#49: How Will We Attend to the Repairs?

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After a pointed, obsessively researched take down of Donald Trump, Bob Woodward said Americans should "wake up", though he later said it would be helpful if some would "calm down".

Should we calm down? Yes, and no. Yes, we should remember that the republic for which we stand has been diminished but has not been dissolved. Yes, it is necessary for us to maintain some equilibrium. And, no we will never make light of what Donald Trump represents. 

Our nation was flawed before he began his nasty deeds. Wealth inequality was huge and growing before he grew it much further. We were slow on climate change and too comfortable with doing business with undemocratic foreign leaders. Our anti-poverty efforts were patchy and innsufficient.

In every area he has touched, he has made things worse. With gall, he's pulled up apart with profound disrespect for democratic institutions and monumental unearned personal self-regard.

Starting with November 6, we will win the country back one election, one plea bargain and one legislative victory at a time. Not only does Donald Trump not have a way out of the hole he has excavated, he can't help but keep on digging. What a foolish man.

As we usher him out, in what specific ways will we attend to repairs? Outside of how we address the great policy issues of our time, how will we answer what underlies all of them--- Who is going to play a part in doing the addressing? Who is welcomed into the political process, not just during elections, but in the whole democratic experiment? Who feels a part now? Who will be enabled to join us, and what are the rules that will keep their participation from being suppressed? Who can come here tomorrow, like we and our generations of families did yesterday?

This is the larger post-Trump restoration. It will be the re-invention or resurgence of how we do things with and for each other in this country. How can we guarantee that all of us together will take this on?

Donald Trump is 71, all the evidence that you need that age does not always bring wisdom. Either we ourselves are that age or older, or we have friends or family that are. Wouldn't it be delicious if Trump's age cohort was indispensable in rebuilding American political systems?

If these folks have individual retirement accounts or a 401k, they are obligated at age 70 1/2 to start to take an annual Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Many do not know that (if their finances permit) all or a portion of their RMD can be transferred to a qualified non-profit. This will keep the distribution from being a taxable event AND help in the long-term retooling of America, all at the same time.

Required minimum distributions can fight against white nationalism through the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Morris Dees' splendid organization has been in the vanguard against intolerance for decades.

Long term investments including RMDs and other charitable contributions can underpin our push back against voter suppression. The eligible organization that stands out for the quality of its work and its rich understanding of the threats we case is the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University 

We must also make a long-term commitment to welcoming lovers of democracy from around the world. Will we really countenance the shutting of the door that most of our own families walked through? Here the RMD should go to your local or regional charitable organization that provides free legal assistance to immigrants facing deportation or other legal proceedings.

As we address these long term necessities, we aren't forgetting that November 6 must be depended on to give us a huge initial lift, There's a lot of work to be done between now and then. Let's start with these three things:

1) Make Certain Senator Debbie Stabenow Will Prevail
	In the Farm Bill now under consideration, the Republican leadership has implanted new work rules that would result in denying Food Stamps to as many as 1.5 million present participants. They are inventive enough to give a trillion dollars or so of tax breaks to the very wealthy, but they have not quite figured out how to give a loaf of bread to someone who otherwise would have none. Luckily, they need 60 votes in the Senate and Debbie Stabenow (the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee) is standing in the way. Make sure the Democrats on the Agriculture Committee stay with her: Tina Smith of Minnesota (202) 224-5641 Sherrod Brown of Ohio (202) 224-2315 Bob Casey of Pennsylvania (202) 224-6324 Insist there be no Farm Bill if it includes the new draconian rules.
2) Boost Michelle Obama's New Project
	As this missive has previously emphasized, getting people registered so they can vote on November 6 is the current number one job of resisters. September 22nd through 29th will be the biggest week of the year in terms of meeting that goal as When We All Vote holds a series of events.  It's not too late to help Michelle Obama, Lin-Michael Miranda, Tom Hanks and others get us focused.
3) Bring Florida a Democratic Governor
	With all the talk of the Senate and House, we are at risk of forgetting to take back several governor-ships. We would (perish the thought) fail to take advantage of the gifts Donald Trump has made available by his support of the most right wing (and less electable) candidate in several races. He has put us ahead in Florida though his support of Jim Desantis. Take a chance on Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, who has an excellent chance of becoming the next Governor, and the first African-American Governor of that state.

This is not a mysterious thing. We know exactly what needs to be done by November 6, and we know exactly how to do it. Now that we've heard what's in Bob Woodward's book we know that a nation hangs in the balance.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#48: We Won't Stand Down, We Won't Stand Aside and We Won't Stand For It

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Last week was about John McCain, but it wasn’t just about John McCain. Of course, we like to know that someone around us is larger than life in the way McCain was. But, it is the contrast to Trump and his smallness that gave the week its resonance. Susan Glasser of the New Yorker called the McCain funeral “the biggest resistance meeting yet.”

There was some audience approval when Megan McCain said her dad was a great man. “We gather to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice.” Isn’t it a sad thing that we know exactly who she was referring to?
Now comes the hard part. What are we to do upon seeing hundreds of elected officials of both parties honoring someone with a conservative voting record for having values, being willing to be self-critical, and for being averse to being strong armed by his party? When we hear such things, and we see all that heartfelt honoring is going on, can’t we start expecting such behavior from the mourners? If these behaviors caught on, rather than McCain being the last of an era, he could be the first of the new era.

This project will take some time. It does seem clear that the quality of congressional deliberation shifts from decade to decade. We are right to dismiss any notion that Senators kowtowing to Trump is an inevitable thing, even though it seems endless when the kowtows are in progress. It certainly isn’t a certain outcome. Republicans Jacob Javits and Hugh Scott and Margaret Chase Smith were pivotal in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As late as 2013, three Democrats seeking meaningful immigration reform were joined by three Republican Senators in making a major proposal--- Lindsay Graham, John McCain (unsurprisingly) and Marco Rubio (surprisingly)

Absolutely, there should be better Democrats, but let’s stay with Republicans for a while. With McCain’s passing, there are temporarily just 50 Republican Senators. How many do you suppose agree with Trump’s daily evisceration of the Department of Justice and the FBI? How many think Canada should be dragged into the mud, week after week? How many are happy that Trump trashes NATO, threatens to walk away from the World Trade Organization, and calls the press the enemy of the people?

The Senators who are true Trump acolytes are a very small number. The rest understand that he’s a bad president, and they have stories that they can tell in secret. But so far there is no queueing up to display political courage or principle. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski count precious few brave, principled moments, and they will now buy into a charade that Brett Kavanaugh has no antipathy to Roe v. Wade. For the most part, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake saved their eloquent dismay about Trump until after they decided not to run for office. Lindsay Graham will tell you every week that Donald Trump said something troubling, but he will do nothing to Trump that will risk his Senatorial nomination in 2020. Lamar Alexander, once a notable moderate, must avoid glancing in the mirror in the morning given the way he has let Trump knock him around. They know he won’t bolt, so they don’t defer to him.

When one is counting Republican Senatorial heroes, it is difficult to get to a higher number than two. Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Richard Burr is a hero for protecting Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein. He has formed a meaningful partnership with the ranking minority member, Mark Warner of Virginia. Beyond that, the man with McCain-like fortitude is Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who is up for election in 2020. He has said that Trump has no “core principles.” He is a reliable Republican vote, but thus far has avoided Graham’s obsequiousness. He might be preparing a 2020 presidential bid, and so might John Kasich. Either way it is nice to see Sasse’s wit and intellect in play. He said that instead of watching Trump at the nominating convention he would “take his kids to see some dumpster fires.”

What’s at work for all of them is the political calculus. As reported in previous missives, if you are a Republican Senator, you not only know what the Trump wing can do to you if you rebel, you know what they will do to you. The Trump-ites don’t even have to be even close to a majority of voters. They just need to have a good chance of beating you in the primary after you refuse to tack far enough to Trump’s positions.

Of course, we resisters have the last word. In many of these states, these Senators will eventually see that we will unseat them if they continue to be a part of this dragging down of our country. At the very least we respond to their Trump-coddling by putting them in the Senate minority in 2020 if not in 2018. The rationale that some of them have developed is that in sometimes subtle ways, they are a defense against the worst that Trump could do. And maybe some of them are providing such a defense. Of course, their gains are minor while Trump’s transgressions are major. These Senators are enabling the diminishment of their country. There are no John McCains here, so far.

The Washington Post says that “winter is coming” in the form of the Mueller report and that Trump is not prepared. The Post/ABC poll shows disapproval at an all-time high with strong disapproval far outdistancing strong approval.This is a very good sign for November election turnout. 

And there is one more question about the behavior of Republican Senators. In the Atlantic, Eliot Cohen suggests that nearly all tyrants are ultimately abandoned, since their power has no grounding. As Shakespeare said of Macbeth, “Those he commands move only in command, nothing in love. Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief?“ It seems obvious that many Republicans are with Trump absent another viable path. At some inflection point, that support may dissipate, as it did with Republican Senators and Richard Nixon.

Short of ten Senators walking away from Trump we are still holding out some hope that these Republican Senators will take a glance at the Bill of Rights on their office wall. They might then be jolted into action with the sudden recognition that Trump would delete most or all of those rights if he could. As early as November of 2018, and no later than November of 2020, we will have the Senate majority. For now, as we work to make that so, let’s ask Republican Senators to do these three things:

1) Protect the Justice Department from the President
	What would Republican Senators have done if Barack Obama had tweeted regularly that the Justice Department was failing to protect his political interests? They would have formed a vanguard to protect the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There has not been single president (until now) whose daily savaging of these agencies would have been permitted. This has to be taking its toll on these public servants. Let’s go to the subcommittee level, to the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, which up to this point had proudly guaranteed that the FBI and the Criminal Division of the Justice Department would get the support they needed to do their job. Now they have been relegated to the position of wishing and hoping that the President would stop tweeting.  Call Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, the subcommittee member who months ago derailed a Trump nominee for the federal bench for lack of qualifications. Tell John Kennedy that he should be protecting the department from political attacks. Phone his office at 202-224-4623. While you are at it, call the subcommittee’s Majority staff (who are less accustomed to hearing from citizens) and ask them to stand up for Justice. They can be reached at 202-224-5972. They can be asked to take heed of the aforementioned Ben Sasse. When Donald Trump criticized the insider trading and fraudulent campaign spending charges against two Republican members of Congress, Senator Sasse said: “The United States is not some banana republic with a two-tiered system of justice--- one for the majority party and one for the minority party.”
2) Insist that the Senate Stand Up for Canada
	As Trump picks other countries to attack for bad behavior, he has hit upon unloading on our best national friend and number one trading partner, Canada. At an earlier juncture, Trump was making up things about Justin Trudeau, but privately confiding that he had no knowledge of any existing trade imbalance. With any previous president, that may have seemed a surprise, but no one picked up on Trump’s admission. After Trump attacked Trudeau, Bob Corker and some other Senators from the Foreign Relations Committee held a meeting with the Canadian Ambassador to apologize for the President’s behavior. It’s time to recognize that apologizing is insufficient. There are at least two Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who are intent on courting independent voters. Call Rob Portman of Ohio at 202-224-3353 and Cory Gardner of Colorado at 202-224-5941 and tell them they should be remembering how much Canada means and has meant to the United States. Tell them you think it is their responsibility to do something in response to Trump’s actions.
3) Make Sure Claire McCaskill Gets Back to Washington
	In 2012, Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was fortunate to be opposed by Todd Akin, who had said that women could not get pregnant through a “legitimate rape” because the body will prevent it. Six years later she has a serious opponent in a state whose citizens are still harboring their affections for Donald Trump. It could well turn out that the Senate majority will be riding on this race. Claire McCaskill is a fighter. Can you imagine how difficult it is to be a Democratic Senator in a state as red as is Missouri? You can make it just a tiny bit easier by making sure she has the funding to defend her seat. You can join “Team Claire” here and effortlessly use that magic card in your wallet to give her a boost.

It isn’t true Donald Trump will be automatically turned away if he does surreal things, or nasty, ill-informed things, or takes actions that deprive people of their constitutional rights, or lies or bullies or threatens, or subverts or attacks the underpinnings of democracy. This is not automatic. Instead, we must be part of a fierce, unrelenting effort. We won’t stand aside, we won’t stand down, and we won’t stand for it. Because we are doing the work that needs to be done, the voters will give us a very favorable progress report on November 6.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#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

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.

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