#47: Trump Has Underestimated Our Response to His Perfidy

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Just because all of this has become one of the most bizarre episodes in American political history doesn’t mean we can’t handle it and fix it.

Donald Trump’s removal of John Brennan’s security clearance would otherwise be seen as miscalculation, but Trump is not necessarily a calculator. Instead, the party he has taken over has permitted him to select his enemies almost randomly. Omarosa Manigault is a “dog”, no longer a “wonderful” person. Jeff Sessions is “scared stiff and missing in action” now, but before he was a man of “integrity, principle, and great resolve.” Justin Trudeau, Teresa May and Angela Merkel hardly know what to expect anymore, except that they will be meeting with someone who has no business being the President of the United States. The lashing out is now unrelenting. Lebron James? Jimmy Fallon? New Congressman Conor Lamb, now called “Lamb the sham.” Here are his 487 primary insults thus far. 

There is a reason his customary levels of anger and retribution are accelerating. His party is about to lose control of the House and might possibly (a longer shot) lose the Senate. He is not that astute at understanding the details of Senate and House rules, but he knows that Democrats controlling the House means that his powers will be diminished. Nothing close to the awful 2017 tax bill would have been passed if the House had been under Democratic control. Worse for Trump, as we win the House, the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee will no longer be the toadying, unprincipled Devin Nunes. It will be Adam Schiff, relentlessly focused on Trump’s Russian ties. And House Committees have clear, protected powers to issue subpoenas to administration witnesses.

So, you can make it so that his good times are all gone, and maybe get him thinking that it’s time for moving on. His presence as president is anomalous, not the beginning of a movement that will rend the Constitution for decades. Instead, we will spend those decades re-joining the world community, re-invigorating our love for democracy, reversing the worst of his “make the rich richer” policies, and re-establishing environmental protections.

There are arguments out there that the blue wave might not end up as strong as is being predicted, but the recent primaries have been nothing but supportive of the claim that the wave will be big. As is often the case with off-year elections, this is all about turnout and using new voter registrations to boost our turnout advantage even further. The most recent primaries show it is working. To make matters even better, Republican retirements have left an unprecedented number of open seats. 

In Washington State, where CBS news tracking has seen only one Republican seat as competitive, impressive Democratic turnout revealed that there are three. For all that has been said about Republican loyalty to Trump, there are a declining number of Republicans. In the past year, there has been a 5% drop in the number of people who identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican.

This wave is still there for us to produce. No distractions, no excuses. By now, it is necessary for this movement to have each of us be a fully engaged member of the resistance. Can we check all ten of these boxes?


□ You have made it a point to learn the specific ways in which actions by Trump and Congressional Republicans have diminished America, beyond the lies and the bullying. You can choose among your favorites when you underscore these matters to others. These include the further maldistribution of wealth through the tax bill; the pushing of millions of Americans away from the health care they need; the systematic attacks on environmental statutes; and the weakening of the coalition of Western democracies.

□ You have placed yourself in a circle of like-minded people who either get together to work, or who even without getting together empower each other regularly with new actionable information. Postcards are produced, calls made, complex matters sorted, resolve strengthened.

□ You have identified reliable external sources of news and information which will sharpen your personal campaign efforts, and you consult them regularly. You have avoided letting these sources swamp your day.

□ You shrug off distractions. You don’t know what Donald Trump thinks of John Bolton’s mustache. You don’t even care. You spend more time on campaigning, almost none on You Tube parodies. What’s the point of those? How hard is it to make fun of Donald Trump? When you are laughing, isn’t the joke on us, at least a little bit?

□ You rise above despair that someone is crumpling your Constitution and you relish that emerging from this dysfunctional government is within our capacity. You already are imagining what party you want to go to on November 6, but you remember that we have to produce the results before you celebrate them.

□ You have picked one or more promising campaigns to support. You know what that support entails, and so does the candidate and her or his staff. You feel good about the choices you are making,

□ You are actively trafficking in online voter registration links and are trying to find and motivate unregistered voters. If you are older, you are unafraid of connecting with millennials on this critical matter, to the point of making yourself annoying if necessary.

□ You are actively deploying your checkbook. Within your means, you have made yourself an investor in our future. You are making careful choices about where you are putting your money. You understand that the earlier you give, the better.

□ You continue to contact members of Congress as you find new ways to give them guidance. You know what actions they need to take between now and November (including passing a budget and fixing the DACA separations) and you intend to weigh in.

□ You allow yourself to dream about how this country will re-emerge. Rather than petrifying yourself with the worst possible news, you are embracing the best possible news and endeavoring to make it so.

Right now, while we are carrying on all of the above campaign activities, let’s do some fixing in areas where Trump has done damage and open up some new fronts.

1) Bring Immigrant Families Back Together
	There are numerous refugee advocacy organizations, and refugee resettlement centers for those whose legal status is not being challenged. It would be good to find out and support those who do that work. One could also support one of the many excellent organizations who are advocates or who offer legal assistance to undocumented persons, including those seeking asylum. Notably, there is a small, new, spirited organization which is determined to offer specific assistance to individual families which are in the slow process of being reunited, who are spread across the country and whose need is great. This is Immigrant Families Together  They have set up crowd funding accounts to meet the very real and detailed needs of refugee moms who are seeking to care for their children. You can click and support. Or you can get wonderfully focused and set up a “registry” to allow you and your friends to all boost the same mom.
2) Take Some Personal Action to Protect the Environment
	It is going to take a long time to put back in place the Environmental Protection Agency rules promulgated by Barack Obama and pulverized by Donald Trump. Right now, the best thing we can do toward that end is make the blue wave happen. We can also commit ourselves to personal action. Shaking our heads as the television shows us miles of plastics in the ocean does not turn out to be an effective strategy, and certainly Trump is not preparing to offer one. So, let’s look at a couple of pledges that force us to modify our own activity. OneLessStraw is taking pledges from individuals, businesses and schools to give up plastic straws, which we certainly don’t need. The Million Bottle Project needs your pledge to keep 20 million plastic bottles out of landfills by 2020.
3) Accept it is Time to Get All the Way Behind Beto O’Rourke
	Beto O’Rourke is trying to unseat Ted Cruz in Texas, which would be such a wonderful thing that one can barely permit oneself to dream of it. And he may be 6 points behind. But he does have a bit of a chance and does represent the kind of principled hugely energetic and imaginative candidate we long for. He has raised twice as much money as Cruz at this point by eschewing PAC donations and getting small donations from around the country. We’re from around the country so let’s give him some small gifts.

So, Rudy Giuliani has argued that truth isn’t truth. That got the expected single news cycle push back, and we moved on to the Manafort conviction and the Cohen plea. But it was a moment worth dwelling upon because it demonstrates the path that Trump has put us on. At any time, truth is whatever he says it is. If the whole world was a courtroom every one of his uttered sentences would be a perjury trap. The New York Times has fact-checked 250 statements Trump has made about Russia and the Mueller investigation. The man will say anything and immediately thereafter, he will believe it is true because he remembers he said it. Stay focused and he will find that he has underestimated our response to his perfidy.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#46: We Intend to Go Out and Win an Election

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At least we don’t need to devote our precious time examining the pros and cons of supporting the sitting President. There are no pros. This is a dumpster fire in the White House. The occupant of the position is intentionally rejecting what it even means to be a president. We will never, ever let this stand.

How we collectively spend our time and money between now and November 6 could not be more important. Now that Trump has again called the press “the enemy of the people” it is not overreaching to say that the ink on the Bill of Rights is getting a little blurry. And there is so much more--- threats to the existence of a bloc of democracies that together attend to global security; the declining access by many Americans to health care; and Trump’s aversion to the opportunity for people of all races to be a part of one nation. 

Now we have been treated to Trump’s “everybody does it” tweeted defense about his son and other campaign officials seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton from people connected to a hostile foreign government. This is the same meeting that Trump had previously claimed was about adoption. Trump didn’t know about the meeting, and if he did, it wouldn’t have been collusion, and if it was collusion, it wouldn’t have been illegal, and he is tougher on Russia than anyone. That’s the story for now.

The terrifying and glorious thing is that we don’t have to wait the interminable 27 months until the 2020 presidential elections to stop much of this. What happens next isn’t just up to him, it is up to us. We’re writing this story too. All the more reason for us to do the things now that are most likely to matter on November 6, 2018. The less we waste energy and dollars between now and then, the bigger the blue wave.

Each of us has already been investing time and money in this outcome. This resistance is the largest political movement since the 1960’s. Collectively, we are spending a staggering amount of time on supporting individual candidates, registering voters, and writing checks. The giving intermediary Act Blue alone will channel over $1.5 billion to Democratic candidates and causes this year, over twice the amount in 2016.  

How are we doing in the choices we are making? The extent to which we generate the blue wave depends not just on energy and tenacity, but on devoting our considerable efforts to where they will have the greatest impact. These are seven steps that will guarantee that we will do our very best:

We don’t buy into the narrative that the policy debates within the Democratic Party are going to impair us. Instead, we will see the vigorous exchanges among liberals and progressives on health care and economic justice as what we should be doing if we want to stand for something in addition to being against Donald Trump. (Although being against Donald Trump is a hugely powerful cohesive force, no?)

We remember that it isn’t just about Congress. It’s about taking back state houses and state legislatures. This is even more the case because it is in state capitols that battles against voter suppression by Republicans will be fought. It is also where redistricting plans will be developed after the 2020 census.

We don’t allow ourselves to be distracted by Paul Manafort’s ostrich coat, or Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, or Alan Dershowitz’ arguments with former friends, or even whether Melania Trump watches CNN, though it is a delicious thought that she does.

We pick our targeted races carefully, now that the primaries are ending. Swing Left has identified the 78 House races where we have the best chance to take back seats. There are other such lists, and there are analyses like the Cook Report which would claim that only 40 or so such seats are truly competitive. We should stay with the higher number, and believe in what we can do, so we will not leave behind a candidate who could have won. However, we should not be spending any amount of our time and money on any House race outside the 78 unless (in the uncommon case) we can verify with independent polls or other concrete evidence that the race should be targeted because it has become winnable.

We remember that the Senate is in play, too. It is all about Joe Manchin and Jon Tester winning in West Virginia and Montana, and then Democrats winning 6 of the 7 states that Real Clear Politics rates as toss up states. Mitch McConnell isn’t wrong when he says that it might all come down to whether Democrat Heidi Heitkamp will survive in North Dakota, where Trump retains inexplicable popularity. That’s why Trump was so mad at the global Koch brothers for boosting Heitkamp by withholding their financial support from her opponent Kevin Cramer. (The Koch brothers! Oh, the company we keep…)

We don’t forget that it is a turnout election. Right now, there is an enthusiasm gap which means that Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents are more excited about voting in the fall than Republicans. We need to continue to fan that enthusiasm. Talking about the blue wave as an unusual phenomenon of which voters want to be a part is a good strategy.

And even after we remember all of these things, we still won’t be done. If we are donating money, we must understand how our chosen candidate is fairing in raising money and what her/his plan is between now and November. If we have any choice in the matter, we will give money now (since campaign treasuries have been depleted during the primaries) rather than waiting until October.

If we are doing postcards or calls from a distance, we will remember to expect a quality effort from the targeted campaign, or the intermediary that is providing the names. We expect to know what our preferred message is and any other information on the approach we are expected to take. We must be given information on what kind of voter names we are being provided so we can do our best job.

It is a good thing to travel to a neighboring Congressional district or even another state to help, but only if we know in advance how we are going to be deployed. Campaigns have a difficult time managing rapid increases in volunteers. Talking to one of the campaign’s volunteer coordinators is essential. We need to know that the campaign we select has figured out these matters so won’t be the seventh volunteer in a week to deliver campaign materials to a household.

Volunteering and donating go hand in hand. Modest sums matter, especially at this point when our candidates are looking to broaden their support. Here are three things we can do today:

1) Find the Intermediary Organization that Works for You
	Sorting out races is difficult. Depending on how much time you want to spend, it isn’t such a bad idea to get a little help from people who work on this every day. Who does a good job of collecting and distributing funds to carefully selected candidates? Swing Left, an upstart from the beginning, continues to impress with its “district funds” project, distributing funds to the most competitive candidates. If you like the idea of proximity, they will help you find the swing district closest to you. Years ago, Emily’s List was an upstart too, and now they are a veteran funder helping sway elections on behalf of pro-choice Democratic women.  There are also inventive projects that help activists in Democratic enclaves find and support state legislative candidates in other districts. Sister Districts is looking for money for these candidates, but they are also looking for volunteer help. They have organized working teams in several areas. It is not too late to search and find some kindred spirits with whom you can work.
2) If You Donate to Just One Candidate, Let it Be Heidi Heitkamp
	We could beat Dean Heller in Nevada and pick up the open seats in Arizona and Tennessee. We could defend Joe Donnelly’s Senate seat in Indiana, and Claire McCaskill’s seat in Missouri. A lot of good things can happen, but we could still fall just short of taking back the Senate majority if we lose Heidi Heitkamp’s very tight race in North Dakota. She won by 3,000 votes in 2012 in a state where Barack Obama was losing to Mitt Romney by 60,000 votes, so has proven herself to be an able campaigner. Yes, this is a race that will attract donors from across the country. But, yes, we still need to send Heidi Heitkamp our $50 or whatever we can put together. She is giving it everything she has, so let’s give her something that we have.  If thinking about the small but real chance we have to win back the Senate is capturing your undivided attention, it certainly would not hurt at all to send some money to Claire McCaskill too.
3) Sign Up to Back Up Michelle Obama
	As reviewed in a previous missive, Michelle Obama has a massive new project to register voters, called When We All Vote. She is backed up by everyone from Lin Manuel Miranda to Tom Hanks, and now she needs to be backed up by all of us.  When We All Vote is sponsoring a huge Week of Action from September 22 to 29. They need event sponsors and volunteers. It’s time to sign up to see what’s going on and see how we can help.  It is important to remember that in taking this on as her singular project during election season, Michelle Obama is setting a different course than what was advocated by Democratic campaign strategists. They have seen voter registration and even get out the vote efforts as the sideshow, not the show. They would rather have the former First Lady endorsing candidates and participating in campaign rallies. What she knows is this year is different. Her organization, and Rock the Vote, and the League of Women Voters, and scores of other efforts could make an exceptional difference in districts that heretofore have been Republican-leaning. Many of these have lower Trump approval ratings but nonetheless need a jolt to the voter base.

Donald Trump is going to spend from now until November 6 doing rallies for mean-spirited candidates and making things up. Robert Mueller will file a hugely consequential report. For our part, we intend to go out and win an election.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#45: You Know That You Can Make This Man a Footnote

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.

When Donald Trump is asked about Russia killing journalists and answers that “our country does a lot of killing also,” and when he calls a Putin plan to interrogate a former US Ambassador an “incredible” idea, he’s lost touch with the magnificent quest for self-determination that sent the colonists to Lexington and Concord. It has become clear that Donald Trump has bought into an equivalency based upon power, but Americans have not. His greatest praise for another nation or its leader is “strong” and ours is “free”. We know the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. The fact that our President does not recognize that difference is the scariest thing we can say about him, among a host of scary things.

This cannot, must not, and will not stand. Collectively, we have it within ourselves to make this man a footnote, a figure from an awful time who will have wounded our nation greatly but from which we will resolutely recover. Through our efforts together, we can set the stage for a celebration on November 6, 2018 which will shake our nation, and mark the beginning of Trump’s political demise.

Through Comey’s late announcement, Putin’s interference, our own slipping and sliding, and lack of voter enthusiasm, in November of 2016 we fell 70,000 short of the votes we needed in the places we needed them. The firewall was breached, and the man who did not expect to be president and who was not ever been for a minute qualified to be president became the President.

Why would we let that become a major moment in our planet’s history? We won’t. The coming blue wave does not depend upon you to convince your Fox addicted cousin to share your political beliefs. It depends upon your efforts to flood this election with committed voters: millennials who didn’t make it to the polls last time, women who have figured out what Trump stands for in their lives, independents who in special elections have turned away from Trump in huge numbers, and the Democrats and progressives who have been obsessed with creating a blue wave since the fateful day.

It is all within our reach. Consider this:

• There is daily consternation that Trump’s “base” remains loyal to him. Most often, that base is defined as self-identified Republicans, and much is made when they are undaunted by Trudeau taunts, Playboy Playmate payoffs, or NATO negativism. However, at this point, only 27% of registered voters identify as Republicans. As Nate Silver emphasizes, the fact that as many as 90% of Republicans support this or that Trump action should never be the news lead - the significance of Trump’s high level of disapproval is in the broader electorate.
• The overall disapproval of Trump has shown an important dwindling over time in his support among people who identify themselves as “moderates” or “independents”. You can’t win an election without doing well with them. These voters have registered their disapproval on issues like Trump’s choice to believe Putin’s denial of election meddling. 
• As important as Trump’s low approval ratings (around 42-43% of voters) is the unlikelihood that he will be able to do anything to give those levels a significant boost. Unemployment levels are already low, and these levels would worsen during a trade war. Polls show more voters disapproving of the tax bill and Trump’s health care approaches than those that approve. He is a known quantity - where is his potential upswing, especially as Mueller moves forward? Digging deeper into these low levels of approval provides even more good news for resisters. The percentage of people who strongly disapprove of Trump is twice the percentage of people who strongly approve. This is the enthusiasm gap that is driving the nearly unprecedented level of political activity by Indivisible, Swing Left, the Democratic Party itself, and countless independent organizations and individuals.
• Special elections for vacant seats have a different dynamic than the elections that will be held in November, which should cause Republicans to be extremely thankful given the returns so far. Even in very solid Republican districts the shift to Democratic candidates that we have all generated has been very significant. 
• Even better, Congressional districts where there has been high quality polling of this year’s races have delivered excellent results for those of us who are trying to generate a wave. When conservative Republican Dana Rohrbacker is on the ropes in conservative Orange County, California, you know that times are changing.
• Since the Parkland slayings, youth registrations have become even a higher percentage of new voter registrations, especially in swing states. The intensive voter registration drives across the country will help generate the blue wave, because young voters overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.
• The generic vote tests who voters would select between an unnamed Democratic congressional candidate and an unnamed Republican. At this point the polling average gives Democratic candidates a 7.4% advantage. At election time, that is consistent with taking back 40-50 House seats. Of course, we can do better than that if we make sure our voters turn out. 

Once we have considered these data points, we can’t help but be focused on November and generating the wave. Of course, there remains the small matter of what we were believing in November 2016 - that Donald Trump had only the tiniest chance of being elected. That was true, but it came to pass. How can we give ourselves over to this painful, dangerous process one more time? How can we dare believe that if we act tirelessly, we can start to stop this destruction of America? Because it is all of us, together, and we are more dedicated to this outcome than we ever have been.

So, let’s do these three things right now.

1) Take Voter Registration to An All New Level With Michelle Obama
	Happily, the new force in the national voter registration effort is Michelle Obama. The emergence of her national effort called “When We All Vote” takes nothing away from such stalwart national organizations as Rock the Vote or countless local efforts. Instead, it will draw new attention to the need to register and keep us oriented to this mission from now to November. Increasing the participation of millennials is especially important to creating the blue wave. The appeal from Michelle Obama is simple and pointed. When We All Vote is set up to recruit you as a volunteer, provide links for easy voter registration, take your donation, and keep you posted about national or local events. Some of the races we are contesting will be decided by a thousand votes or less. It is not hard to imagine a situation in which voter registration alone will spell the difference. As Frank Bruni writes in the New York Times, “We got it wrong in 2016. We can get in right in 2018. There’s a far side to the American disgrace, a way to contain the damage, and it’s both utterly straightforward and entirely effective. It’s called voting. And from now until November 6, we must stay fantastically focused on that--- on registering voters, turning them out, donating time in the right places.” While we are working on voter registration, we should remember that the list of newly registered voters is available in most states. A small group could take on the task of writing notes to those people in their community who have just signed up.
2) Devote New Efforts to Gubernatorial Races, Including Supporting Stacey Abrams
	The intensive efforts by resisters and the political climate that Donald Trump has created has opened up more gubernatorial races this fall. This would be important in many years, but it is especially important because congressional and state legislative district lines will be redrawn in response to the 2020 census. In many states, Governors will be in a position to veto redistricting plans that hijack the electorate with gerrymandered maps. This is what happened in many states after the 2010 off year elections.  The Democratic Governors’ Association is hoping to take back several states, including Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and Wisconsin (where Scott Walker is seeking a third term.) A special prize would be Georgia, where lawyer, politician, author, and businesswoman Stacey Abrams is aiming to become the first African American woman to become governor of that state. Thanks to Donald Trump, Abrams is facing the weaker of the two Republican candidates, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, rather than the candidate backed by the outgoing governor, Nathan Deal. It would be nothing but a good thing to help Stacey Abrams. If you are in a state that has no meaningful gubernatorial race, you could adopt her race as your own. If you aren’t yet in a position to donate, sign up and keep an eye on Georgia.
3) Recommendations from Your Co-conspirators
	Readers of this missive have good ideas. One encourages attention to state initiatives that reform legislative redistricting processes, which will be before the voters in Michigan, Missouri, Utah and Colorado. The story here is that beyond Republican shenanigans in 2010, parties in some states have worked together on redistricting that is intended to increase the number of safe seats (making trades to protect incumbents) and reduce the number of swing districts. This is not in the interest of voters. It would be a good thing to look at your state’s redistricting process and find out who is trying to make it better and who is not. A friend writes urging we all read and support Robert Reich’s lucid appeal to four Republican Senators.  Another reader of this missive who is worried about obsessing on the news recommends Krista Tippett’s advice: “The news is never the full story of our time. It’s not the last word on what we’re capable of. It’s not the whole story of us.”

We have a huge opportunity, right now, between now and November 6, to write an all new chapter in the story of our time. There are elections coming up. Powerlessness is a fiction. Get back in the driver’s seat, please.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#44: Any Flagging is Sending Donald Trump a Kiss

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 some days, you are just worn down. You have been focused on being a part of the resistance for over 600 days, since November 2016. On the best days, you allow yourself some recognition of the progress we have made together. You permit yourself to talk with your friends about the excellent opportunity to take back the House of Representatives in November 2018, and that brightens you further. You even allow yourself to think about the much longer shot prospects of taking back the Senate. Jon Tester fights back! Beto O’Rourke gains momentum! 

Then there are the other days in which you cannot even believe this is happening. When this history is written over the next couple of decades, we will discover that things within the Trump presidency were even worse than we knew. Last week, we found out that Trump consulted with Latin American heads of state over how they would feel if we invaded Venezuela! Now he has tweeted “I have confidence Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed and even more importantly, our handshake. We agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea.”

Well, Donald Trump of course you didn’t. You agreed in a made for TV event to “work toward” denuclearization. Your faith in the honor behind a handshake with a murderous dictator is absurd, given he just accused you of “gangster-like diplomacy.” You swell with great pride over your show meetings with Kim and with Putin and save your invective for Justin Trudeau and NATO. You want more than anything to never be duped, but you are “played” on a regular basis.
Donald Trump, this is what making America greater than it is would look like if we had a president who was seeking such an outcome.

• We would be a beacon for the world in the exercise of individual freedoms. Rather than seeing a free press as an enemy, we would have a president who celebrates it as a key element of our strength.
• We would have a president that skips the “trust” of Putin and Kim and Duterte and remembers that they preserve power by jailing and killing dissidents.
• We would invoke “national security” in our trade dealings only when national security is at issue. We would be ashamed to utilize these presidential powers against the Canadians, who have died to defend our security.
• We would eagerly participate in international climate change efforts to prevent irreversible environmental harm.
• We would see NATO as a fundamental defense against countries who wish us ill.
• We would demonstrate global leadership. Who would have ever predicted that the number one foreign policy achievement of a Republican president would be to expand and accelerate the global leadership of China?

In the next two months, it will seem like the resistance is being swamped by tactical decisions. How will the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanagh influence the fall elections? Over time how can we protect choice, and gay marriage and countless other human rights now newly vulnerable? (Yes, we can and must). With the Supreme Court nomination under debate in the Senate drawing the interest of conservative voters, can we still expect an enthusiasm gap in our favor? (If we work hard enough to secure it). Will our own anti-Trump movement divide over issues like impeachment? (Sure, but we will stay together in all the most important ways). Will we remember to underscore health care as a central issue for the fall? (Yes, we will).

We don’t need to over-think this. First, we focus on what is before us--- putting a brake on the mindless destruction of the environment, human rights, equal opportunity and our position in the world by this president. We must increase our intolerance of distraction. It does not matter whether Alan Dershowitz is getting along with his neighbors. Or that Kelly Ann Conway had intemperate words with Anderson Cooper or anyone else that Kelly Ann Conway gets deployed to talk to.

Second, we work much, much harder than the other side, which we have been doing now since November of 2016. Any flagging is nothing more than blowing a kiss to Donald Trump, don’t you think?

And while we are attending to election year politics, Congress is in session. Here’s three things we need to do to try to keep them from having a weekly drawing on the House floor to determine which program to eviscerate:

1) Join the Fight to Save SNAP
	Well, you knew that eventually the House of Representatives would get around to doing something mean-spirited about the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) which is the United States Department of Agriculture program that provides food stamps. A reader of this missive urges us to respond to this effort by the House to establish a work requirement for 5-7 million food stamp recipients. She says “there is so much racial injustice in food and discrimination of the poor that we need to be vigilant and do our part to change our own attitudes." The work requirement is drafted in such a way that one wonders if the supportive House members ever met a food stamp recipient. There are already plenty of ways that USDA helps up-skill food stamp recipients and takes into account the multiple factors that drove them into poverty. There are already provisions that severely limit the issue of food stamps to able bodied persons. The new House approach seeks to change a hand up to a hand slap. Luckily, the Farm bill is subject to Senate rules and thus will require 60 votes to close debate. Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and the other Democrats who will serve on the Conference Committee will have a lot of leverage. Please call Debbie Stabenow’s office at 202-224-4822. Tell her how grateful you are that she stood up and tell her that you are counting on her to continue to do so.
2) Get the Senate Some Fortitude on Trade
	Donald Trump has been such a misinformation machine on trade that it would be easy to conclude that he is misrepresenting everything. It’s not the case, but we aren’t going to go back any time soon to quieter, more productive bilateral or multilateral talks to resolve specific, legitimate claims. So, in this period of escalation we need to remember that it isn’t true (as Trump has maintained) that it is easy to win a trade war. Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union each have their own political stake in not being seen to capitulate. Also, identifying modest trade deficits or trade surpluses with a particular country is an awful way to figure out whether unfair trade practices are occurring. Trump does not seem to be caught up to date on the ways in which global manufacturing investment has changed in the last two decades. When Harley Davidson announced it was going to shift some manufacturing to Thailand because of Trump’s steel tariffs, Trump said “Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country - never!” But Harley already has manufacturing plants in Brazil, India, and Australia, so never wasn’t going to be possible. And innumerable foreign companies have manufacturing plants in the United States. Of all the disputes, the Canada trade war is the oddest, because Trump went into the first discussion admitting he didn’t know which country had the trade surplus. Trump is clearly reacting to Justin Trudeau’s refusal to bow. His use of bogus “national security” grounds to impose tariffs on Canadian steel is what has Senator Bob Corker doing battle on the Senate floor. He was able to get an 88-11 vote for a non-binding resolution calling for Trump to have Senate review before using national security as grounds for imposing a tariff.  Senators are happy to have Corker be the one to feel Trump’s tweet-tirades. But ultimately other Republican Senators from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees will have to step up if we are to maintain any international standing at all. Call any or all of these for tell them our place in the world matters and then it falls to them to protect it: Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado (202) 224-5941 Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (202)224-5972 Senator Marco Rubio of Florida (202) 224-3041 Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska (202) 224-4224
3) Our Fellow Resisters Have Some Good Advice
	We are heartened to receive notes from recipients of these missives offering their own counsel on how to move forward in these times, including the above counsel on food stamps. One activist recommends this David Leonhardt column. It argues that our understandable opposition to Brett Kavanagh could cause us to forget the issues like health care which are most likely to generate a blue wave. I agree that we should always put health care in a dominant position, but I believe that any number of Supreme Court confirmation issues could generate an electoral boost, including choice and gay marriage. From Vermont we have heard a seconding of our recommendation that we all participate in projects where we customize and send postcards to voters in swing districts. This writer notes that there are several suppliers of names for postcards--- resisters should find one that works for them. Here’s another: Sister District Project. Two other notes of note, one commending a recent David Brooks speech at Davidson College for its thoughts on way forward. The other demonstrates that Donald Trump’s approval rating has declined in every state of the union since January of 2017. That isn’t so surprising, since January 2017 was the apex of his approval, but it is delicious information nonetheless.

One could weary of being urged in these missives to be focused and relentless in one’s contribution to the blue wave. If there was any other way (besides focus and relentlessness) to win back the House and (possibly) gain control of the Senate, this missive would recommend that action early and often. We are doing the only thing we can do, and the rewards will be reaped.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#43: How We Stop Awful Things from Happening

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.

No one said for even a minute that this was easy. Just remember that when commentators say that “Trump still has his base,” that amounts to just a bit more than a third of American voters. If you keep working on independents, and you keep on making certain that those seeking a new direction REGISTER and VOTE in November, this particular election will absolutely be a blue wave, and it will provide the best sort of brake on some of the worst things that this totally bizarre American president can do.

Maybe when you are awash in despair you remember Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ path breaking “On Death and Dying.” You are recalling her five stages of response to terminal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Now feel the cool breeze as you realize the Trump stages are entirely different. Here's what you may have been thinking:

1. Disbelief (November 2016) There was a tiny chance of that happening, of the “firewall” being breached, even with the last-minute Comey announcement. But I still can’t believe he is the President of our country. The hurt I feel for America is overwhelming.
2. Befuddlement What do I even do about what I am hearing? I am going to have to sort his out, get some equilibrium. I am going to be a part of the resistance and not let this bring me down.
3. Organization There is Indivisible, and Swing Left, and there are local independent groups, and special elections, and fighting for health care, and against the tax cut and for refugees and against environmental destruction. There are ways to weigh in every week. I believe that we are starting to get some traction. I know this matters. Even though this distresses me and I must find time away from it, I am fully dedicated to resisting.
4. Traction (the present) Before, I was pleased that we all worked together to save the Affordable Care Act, even though I know that Trump still is wounding it regularly. I am pleased that there are still many millions of people receiving health care who otherwise would not be if the resistance had not acted. Now, refugee and immigrant parents are going to be reunited with their children. Whatever Trump says or does next, this is a huge victory for the resistance. We can build on this and work tirelessly all summer and early fall for a blue wave.
5. Celebration On the morning of November 7, 2018, I feel as hopeful and renewed as in any time I remember. I know there are as many as two more years of Donald Trump, but we now have demonstrated with the election results that we can change the course of history. In no way are we done, but our work is paying off.

What could keep us from completing these five steps now that we are so far along? We could be self-indulgent. We could forget to attend to the business at hand while trading snarky comments about Ivanka or trying to figure out Melania Trump’s jacket. Worse, we could fall into a pattern of debating whether it is okay to harass someone while they are having a sandwich at a restaurant, which can be very easily resolved because it isn’t okay. Whatever moral outrage you might feel justified in expressing to Sarah Huckabee Sanders or other Trump minions, it is a narcissistic, politically self-defeating act. We wouldn’t want any of those distractions to define our next few months, would we?

Instead, we must remember and emphasize the four issues that will be providing us the traction and 
getting us the celebration. And we must focus on why each of them offer us a considerable political advantage, and work from now to November 6 to keep it that way.

Health care is a matter of reminding everyone that the “Pottery Barn” rule is now formally in play. Trump and his supplicants broke the Affordable Care Act, and they don’t plan to fix it. Independent voters will vote against them for this alone. We have skyrocketing premiums and fewer choices. Most important to voters, we are moving toward the point that the remaining elements of the ACA are in such a shambles that the treasured coverage for pre-existing conditions will diminish. 

The new tax law is the second key issue. On the personal income side, 80% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1%. The American taxpayer so far is not “seeing” the benefits of Congress borrowing money from our children and grandchildren to pay for the cuts. Polls show the law is viewed unfavorably, taking away what Republicans hoped would be a fall campaign strategy. Moreover, as predicted, the greatest use of the corporate tax cuts has not been for wage increases or new investment in plants and equipment. It has been for corporate stock buybacks. 

The third issue is immigration, which sadly is more advantageous to us as a political issue than it otherwise would be because it will take until fall just to get the 2,500 children back to their parents. 67% of Americans were against the separation in the first place. Don’t count out the possibility of Trump working with Stephen Miller on some more “zero tolerance” and incarcerating undocumented border crossers or even asylum-seekers and their children in camps at military bases. Trump is also making sounds about closing the government on October 1 if he doesn’t get the wall. Congress would be under enormous pressure from voters to pass a bi-partisan bill to keep the government open.

Fourth, we will remain attentive to whatever indictments Robert Mueller will seek this summer.

These four issues are all we need to take back at least a score more seats in the House than the 24 we need. And the Senate is in play. The newest NBC/Marist poll has Bill Nelson four points ahead of Rick Scott in Florida. In Arizona, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is polling more than 10 points better than each of her possible three opponents.

Let’s not let the sideshows created by the daily tweets distract us from staying with the biggest show, the issues that will decide this election. Maybe you yourself can’t believe that any independent voter could countenance Trump, given his indifference to things like, say, the Constitution, but you don’t want to take that for granted. Independent voters (especially women) are turning away from Trump, but they need all the encouragement and evidence we can provide, and the above four issues will tell the tale. These same four issues will motivate the new voters we can convince to register. Finally, they will help us bring back the voters who maddeningly and dishearteningly did not cast a ballot in 2016.

From this point forward, our opportunities to comment on pending legislation will be fewer, and our three things to do will be almost entirely related to the November elections. The consequences of resisters failing to pick a favorite Congressional race in which to engage are too painful to describe on the pages of this missive. Here are three things we all can do today.

1) Send Postcards to Voters Every Week
	20,000 of us are already participating in Postcards to Voters, an innovative way to break through seemingly impenetrable barriers and reach voters who live in swing districts and who thus hold our country’s future in their hands. Postcards to Voters will provide your small group of advocates a list of voter addresses in selected Congressional districts. You add the artwork, personalized message and food for thought. You know that you can express yourself in such a way that your customized missives will be noticed by the recipients. It’s a great thing to do over coffee with friends.
2) Single Out Phil Bredesen
	A year ago, it seemed hopeless to even think about trying to take control of the Senate, because 26 of the 35 seats being contested are already being held by Democrats. Additionally, a number of these Democratic seats (Montana, West Virginia, Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana) are in states where the Russia-aided Trump beat Clinton in 2016. Now, there are glimmers. Jon Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia are polling well.  As noted above, there is an excellent chance that Democrats will take back the Arizona seat now held by sort-of-Republican Jeff Flake. All of this means that eyes are turning to Tennessee, where Republican Senator Bob Corker is not running, and where former Democratic governor Phil Bredesen has a narrow lead in the polls. This is becoming another excellent chance to pick up a seat. True as it is that all of these campaigns have big budgets and money is pouring into Tennessee, it would be a great week for you to do some pouring yourself. Give up your coffee for a week if you need to and help perk up Tennessee for Phil Bredesen. Here’s where to find the click to donate.
3) Promote Online Voter Registration
	Wherever you go, you can view people intently focused on their cell phones. There are any number of things that are easier to do now that the digital universe has arrived, and some of those things are well worth doing, such as registering to vote! Here, certainties come into play. You can be assured that the effort to take back the Congress depends hugely on the number of people who vote, which itself depends on the number of new voters register. In some states, as many as 2/3 of the new registrants will be part of the blue wave. Further, most states have online registration. Wouldn’t it be easy for you to do a Facebook post or a tweet or an email providing a link to Rock the Vote? Rock the Vote is there to help you. There will be as many as a dozen swing districts that end up getting decided by turnout from newly registered voters. That seems motivating.

The little things do rankle. During a recent public Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony, Donald Trump told an 89-year-old widow of a World War II war hero that he hoped she had voted for him. Of course, this was supposed to be a “joke”. No one is laughing, Donald Trump. You are dishonoring your office and our country. We aim to take it back.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#42: We Will Not Let Him Be Our Country's Voice

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.

It isn’t as though Donald Trump is messing up what otherwise would be an unblemished global record of the United States. Over time, we have made common cause with countless dictators as they suppressed their people. Often, we have conflated the aims of capitalism with those of democracy. In the 1930’s, we remained isolationist for an interminable period while the world faced its greatest peril. Throughout our history, more than a few Americans have tried to shut the door and lock it right after their generation of immigrants made it past the Statue of Liberty.

Still, over time our democratic aspirations have kindled countless dreams that might not otherwise have emerged in Dakar or Prague or Bangkok. Our free speech and peaceful transfers of power have been well tested and have survived, and equal protection under the law has protected people who would be under siege in many other countries.. As a nation, we have been capable of international leadership, and generosity, and inventiveness. Why not celebrate that now and again we have lifted ourselves, and others? And, why not mourn that the man who “leads” our country is dashing those dreams and withdrawing that leadership, and even mocking the idea of such leadership, every single day?

The “nativists” whom he leads and who of course aren’t originally from here either, throw out “globalist” and “immigrant” as epithets. For all their bluster and meanness of spirit, they are elevated and almost never corrected within a party that once said with conviction that it stood for world leadership. In one decade, a Republican president asked a Canadian prime minister to put his country’s soldiers in harm’s way to defend our collective national security. In the next decade, a Republican president has invented national security as an excuse to invoke special powers in a trade dispute with Canada. As friendly and neighborly as another country could possibly be, Canadians are treated to egregious insults, while Russia and North Korea are praised. How is this possible?

We will make these dreadful moments pass. Within the Republican Party, there is a large cohort whose greatest pride at being Republicans was international diplomacy. Ronald Reagan was far more the renegade than the Bushes and treasured by many in his party for being so. But at this moment he would be ashamed of the behavior toward our allies displayed by Donald Trump.

Those within the White House who did not want a trade war have left, including economic advisor Gary Cohn. Larry Kudlow, Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross are yes-people. Trump is the arbiter of these matters and he is locked over and over again in The Art of the Deal. Leaving aside that in the first place this was a made-up story about a real estate developer, it has no application to trade negotiations. 

It is monumentally different because there are countless United States interests with every country in which we are in negotiations and each of those countries has its own alliances with each other. It is different from real estate in that time never stands still, that dynamism and change is the constant, and that a single bottom line is a fiction. You could win once in a tweet-advanced swaggering showdown, but you are setting yourself and ourselves up for bigger losses. Most important, it is different from real estate because some countries are founded upon principles of self-determination and protection of human rights while others relentlessly seek to stamp out these principles. In fact, their leaders wouldn't mind stamping us out, even after Donald Trump shakes their hand and pronounces them trustworthy.

Trump rejects out of hand the concept of partnership, even though that is where our genuine self-interest is advanced. Now and again, a pundit will suggest that Trump’s bluster could advantage us, as in “Maybe that other country will think he is just crazy enough to start a trade war and will make concessions.” But we are dealing with other governments, not someone who owns a parcel in Manhattan. This is not just about dairy supports or the price of imported steel. Canada, Germany, Britain and France are not going to forget the flurry of insults, nor should they. Now, Un-believably, and without a trace of irony, Trump has made Kim Jong Un a “lover of his people” while Justin Trudeau is “weak.” Don’t let this become America’s voice.

Democrats, well aware that freer trade has had its economic winners and losers, are going to be happy to watch Senators Bob Corker, Ben Sasse and others battle Trump apologists on the Senate floor over trade. The issue is whether to rein in Trump’s bogus use of national security as grounds for slapping tariffs on products from Canada and other allies. Among the ironies, the Koch brothers are on Corker’s side.

We need to stand for globalism, an indispensable part of the way forward not just on climate change but on most everything that the planet and its people need. We need to remind ourselves again that in fighting poverty and disease, the world has accomplished something together. Nicholas Kristoff says the world has achieved important progress but faces mortal threats. Let’s do three things to diminish the threats.

1) Bolster the Backbone of Those Challenging Trump
	There is always the possibility that the sizable number of Senate Republicans who are challenging Trump on his trade approach will fold in the usual ways when the usual “let’s stay together” pushback is mounted by Trump-battered Republican leaders. But there is a better chance that this battle is an ongoing one, since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other Republican business interests are aligned with the Corker-led apostates. Donald Trump had promised wary Republicans that the battles waged at the G-7 in Quebec would be “a movie that ends quickly”. But he couldn’t bear to have Justin Trudeau write his own narrative, so the movie didn’t end. Even if it had, with Trump there will always be the sequel. So, it is time to call and write to a couple of Republican Senators who are inclined to give Bob Corker some cover, and who could help over time to make this battle be about the need for global partnerships. Please call and/or write: Senator Lamar Alexander 455 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510 (202) 224-4944 Senator Ben Sasse 136 Russell Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510 (202) 224-4224
2) Represent Yourself as a Part of the Community of Nations
	True as it is that the United Nations is seriously flawed, it is the one place where countries buy in to the idea that we are a community of nations and that we have collective interests that must be pursued. At minimum, we must have a forum where mutual goals are established in fighting global poverty, addressing climate change, and responding to the global refugee crisis. So of all times in our lives it has become necessary to either join the United Nations Association of the USA or at least understand what it is trying to accomplish, now is the most important time of all.
3) Be Guided by Your Fellow Blog Readers
	We have received many thoughtful responses to the 41 missives we have sent since the electoral tragedy of November of 2016, and gratifying encouragement to keep on going. A number of working groups and resistance efforts around the country follow up immediately on the three recommended steps for action that are always included. And we get letters --- Says one - “Perhaps a topic for the next missive is the Sessions’ approach to border-crossing families of taking children away from parents and putting them into holding pens and foster care while detaining, deporting or prosecuting their parents… surely there must be a more humane way…" Stayed tuned for missive #43 for updates and action steps on asylum-seekers and on DACA. Says another - "I would ask you to consider advising your readers to read a very important book I just finished. It’s called How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Ziblatt. It is a scholarly analysis of the signature circumstances that characteristically lead to a democracy turning into an authoritarian dictatorship. It does an in-depth analysis of numerous historic examples with frightening comparisons to America today. I personally believe that every thoughtful person should read to open their eyes concerning what’s going on this country." No dying democracies on our watch. We will read it! From California - "Every Wednesday a bunch of women in our town, whose kids are grown and flown, meet for two hours to write postcards to registered voters. We spruce up our plain postcards in all manner of creative ways and write… to encourage people to get out and be part of the blue wave. As you say each time, we must participate if we are to be governed in a way that is just and fair.” Let’s do that, too.

Since Donald Trump believes he can take the measure of a person in thirty seconds, let’s understand what we would want him to know about us in thirty seconds. We would want him to know--- No, we won’t let this stand. We believe that our democracy is imperiled, and we are fully confident that we can do something about that, and that is what we are doing at this very moment, and that is what we will continue to do until this danger to democracy is lifted.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington