their family. New questions were being asked around the kitchen table, and all of a sudden Ozzie and Harriet’s kids were in the streets. You knew you were not in ordinary times.

Second, this movement was able to achieve a relentlessness and a momentum that became a story unto itself. Elected officials knew that the movement wasn’t going away. Leaders avoided the pulling apart that inevitably visits movements that themselves are a coalition. As in the resistance of 2018, if you were a participant in the peace movement in 1968, there was always something to do, and you never stopped being engaged, and each month there were more people by your side. In 1968, all that without an internet! The resistance thus far already has demonstrated the capacity to translate outrage and dismay about Trump into electoral results. The current level of relentlessness and commitment is a gift that should not be squandered. If we keep it up, there will be a huge blue wave in November. As uneven as Democrats are in their performance, we will have attended to the arc of justice.

These missives have detailed several ways that each of us can heighten our engagement in 2018, including using Swing Left, Indivisible, or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to pick and support one or more candidates. Here are three fresh ways you can make to help increase the number of people who envelop themselves, and the extent of their new obsession.

1) Sharply Increase Latino Participation
	After Mitt Romney lost the presidency to Barack Obama, Republican leaders commissioned a report analyzing their political future. The subsequent “autopsy” report argued that because of the growth in the U.S. of the Latino population, Republicans pushing away Latino voters would seriously weaken their presidential prospects in 2016 and beyond.  Donald Trump avoided that predicted fate in 2016, but he and his colleagues will not be so fortunate in 2018 and 2020. Nearly 40% of all newly registered voters since 2012 are of Hispanic origin, and the efforts to mobilize the Latino community are intensifying. The new voters will be especially key in Nevada and Arizona Senate races, as well as Beto O’Rourke’s longer shot challenge to Ted Cruz in Texas.  Earlier missives have underscored the important role of Mi Familia Vota, which concentrates its efforts in six Southwestern and Western states. Another important organization which could use a boost this very moment is Voto Latino, which uses inventive digital methods (including their “text to register” campaign) and has registered more than 300,000 voters.
2) Find an All New Path to Recruiting New Voters
	Nonprofit organizations employ 13 million people across the country. They have 60 million volunteers. Their programs connect with and often serve communities whose voting levels are lower, and they are often seen as a trusted messenger. With this impact on our country, and with a huge interest in how government serves the people, why wouldn’t nonprofit organizations play a key role in voter registration?  Some of the leaders of America’s nonprofit community, including Independent Sector, feel exactly that way. They have started an excellent campaign to persuade nonprofits to 1) help their staff and volunteers register, and 2) start registration campaigns to reach the broader community. Nonprofit Vote has done a meticulous job of showing nonprofits what can be done and how to do it. Time to send this link to several of your favorite nonprofits to make certain they fully consider this opportunity.
3) Change the Law to make it Easier to Register
	The Voting Rights and Elections program at NYU’s Wagner Center continues to do excellent work battling voter suppression. In addition to stopping the efforts to make registration and voting more difficult, how can we turn the issue around? In what ways can we make registration and voting easier?  Here too there is an all new angle. The Brennan Center also has outlined the growing movement toward automatic registration of voters, which has now been enacted in nine states and the District of Columbia. These states will immediately register citizens when they seek government services such as receiving a Driver’s License. Some states are now guaranteeing that the automatic registration approach is also available to 16 and 17 year olds, so that they will be ready to vote immediately after their 18th birthday.  It’s time to check the Brennan Center site to see where your state stands, and it’s time to write your legislator to make certain she or he is a proponent of new registration strategies.

Robert Mueller will be increasingly watchable over the next several months. A few Republican Senators will continue to afford Mueller, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray the protection they need from the attacks of Donald Trump. Washington is already so beset and askew with the upcoming elections that bi-partisan legislation on any subject at all is nearly impossible. So we will focus on the elections too, and prove that they were right to feel beset. 

It is within our abilities to guarantee that the November 2018 election will have an unprecedented level of participation. Now is the time to do that indispensable core work. When volunteers work on phones on November 6 to get out the vote, let’s make sure right now that they have the biggest possible list from which to work. That would be the right thing to do.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#34: Republican Leaders Let the Sideshow Become the Show

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Dear Republican Member of Congress,

Undoubtedly, you are tired of getting pursued by citizens who are very worried about Donald Trump’s diminishment of our country and its democratic ideals. There are a lot of us out here. Maybe to you it is sounding like we are all speaking with one loud voice, but we have millions of distinct, individual voices and we are not going away. We are certain that Donald Trump represents a grave danger, and we remind you that the extent the Republican Party has claimed him and abetted him is now a huge part of the hazard our nation faces.

Internationally, his assault on global institutions is shameful. Our country’s previous worldwide leadership is in freefall. Worse, he could lead us into nuclear war. Your political party that once called for international strength backs a man who has yielded our international leadership position to the Chinese, and openly admires a Russian dictator. He openly taunts and disrespects nations whose soldiers have died for the ideals that our nation treasures.

His domestic policies are grounded in contempt for others. While you have quietly hoped that he would bring us together, he has split us apart, then lied about what he said, and then split us apart again, and then lied again.

At first, when he would tweet something that was untrue or bizarre, you would find yourself annoyed. You might say that it was “unhelpful,” or try to distract attention from it. Now, when he says something that eighteen months ago would have shocked you, you find yourself incapable of such shock. What you hoped would become the sideshow has since become the show.

Have you met a single member of the House or the Senate who is less knowledgeable about the workings of American government than is this man? Is there a single member of the House and the Senate who is less able to articulate the policy alternatives that are before him and the Congress on any major issue? Is there anyone who reads less, or who is less curious, or is less truthful?

Every day you look to yourself or your colleagues for reassurance. Even if you wish Lindsay Graham hadn’t confirmed that Trump referred to shithole countries, or if you thought Bob Corker’s comment about White House staff doing daycare was inappropriate, you are glad they are out there. Sometimes you allow yourself your own critical comment to a constituent or to a colleague though your practice is to be careful.

All of this makes you less of a Republican, in the context of how you have always defined Republicanism. In the context of how Donald Trump is leading you and “branding” your party to the country, you know that your party has been hijacked.

The issue for you and your party is what to do about that. You have thought about it a lot. You not only have talked to your political colleagues about it, you have talked to those you love and those you trust. You have decided that you can do more for your country and your party and your own political career by staying allied with Donald Trump than you can do by leaving him. It hasn’t escaped you that this is an enormous moral dilemma. So, you have carefully enumerated the issues where his position is not that distant from yours, and you have tried to ignore his offenses against the country and the Constitution. You have clung to moral relativism, telling yourself that other ideas and parties and proposals have no lock on goodness. To this point, you have decided not to walk away.

When you can’t sleep at night, don't you worry that you have made the wrong choice, that you have failed the ultimate test of leadership, that you haven’t done the right thing on the most critical challenge of the day when you always thought you would? That’s the case. For 228 years, the glorious, imperfect American experiment in self-government, this opportunity made from the sacrifice of patriots, has been a beacon for the freedom loving people of the world. If in February, 2018 you think it would be the hardest thing in the world for you to separate yourself from the terrible deal that you and your party have struck, it’s time for you to do the hardest thing.
Here are three things you can do right now to attend to the turning of the tide:

1) Communicate With Askew Republicans
	Polls demonstrate an increased number of disaffected Republicans and Independents and early retirements reveal angst-beset Republican lawmakers. It’s a great time to be a flame-fanner. You could look for places to share or send the above open letter, or write a similar one expressing your personal sentiments. Pick a Republican member of Congress and send it to her or him, or send to the Republican state legislator who lives closest to you. Post on Facebook or other social media, turn it into a letter to the editor, or otherwise extend this sentiment. Do whatever you can to get people talking more often about the unmet moral obligations of Republican elected officials.
2) See if We Can’t Sneak Away With a Seat
	The House Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has had an odd position on special elections. They have been reluctant to aggressively contest special elections in districts where Trump had a significant margin in 2016. Since none of these districts have been in the top 50 of those we are most likely to take back, they are afraid that contesting and losing will create a negative narrative for the November 2018 elections. That’s the wrong way to think about it. In the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District to be held on March 13, strong candidate and former prosecutor Conor Lamb will either win or come close enough to send a signal. It’s time to send the coffee money.
3) Become Fully Educated on the Russian Rending of Our Democracy
	To prepare for the swirl of indictments by Mueller and Congressional actions and political ramifications, we must make ourselves more fully informed. Let’s start by reading Thomas Friedman’s hugely important Code Red. Then, let’s compel our own selves to understand all of the specific Mueller charges against the Russians.

There’s a lot of good work to be doing right now. No falling away is permitted. Too bad we didn’t all make a tape of our dispirited selves that awful morning after the 2016 election, to provide the most vivid reminder of our pledge to never let this happen again. On the other hand, Donald Trump gives us daily reminders of what has befallen our country. It shouldn’t be difficult to summon our best.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#33: This Denigration of The Constitution Has Definitely Got to Stop

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.

By now you will have heard the arguments that the polls are narrowing, and that we should not be as sure of ourselves as we might have been a couple of weeks ago. Comfortingly, the Trump approval ratings are still awful. For all the talk about his loyal base, at least 20% of the people who voted for him (and maybe more) have deserted him. Even in the face of the Nunes-driven flurry, the employment gains of the Obama and now the Trump presidencies, if the fall Congressional elections were held today, we would win well more than the necessary 24 seats to take back the House.

But the election isn’t being held today, and the results of November 2016 are still fresh enough that we know that people will sometimes do things that we find incomprehensible. Given that what is at stake --- the future of the great democratic experiment --- is at risk, how can we not take our own personal political adventures to an all new level?

We are talking about each and every one of us here. There is no free pass related to “I don’t even know people who support the President” (You do!), and no free pass for “I am not happy with the organizing skill of Democrats” (Good for you!), and no free pass for “I find this all exhausting and I am so weary that I have to get on with my life and leave this aside for a bit” (But, we can’t!) and certainly, above all, absolutely no free pass for “I don’t know what I can do to support this effort.”

Because, we all do know that this is a major occupation for us this year. We know that, with all other Trump initiatives, the wholesale, cynical attacks on the FBI will be exposed in all of their tawdriness very soon. We know that Robert Mueller is out there methodically assembling evidence that will use Michael Flynn or Reince Priebus or Steve Bannon or Hope Hicks to expose Trump’s congenital aversion to truth. Obstruction of justice will be clear, since Trump contributes to those charges every week. Whether or not Donald Trump has a provable role in collusion between his campaign and the Russian government, all of this will not go well for him. Don’t despair in his tweets, eagerly await them. It is unlikely that he will ever escape the protection of his aides and lawyers to impeach himself, but he is so used to the lie that if he could, he would.

Because Mueller is out there, and very notably because Mueller is rightly being protected by Trey Gowdy and Lindsay Graham and Richard Burr and even the Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, who is by no means a renegade, 2018 will be a good year for Democrats. To make it an even greater year, a few million people in the resistance must keep doing what they already are doing, but just a bit more of it, and just a little bit better.

The elements are simple. First, we put the right races in play, including at least a few that are longer shots but offer candidates who are irresistible. Second, we occupy ourselves with doing the right thing in those specific races and we do not allow ourselves to be distracted. Third, we attend to the underlying conditions under which these elections will be held. Who is going to be registered to vote? Whose vote might be suppressed? And most importantly, how can we maintain the enthusiasm and get out the vote mechanisms that will assure that we vote in the necessary numbers, like we did in Virginia in November of 2017? If each of us isn’t doing each of these three things, now is the time to start:

1) If You Haven’t Narrowed Your Field, Do it Now
	Perhaps you live in a Congressional District where there is an incumbent whose performance you like, but they are in a safe seat. You want them to be in the majority much more often, so you decide to focus your attention on one or more potentially close races in other districts. Which to choose? There have been a startling number of Republican retirements in swing districts, where incumbents were not looking forward to this election year.  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s first list of targeted races lists 59 seats. The Daily Kos has identified as many as 80. There are all sorts of resources to help with figuring this out, as described in previous missives. With 6000 local groups, Indivisible is helpfully focused on every district. Swing Left, which drew some suspicions from political veterans at the outset, is an excellent source for identifying districts in play and understanding why those districts are targeted. They are entirely focused on taking back the House. The heavily data-driven Flippable is doing good work, including focusing on state legislative races. All these organizations have more spark right now than the Democratic Party itself, which is not entirely a bad thing, because it makes this a much larger and more spirited movement. Go beyond all this help and teach yourself to understand a race. If a Republican member of Congress has retired, is there a Republican heir apparent, or are conservative and “moderate” forces clashing? These disputes make a district more attractive for Democrats, because the loss for one faction in the Republican primary can dampen turnout in the general election. If there are four or five Democratic candidates in a swing district, start by understanding their views, their motivation for running, and their background. Check to see who is already well organized and is raising money early. If someone is way ahead on all of those fronts, that will be a sign that they are getting strong support from traditional Democratic constituencies. Several states have their primaries this spring. If there are four or more candidates, fewer than 30% of the votes can select the candidate. Remember that the total received in the Democratic primary of all the Democratic candidates is a huge issue. If a single Republican gets 48% and four Democrats split 52%, we are in play for November, as long as we remember to come back together. We will remember that, no?
2) Be Strategic In How You Deploy Your Money
	Your favorite Senator or Congressperson will ask you for a donation whether she or he needs it. Eventually if they decide they have surplus funds they can send it to the Democratic party, but that is too circuitous for your donation to count. The best way to give money to a candidate is to do it directly. You can donate through their campaign website. The best time to give money is now, as your favorite candidates are getting their grounding. Inventively, Swing Left has pioneered “district funds”, in which you can give money to an account in a swing district before the Democrats select their nominee. District funds will help candidates who deplete their resources in the primary to get a good head start on their general election campaign. Now there are two terrific additional ideas. First, Swing Left has created the opportunity for activists to have their own personal fundraising page to gather resources in a selected swing district.  This allows you to personalize your activism, keep track of your success, and gather your friends around one candidate. Second, in case you are hankering to find special efforts to get millennials enthusiastic about this fall, Future Forum is a political action committee made up of 26 of the youngest Members of Congress that has already visited 30 cities.
3) Remember Increased Voter Registration Works to Our Advantage
	At this point, Rock the Vote is doing the best national work to increase the presently discouraging rate of registration and voting by those under 35. The range of their strategies is what most distinguishes them, including some corporate partnerships. New voters should get special emphasis nationwide. A great initiative would be evaluating your local four year college or community college to see what voter registration efforts are already planned, and to make certain campuses aren’t waiting until fall to get going on these matters. The Campus Voting Project has created a student voting registration guide for each state, with special attention to the way some states and localities discourage student registration. You can make certain this guide gets in the right hands, or even gather a circle of friends to take on student registration as a group project.

The early work of campaigns is happening now. Every call, meeting, project, donation, and rally carries extra significance, because it is right now when momentum is being built for the fall. Let’s not wait until spring and find ourselves wishing in October that we had started earlier. Let’s treat every self-aggrandizing, truth-challenging tweet as a personal signal that this denigration of the Constitution has definitely got to stop.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#32: What Wonders Will Emerge on November 6

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.

Long before Donald Trump came into our world via escalator, political compromise was referred to by its practitioners as an “art”. Two or more sides would recognize and resolve an impasse. Each would give up something, and get something. Neither would be entirely comfortable with the resolution, and both would be able to claim that they achieved an outcome that prior to the compromise seemed highly unlikely.

This still happens in our nation’s capital, every week and on issues large and small. And for the most part, it should happen. However, the differences between what transpired in the recent budget discussions and what is commonplace when compromises are sought are even more striking:

• When the price of resolution includes avoiding a governmental shutdown the debate will no longer be limited to the issues that were initially under review, which were DACA and border security. Instead the debate reached a wider, more complicating sphere related to the broader infliction of pain on the government and country as the consequence of failing to act on DACA. It was not unwise for Senator Schumer and the Senate Democrats to initially refuse to supply the votes necessary to keep the government open, because they traded their inevitable wounds for a clearer path to the conceivable creation of a future for Dreamers. Once the Republicans had already acceded to the six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program within the budget resolution, the high pain/gain ratio for Democrats of shutting down the government even temporarily was predictable. The politics were messy and a bit disappointing, but it was worth it. There will be no ongoing damage, and tactical lessons have been learned.

• In typical negotiations that lead to political compromise, everyone comes into the room with a similar body of knowledge. On the issues before them, Democratic and Republican Senators had varying interpretations on the current effectiveness of border security, or different value judgements on injustices faced by the Dreamers. But, each and every one of them had a deeper understanding of these matters than did Donald Trump. When it looked for a moment like Trump would agree with Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Dick Durbin on a “clean” DACA bill, aide Steven Miller marshalled the Fox forces. Because Trump can veto bills, Mitch McConnell has to treat his views as consequential. The combination of Trump not being any kind of a learner and Fox having his ear is very difficult to deal with. With Trump, any deal will become in-artful.

So, none of these upcoming negotiations will easily fit the pattern that Senators had utilized before the present political affliction of the past year. Throughout 2018, Trump and McConnell are going to need 60 votes in the Senate. All year long they will have to come to the table with 51 or fewer votes, and with Chuck Schumer sitting there demanding things. It behooves all of us who see ourselves as a part of the resistance to know which of these circumstances will endanger us and which will advantage us, and how to make more of the latter and less of the former.

The first question is how badly does each side want its objective in a sought compromise? Republicans know how fervently most Democrats want to do the right thing for the Dreamers, while many Republicans would be comfortable with no DACA at all. That’s why what once seemed unthinkable may well come to pass, where Democrats will trade Dreamer protection for the votes Trump needs to get a major section of the wall funded. (Democrats also know that they will have much improved ability to block wall spending after they take back the House in November. Like Rome, walls aren’t built in a day.) Similarly, if the Republicans had needed 60 votes for the bad tax bill in the Senate, Schumer would have been able to extract major concessions, because he would have been fine if discussions fell apart and there was no bill at all.

The second question is does the objective have to be passed, or just blocked? If Trump ever proposes an infrastructure bill, it will require McConnell and him to make major concessions with Schumer and Senate Democrats, because he would need all new legislation, and 60 votes to cut off debate. There is no national groundswell convincing Schumer that he would be in peril if he disagrees with Trump’s approach.

The third question is to what extent is there common ground between the parties? The requirement that 60 votes are necessary in the Senate to cut off debate changes the role of Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake and Lindsay Graham from providing a key necessary NO vote (which they did rarely to be sure). Now to be successful they must bring Republicans into a “moderate” coalition, a role which they will find much more enjoyable. This will also enhance the role of the more centrist Democratic Senators, which was described in missive #31.

Here are three things we can do to make sure the resistance isn’t compromised by compromises in Congress:

1) Promote the Promise of the Common-Sense Coalition
	Any time a group of Senators from both parties labels itself a Common-Sense Coalition, it’s time to be wary. The danger of any centrist coalition is that it can blunt necessary advocacy and substitute half a loaf when a loaf is needed. But in 2018 the emergence of this coalition will prove more valuable to Democrats than Republicans. That’s because the Democrats are in the minority, and thus are that much more in need in terms of coalition building. Three weeks from now we will be enveloped in a DACA debate, with all of the complications of the budget resolution set aside. For at least a day, attention will be paid to the substance --- who would be deported if DACA doesn’t survive in a meaningful form; the contributions they make to America; and the injustices that will be visited upon them. By participating in the recent meetings of the Common-Sense coalition, certain Republican Senators have revealed themselves as possible supporters of a DACA bill. They need a note from you thanking them for working across the aisle and looking for solutions. Give them some positive re-enforcement, even though the real work is yet to be done. Choose any or all of these three, who are definitely not used to getting such notes: Mike Rounds of South Dakota Cory Gardner of Colorado Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
2) Delay the Usual Internecine Democratic Warfare
	There always will be and always should be a place within the Democratic Party for Democrats to battle Democrats. Fighting passionately over what you stand for is how you end up standing for something. So, the disappointment of some that Schumer and colleagues agreed to end the shutdown could easily end up within the normal bounds of discourse. However, let’s get the situation clear in our minds. Schumer got something that was meaningful, and he was not in a position that DACA gains were going to emerge in full bloom with each successive day of a shutdown. Further, the moderate Democrats who were eager to have the shutdown be over all stood tall by Schumer’s side through all of the Affordable Care Act votes and all of the votes on tax “reform”. Under considerable pressure and from states who strongly supported Trump over Clinton, they will continue to be strong members of the Democratic caucus. We can all be monitors of this internal debate, to make certain that our resistance has both standards and a big tent. Or we can seek to eviscerate our own. Stephanie Taylor of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee wrote: "Today's cave is also a wake up call for the Democratic Party. Today's cave was led by weak-kneed, right-of-center Democrats who buckled as soon as the fight was on. Senator Schumer voted with Republicans and called this a good path forward. This is exactly why voters don't know what Democrats stand for. Weak Democrats muddy the party brand -- and today, they made it harder to inspire voters and win elections everywhere in 2018." Write Stephanie Taylor at info@boldprogressives.org and tell her what she already knows --- Schumer is not a “weak kneed right of center Democrat”. Schumer ultimately told Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill that he didn’t need them in the effort to withhold 40 votes, which helped them in their home states where they are seeking re-election in November. He ultimately decided he did not have an immediate path to DACA victory. That’s what you want a Democratic caucus chair to do.
3) Help the Coalition for the American Dream and United We Dream Get Momentum
	Even though battle lines are now well drawn, it’s not too late to get a little bit more momentum behind the forces that are working to protect Dreamers. One of the communities of interest that has been surprisingly helpful (within their own self-interest) is America’s corporate, labor and trade association leaders. Figure out a way to get attention for their efforts. Write to a corporate, labor or trade association leader you know and ask them to join the growing ranks. Send their letter to Congress to your own member of Congress with an attached note. Or, get behind the spirited, intensive lobbying effort of the largest group of immigrant youth in the country. Click to donate here.

Because of the need for the bills to get 60 votes in the Senate, we’re heading toward a year where compromises will always be at the table. Since Donald Trump always has Fox TV tuned in and since he has almost no knowledge of policy issues, he will never be a presidential negotiator even at the lower end, represented by the days of James Buchanan and Warren G. Harding. That will make things a bit more tumultuous. We will have to expect our elected officials to pick their way through carefully, and we will have to get beyond the declared wisdom of one paragraph posts.

Through it all, with determination and confidence and energy and hope, we are working toward the wonders that can emerge on November 6, 2018.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington