#60: Motivate Republican Senators to Get Right with the Constitution

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.

If we aren’t careful, we could talk ourselves into the wrong points of view. That would leave us less powerful at a time that we need to gather and utilize our power.

For instance, we could hear that the unenthusiasm of Queens residents for Amazon’s 25,000 jobs is some sort of indicator for how liberals and progressives think about jobs and economic growth in their own communities. But the fact is that Amazon intended to replace that community, not just bring it new economic opportunity. And for Queens and New York to have demonstrated their appreciation for having their community change dramatically, they would have needed to accede to a huge corporate assistance tax package.

We could hear that the Green New Deal is a socialist dream that will eliminate the support of independent voters for a Democratic candidate. But what it represents is the very beginning of an aspirational discussion. Its ideas will be modified and dealt with separately, not as an omnibus bill. Nonetheless, it is one part of an overdue exploration of how we can together boldly change the way America addresses (or ignores) its environmental future.

Similarly, Medicare for All is the platform for big believers and big dreamers, trying to confront the continued malfunctions of the American health care system, improved but by no means fixed by the Affordable Care Act. It represents the start of a new conversation, not the end of one.

Figuring out which Democrat to nominate for president is a huge decision. We can’t get that done by determining who has the best slogans or even the most combative attitude toward Donald Trump. What we most need is this marketplace of ideas, including any number of ideas that have been hidden or besmirched since Republicans took over the Congress in 2010. We can’t pick a president without understanding some of the finer points of how they differ from the other people who want to be president. We have more than a year to figure this out.

Policy ideas also force us to understand the distinctions between show horses and work horses, between elected officials who are authentically seeking reform and those who are too fully aware of the camera. Happily, Thomas Perez and the Democratic Party leadership are crafting rules for genuine televised debates where ideas are exchanged. The New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses will be great testing ground for which candidates have ways of thinking that are especially compelling, since success in these states depends upon meeting at length with small groups whose members ask pointed questions.

Since several of the candidates are Senators, we need to be able to sort out legislative proposals offered by Democratic leadership or by candidates to understand whether they have any particular significance.

1. Some proposals are meant only to stake out a position. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a wealth tax of 2% on assets over $50 million. The revenue would be used to fund child care support. There will be other candidates weighing in on how to assign a greater tax burden for the rich. None of their specific proposals will be advanced in the House, but they are useful for determining where the candidates stand, and how their position varies from that of other candidates.
2. Some proposals are intentionally broad in scope and are intended to grow a movement. This is the significance of both Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. They are aspirational and designed to lead over time to monumental change in the way things are done. At this point, they should spur debate, not end it. That’s why several Democratic presidential candidates endorsing the Green New Deal is dismaying. These candidates should be contributing to its design, not pretending it should be passed tomorrow.
3. Of special interest at this juncture are proposals that are being crafted to pass the House and be sent to the Senate, partly as a strategy to hold the House and seize the Senate in 2020. These proposals will be important legislative approaches on issues like voting rights, prescription drugs, and better protection for those with pre-existing conditions. They are not expected to become law, because Trump can veto them. They are being designed to either win over the four or five Republican Senators needed for passage (prior to the Trump veto), or to elicit political damage for the 12 or 13 Republican Senators thought to be vulnerable in November, 2020. As versions of them are debated in the Senate, they will also provide a window on the passion and creativity of candidates/Senators Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Booker, Sanders, Brown and Harris.
4. In a few instances, the House version will represent a major element in a legislative compromise which is likely to become law. This is the case with the recent bill that Trump bitterly signed and could happen with prescription drugs where both parties are committed to passing legislation.

The current dispute over Trump’s declaration of a national emergency falls squarely into category three. We will need at least four Republican votes in the Senate to temporarily block the declaration but would have no way of getting the twenty Republican votes we would need to override a subsequent Trump veto. Even so, it is important that we get the Senate (as well as the House) to go on record against the emergency declaration. This is why. It is a made up emergency. The emergency powers that Congress granted were never intended to be used for an appropriations dispute. Even more critically (and ultimately of greatest interest to the Supreme Court) it would represent a massive usurpation of the powers of the purse reserved to Congress in the Constitution.

Trump is doing improv. Mexico will pay for it until they aren’t paying for it. It is already being built but we need to start building. He could have waited but he needed the emergency declaration to do it now. The truth is that if Trump had not turned on Rush Limbaugh on a certain night in December, none of this would have happened. It is not worthy of the country that we love and the democracy that we defend.

So, we need to do these three things now:

1) Put Pressure on Republican Senators to Get Right With the Constitution
	Nate Silver’s 538 has done an excellent job of charting where Republican Senators stand on Trump’s declaration. He counts six Republican Senators as opposed. These include Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who is retiring, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has his own way of thinking about most everything and may not be persuadable through any pleas we can muster. That leaves six Senators who have already said they are opposed to the declaration and need to be helped to maintain their resolve. Let’s go in the side door by calling as many of the main district offices of these six as we can. Please tell these six that they are being called upon to protect the fundamentals of governing in America, and that you are proud that so far they have stood for what is right: Ben Sasse of Nebraska: 402 550 8040 Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: 907 271 3735 Susan Collins of Maine: 207 780 3575 Marco Rubio of Florida: 305 418 8553 Thom Tillis of Nebraska: 704 509 9087 Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania: 215 241 1090 Then, as we work through our calls, we will realize that we are getting good at this, and we will decide to call a Senator who has expressed concerns, who is on the fence, and who is very worried about getting re-elected a year from November: Cory Gardner of Colorado: 305 418 8553
2) Help with Recruitment to Take Back the Senate
	We already know the blueprint, since we used it to take back the House in 2018. Coming up, we have a much more favorable map, with 23 Republican Senators up for re-election, and with up to 13 seats worthy of being heavily contested. Last time, we made massive gains among younger voters, independents, and suburban voters. We did that by letting Trump be Trump, by recruiting excellent candidates and by making millions of small contributions. We have an excellent candidate to recruit. We almost got Stacey Abrams over the top in her effort to be Governor of Georgia, but we were stymied by voter suppression. Now she is seriously considering running for the Senate in 2020. She needs our encouragement. You can start by getting her mobile alerts.
3) Make Certain Legal Action is Relentlessly Pursued
	The first thing to accomplish on the legal front is for multiple parties to file actions in federal courts challenging the emergency declaration. Eventually the cases will be consolidated. This is the rare case where “all the way to the Supreme Court” will surely come to pass, because the Supreme Court justices will not permit such an unusual and important case to be resolved at the federal appellate level. Among the emerging litigants, the consortium of 16 states and the American Civil Liberties Union already loom large. The ACLU is litigating on behalf of the Southern Border Communities Coalition. This Coalition includes sixty organizations serving border communities from Texas to California. It’s worth following and boosting, because we all will be pursuing fair and just border policies for some time to come.

If it weren’t such a dismaying and even frightening time, you could say all of this is exciting, no? We don’t have to worry for even a minute about being able to find consequential work to do. It’s there before us. It wouldn’t be overstating to say a nation hangs in the balance.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#59: Let’s Get Out of the Bleachers and Back onto the Field

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.

We are focused on politics and government, and we are worried about how our nation will recover from recent wounds and prevent new ones. Even after the high of November 6 when we flipped the House and presented Donald Trump with a fully re-empowered Nancy Pelosi, some days bring us down, as Trump’s made up stories, bullying, full scale con job, self-delusions and dangerous actions overwhelm.

In the face of all this, one would think that there would be no retreating from the front lines of political action to the sidelines of political observation. The rewards of the monumental efforts of the resistance are so evident, how could any of us step back? What happens is that necessarily we have let life intervene. We feed our souls, earn a wage, tend to our relationships, and immerse ourselves in the natural world. We really don’t have a choice about doing these other things if we are to stay strong and sane.

But if we get too far up in the stands, we will end up thinking that watching Rachel Maddow or Shields and Brooks or podcasts is some kind of substitute for action. Which it isn’t. Letting the rest of the resistance do the resisting for a while erodes the required and immense scale of our effort. It can’t be maintained if we fill up the bleachers.

What can we do now if we stay on the field? We can give early money because it is like yeast. State legislators will not be sufficiently focused on fighting voter suppression unless we make it so. Senators who could cast an important swing vote have to know that we are out here. In 2019, we must recruit, vet and support candidates, register voters, and welcome new 18-year olds. There are postcards to be sent, places to be, information to be examined, and passion kindled. It is the gargantuan scale of our effort in 2017 and 2018 that underscores the vital work that has to be done. Which of us wants to take November 2020 for granted? Perhaps we have already learned the risk of that.

We can take advantage of the notable, continued deterioration of Trump’s support in the country. That slow slide is evidenced not just by the polls but by the tiny but still altogether new steps by Republican Senators. The six voting to re-open government gave the Schumer/Pelosi contingent more votes than the Trump/McConnell approach, and that outcome was an element in Trump giving in. Cheers to Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Cory Gardner, Johnny Isakson, and Lamar Alexander. The next step for them is to build upon their resolution in the Senate on the Middle East and demonstrate to Trump that their party exists outside of him. Or does it?

On the field, we can treat the policy debates within the Democratic Party as necessary grist. Why not understand the merits (and demerits) of the possible elements of Medicare for All? We can have that debate and defend Affordable Care Act protections of pre-existing conditions in the same year. Is it necessary for Medicare for All proponents to jettison the considerable employer-provided insurance that is still out there? What would happen to the programs and conditions under which current Medicare recipients function? At this point let’s advocate alternative approaches to major health care reform, rather than being expected to swear a blood oath. Are we out of practice in demonstrating how ideas are developed and elevated? 

Media emphasis on the political battles themselves obscure the weight of the underlying ideas regarding what government should do. As much as we extol Nancy Pelosi’s strategizing, her refusal to counter-offer during the shutdown could have been politically damaging and unsuccessful. It didn't turn out that way because the American people had not bought into the idea that the wall is necessary, and no Trump warnings and pronouncements changed their minds.

So, since the actual ideas matter, it is time to move aggressively to help disabuse Howard Schultz of the notion that he will run for president. Is there a single passion or policy proposal that Howard Schultz holds dear, other than the desire to be elected? If what has happened to motivate him to run is the danger Trump presents to America, why would he heighten that danger? Our collective disapproval should be made clear to him for as long as it takes. 

Then we can turn to the best part of the election process. We have an extremely healthy and growing field of candidates. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries it is going to be hard for any top tier candidate to open up a delegate lead. All the more reason to dig deep into candidate positions, and to not get fully taken by “liberal” and “progressive” labels. Because of the detail and nuance in their policy positions, it would be impossible to reliably place these candidates on a political continuum. So let’s make a point to understand candidates beyond the information that is most readily available.

After unsuccessfully running Al Gore, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton from Trump’s generation, let’s go younger and fresher. That might allow us to lay down a new case for how America can move forward, and keep us from having to promote a candidate who is already fully defined. However much we love them, or don’t love them, that would make us less interested in Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. And let’s require our candidates to know something about the Constitution and the management of government. Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar all had state or local executive branch positions before heading to the Senate. We can win in 2020 without the vote of a single Trump supporter. Nonetheless let’s select someone who has superior communication skills, who has a story to tell and knows how to tell it. As an example, here’s what Kamala Harris accomplished with her roll out.

We must set a personal standard for ourselves that demands meaningful political engagement every single week. Right now, there are three things we can do:

1) Shut Down the Shutdown
	Trump is still in a corner with regard to the wall. When Nancy Pelosi says there isn’t going to be any money for the wall, it is not a flexible position. She doesn’t have to agree to a wall, so she won’t. The only possible compromise that Senate Appropriations veterans Pat Leahy and Richard Shelby could possibly come up with is a few hundred miles of fencing, coupled with budget increases for technology and judges and some sort of “humanitarian” assistance. Trump’s choice will then be either to 1) pretend such a deal is a victory for him when everyone else will know that it is not, or 2) declare an emergency under the National Emergencies Act. That would set up not only a court battle but a likely legislative show down because the act provides an opportunity for Congress to reject the emergency order.  If Pelosi engineers such a vote in the House, McConnell would be hard pressed to defend Trump in the resultant vote in Senate. Senators take a dim view of the expansion of presidential powers, and they suspect that there will be a Democratic president sometime in the not distant future who might employ such an expansion. It’s definitely time for some calls to Republican Senators reminding them that building the wall is not an emergency and that it is inappropriate for them to countenance the President using these emergency powers. It is not out of the question that we would get the eight more votes from Republican Senators we need beyond the six named above who already voted to reopen the government. Please call these three, who worry about the expansion of presidential powers: John Thune of South Dakota (202) 224-2321 Ben Sasse of Nebraska (202) 224-4224 John Kennedy of Louisiana (202) 224-4623
2) Persuade Howard Schultz to Do the Right Thing
	There is nothing wrong with polling expert Nate Silver saying that Democrats are incorrect to automatically assume that Howard Schultz’ possible candidacy would be a giant gift to Donald Trump or (for that matter) any Republican candidate. The thing is, given the existing malfunctioning presidency, why even think of taking this risk? This is serious business having to do with the future of our country. This has nothing to do with the possible benefits of a third party in America. All this particular quest is about is a man with money and time on his hands trying to find a way to run for President, now that he has decided he can’t succeed in the Democratic primary process. Right now, the Howard Schultz website is his pre-announcement campaign center. There are seven upcoming book tour appearances and more to come after that. It’s time to go to one of his appearances and stay outside with a Don’t Run sign. The more we can sustain the narrative that millions of people are intent on Howard Schultz not running, the less likely he is to run. You could also use the existing site to email him your feelings on these matters, but you would have to sign up first, exposing yourself to entreaties.
3) Now that Federal Workers are Getting Paid, Who Else is Out There?
	When you are living paycheck to paycheck, it is a big hardship to go without pay, even if you know that ultimately you will be compensated for that pay period. The media did a good job of underscoring this misery, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did a good job of showing that the Trump administration knows nothing of any such hardship. It’s a positive that many of these 800,000 workers have good jobs. It is also a positive to remember after the shutdown is over that many million more Americans don’t have any such job or any immediate chance of getting one. At the core of poverty battling initiatives is the Earned Income Tax Credit (which supporters have re-branded as the Working Families Tax Credit.) At the federal level and in 29 states, this tax credit boosts the take home pay generated by lower wage jobs. It’s time to check your state and see how it is doing in providing a generous credit. That can generate some questions you would want to ask your state legislators.

It is in the nature of collective action that you could get swept up by a group. They could accomplish great things while you are cheering them on. You could be thrilled with the results, even if you didn’t end up contributing very much to the joint effort. In that case, you are a “free rider.” Or maybe you get in a group seeking great things, but which ultimately does not achieve the desired result because everyone thinks everyone else is going to do the hard work. This would be regrettable, and it is preventable.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#58: This is What We Will Do to Take Back the Senate

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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 was a week after the November 2018 election when the extent of the victory by the resistance became clear. There was a stunning increase in voter turnout compared to other non-presidential years. Democratic inroads in the suburbs were significant. And thus we won back 40 seats and flipped the House.

There was nothing accidental about any of this. It required unprecedented grass roots campaign activity and financial support. It included dozens of excellent candidates stepping forward who had never intended to run for office and who were motivated by Donald Trump.

Now it falls to all of us to duplicate or even expand on that massive effort and take back the Senate on November 3, 2020. This matters hugely because the Senate provides the sole review of numerous Presidential appointments, including those to the Cabinet and to the Supreme Court. As we know the Supreme Court nomination process puts Roe v. Wade itself at risk. It is not inevitable that it will be overturned, but the very real risk of losing this constitutional guarantee entirely underscores that we must have the Senate majority when Steven Breyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg retire. The Senate also has extra importance because it has played a more pronounced role than the House in protecting alliances abroad, which Donald Trump has been intent on eviscerating.

Although Doug Jones of Alabama may be the only Democratic Senator who will face re-election problems, Republicans could launch major challenges to Tina Smith in Minnesota and Gary Peters in Michigan. In contrast, there are many states in which Republican Senators are vulnerable. Democrats think they can unseat Cory Gardner in Colorado, Martha McSally in Arizona (where Gabby Giffords’ husband, astronaut Marc Kelly, may run), Susan Collins in Maine, and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. They are eager to challenge Joni Ernst in Iowa, Dan Sullivan in Alaska, David Perdue in Georgia (where Stacey Abrams may run) and Steve Daines in Montana. They may also compete for the seat in Tennessee that will be vacant after the retirement of Republican Lamar Alexander.

That adds up to nine races. Remember how exhilarated you felt after we flipped the House? You can experience that feeling again in less than two years! Beyond these nine, the number of other races which will be competitive depends upon how Donald Trump does between now and then, and how hard we all work. Given that Trump needs to face Mueller and given his shutdown-slip in the polls, we can anticipate a favorable electoral climate. We also fully understand that we must generate massive candidate support. With these motivations, it would behoove this movement to dive into the nine races above, and at the minimum, these three additional states:

• Kansas has a vacant seat due to the impending retirement of Pat Roberts. Democrats are fresh from winning the governorship and a Congressional seat in the Kansas City area, and believe they have a solid chance.

• Republican John Cornyn will likely seek re-election in Texas. Demographics will continue to drive the state toward Democrats. Will Beto O’Rourke be the Democratic candidate?

• How can one not campaign in Kentucky against the soulless service and Trump-tolerating Mitch McConnell? 

We must understand that winning a Senate campaign has notable differences from taking back the Presidency, which is more about national media and less about local organizing. Happily, these Senate races will be a bit more like super-sized House campaigns, for which our postcards, doorbelling, millions of small contributions, voter registration and other ongoing obsessions carried the day.

In the next year, these Senate Republicans will have numerous opportunities to pull away from Trump, or in the alternative to defend the indefensible. It was a recent encouraging sign when eleven Republican Senators challenged the Trump administration, voting to block the removal of sanctions from an oligarch colleague of Putin. Four of these votes came from the politically vulnerable Collins, Daines, Gardner and McSally. But it was more of a shadow of courage, rather than a profile, since they and Mitch McConnell knew all along that they would need 13 Republican votes to help the Democrats prevail. That is, McConnell consented to his caucus members voting their conscience, but would not have been their sweet-hearted uncle if they had found two more votes. The whole episode had value only as a signal of future possibilities.

We must carefully watch the upcoming opportunities for Republicans to either distance themselves from Trump or otherwise be held accountable for not doing so. The first pertains to the theatrics of the budget showdown. The little considered fact is that in December, Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats in passing by voice vote the same set of budget proposals that they now argue are evidence of Schumer’s and Pelosi’s intransigence. These budget proposals would have become law without any shutdown if Trump hadn’t turned on FOX-TV to hear the criticism of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. So why can’t these Republicans figure out that they were right the first time?

There will be at least two other votes in 2019 that will tell a tale about vulnerable Republican senators. First the Democratic House will send over to the Senate a bill that solidifies protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions. These Affordable Care Act guarantees have been diminished by Trump and the Republican Congress. Second, Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues will figure out a way for the Senate to have to vote on at least modest steps to respond to climate change. This will handily provide each Republican a chance to recognize the existence of the greatest environmental challenge now faced by humankind.

While the government is closed down, let’s work to change government. Taking back the Senate would be nothing but an excellent thing to do. It depends upon our efforts now, not just a year from this fall. Let’s pretend that it is later than it is, so that it never becomes too late.

1) Making Certain People Can Vote in 2020
	There are all sorts of ways in which election laws and rules can diminish and distort the vote. This is one place where vigilance is the price of liberty. Left on their own, state legislatures can throw up new voting roadblocks. The most pernicious of these are voter ID laws. 35 states require the voter to have some sort of identification. The strictest requirement (a photo ID with little or no option) is in force in six states, and can suppress the vote by as much as 10%. The National Conference of State Legislatures details where there are new voter ID efforts.  Other ways to suppress the vote include reducing polling hours or limiting the use of mail ballots. In the face of such threats, Democrats have proposed all-mail ballots and to confront turn-out at an earlier stage, automatic voter registration. Find out what is happening. As all 50 legislatures head into session, it would be good for you to know whether such organizations with local affiliates as the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union have an active voting law agenda in your state legislature. You can ask them, or write to your state representative. Another way to find out would be to write the chair or executive director of your state’s Democratic Party. Their answer will provide insight regarding what is going on in the area of voting rights and it will give you a hint as to whether the state party is sleepy or spirited.
2) Understanding the Value of Early Investment
	Grass roots contributions from across the country played an indispensable role in the 2016 elections. We stepped away from our previous time-honored tendencies to underfund our candidates. The instruments are already set up so that we can choose the most promising 2020 Senate races (see above) and invest early in our candidate. The funds go into an Act Blue “district account” that will be transferred to the candidate when she or he is nominated. Act Blue has proven itself to be an effective low cost online funding intermediary. In this case, they have selected the nine races targeted above, and are also seeking funding for four Democratic incumbents. They allow us to pick and choose rather than prescribing a single bundle. Early money is like yeast.
3) Making Food Available to Those Who Need to Eat
	We should be pleased and proud that food banks across America are providing groceries to federal employees who have now missed two paychecks. This is an additional load for these food banks, all of whom already have numerous clients who have employment problems even more serious than those who have Donald Trump as their titular boss. It’s a perfect time to donate food to your local food bank through the systems they have established. You are saying something to Trump and to America by making sure these shelves are filled, and thus are accessible to laid-off workers, and to other hungry people who live in a country that needs to pay more attention.

Well, at least we share one sensibility with Donald Trump. Accounts are that he had no desire or intention to be president, evidenced by the fact that he had no true transition team and underscored by his efforts to create Trump Tower Moscow up until the end of the campaign. For our part, we had no intention or desire for him to be president either… We will get this all done, celebrate when he is out of office, and make certain something like this does not happen again.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#57: Let's Guide the Most Diverse Congress Ever

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.

Donald Trump has asked why his accomplishments of the past two years are not being recognized. Mr. Trump, we are not unwilling to identify the actions you can put on your ledger. For example, we do recognize that you advanced a tax law that massively increased wealth disparity. We are aware that you have severely weakened global alliances and NATO even as Baltic and Eastern European need protection from Putin. We acknowledge that you have removed the United States from the Paris accords even as climate change represents the greatest environmental threat the world has faced. We have noted that you have attacked the Justice Department countless times, apparently believing you are exempt from the rule of law. 

Donald Trump will see quickly that our taking back the House of Representatives will change the world in which he malfunctions. We are just getting started.

A lot is happening all at once. The budget showdown will end up being a huge miscalculation by Trump, the Freedom Caucus and Fox News commentators. As they continue to play to their base the rest of us will to see their base deteriorate. The Republican party continues to vanish before our eyes.

As the turbulence increases, we must be careful not to become vertiginous in our reaction to shifting political news. Nancy Pelosi and her spirited ranks would give us enough activity daily even without Trump’s tweets, firings and indictments. Hence the need for us to be able to sort out things that matter at lot from things that don’t matter quite so much.

• In the very small parade of Republicans who criticize Donald Trump, it matters who is criticizing him and what the basis of the attack is. The sincere but often politically anemic Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have left--- they have been freed to say what they want but their microphones have been taken away. But, Mitt Romney just became a Senator, and he has no worries that affronting Trump will cost him his re-election. In his surprising Washington Post op-ed, he has already signaled the prime battleground--- Trump’s disregard of Britain, Germany, France and Canada and his genuflection toward autocrats. This will give some new energy to the Republican globalists in the Senate.

• In the mass of negative press that Donald Trump deservedly gets, it matters that he is erroneously called a populist, which he is not, since a populist’s care for the common people must be authentic. It matters when the media falls into the “both sides” equivalence trap. In the budget shutdown, Republicans in both houses had agreed to bi-partisan budget compromises. Trump watched Fox-TV, got wounded by Ann Coulter, and torched the agreement that his henchmen (including Mike Pence) had already signaled he would sign. Rather than this being the news behind the budget shutdown, we get the account that the parties squabble so much that they can’t find common ground when it was surprising and commendable that they were together occupying that ground. Most of Pelosi’s package passed the Senate by voice vote in December.

• In the emergence of twenty or more Democratic presidential candidates, it matters that we remember that this winnowing of candidates is going to take 18 months. We must not get ahead of ourselves in over-assessing Elizabeth Warren’s announcement of her candidacy, since it doesn’t put her in any driver’s seat. Because Democrats don’t have “winner take all” primaries, it will be difficult for anyone to build any meaningful lead. We have sorted through a big field before (see the elections of John Kennedy-1960, Bill Clinton-1992, Barack Obama-2008) with the candidates and their supporters coming together at the end, thus enabling to take back the presidency after Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

We have 67 new members of the House of Representatives, including the 40 who flipped Republican seats. It turns out that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is not the only one who was elected! It is not a flaw that the Democratic Party has just elected “moderate” and “liberal” and “progressive” candidates, it is a strength. And, it is splendid that we have fought for and gained the most diverse Congress ever. 

We all came together to do this, and now the resistance needs to come together to make sure all this freshness and earnestness gives us some badly needed policy improvements on health care, immigration, climate change and global partnerships, among others. With Mitch McConnell controlling the Senate and Trump in the White House, we will be playing defense and will have limited opportunities to send policies in new directions.

As Pelosi considers compromises on each of these issues, we will have to sort out in which cases the much better alternative that we insist upon will prevent us from grabbing the modest gains that we can achieve. However, we must all be certain that accepting such modest gains won’t create obstacles for more significant gains after we take back the Senate and White House in 2020.

For instance, even if Democrats coalesce around some version of Medicare for All, there is no way that such a proposal will become law between now and 2020. In the meantime, we should be shoring up the Affordable Care Act, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and showing voters that Republicans are not protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Let’s not skip weeks or even months by watching rather than doing. Let’s take care of these three things right now.

1) Preventing Further Environment-Destroying Regulatory Changes
	Late in December, the New York Times provided a thorough, exceptional report on the damage Trump has caused the environment and human health through regulation. As discussed in previous missives, this carnage was possible because environmental statutes have traditionally given the executive branch broad leeway through rulemaking. The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) has already developed plans to use the new House majority to continue to fight the 80 rule changes that Trump and EPA have made, and to block new rules wherever possible through litigation or legislative action.  It is time to follow up with the people whose very election depended upon us. Pick one new member of Congress in who you are most invested and make certain that these matters are high on their agenda. Start by emailing the new member and then go one step further. Find out the phone number of their district (in-state) office. Call that number and ask for the email of the legislative aide who is assigned to environmental issues. In most cases they will provide it. Write that aide, cite the New York Times feature, and ask them to keep you posted on what their member of Congress expects to do.
2) Start Winning Back the Senate Today
	It is easy to forget that the early energy to take back the House came not from the shell-shocked Democratic Party, but from two organizations that emerged in late 2016--- Indivisible and Swing Left. They and other advocates were able to secure enormous financial and volunteer support for candidates, including literally millions of individual donations. In more than 80% of the House districts we flipped, our candidate was able to out-spend our opponents, and in all of the districts we worked harder than the opposition. Swing Left invented “district funds”. These collected money for candidates in targeted races well before the primaries and provided the funds immediately after the primary, giving the primary winner a great head start. In 2020 the Senate electoral map is much more favorable for us than it was in 2018, with Republicans holding 22 of the seats being contested and Democrats holding 12. We need to win back four seats. Swing Left has started the equivalent of district funds to go to our winning primary candidate in each of eight races where we have the best shot. These include the races to defeat Martha McSalley in Arizona (perhaps through the candidacy of astronaut Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords’ husband), Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner in Colorado. These and other Republican senators who are vulnerable in 2020 and 2022 are eager to re-open the government lest their vulnerability increase. At a minimum we should all check out what Swing Left is up to with regard to taking back the Senate. And of course we could do more than the minimum by donating this very moment.
3) Weighing in on the Nuclear Threat
	All of us in the resistance are aware of the threat to humanity posed by climate change. In the light of Trump's alarming foreign policy amateurism, it's time for us to better understand the dangers to humanity from nuclear proliferation. A new generation of weaponry would escalate spending dramatically and imperil our very existence. Representative Adam Smith of Washington is the new House Armed Services Committee Chair. He's the perfect person to help chart an alternative course while attending to national security. Let's prepare for action steps with the new House of Representatives by reviewing Adam Smith's counterpoints to where Trump may be headed.

It won’t be long before we will be absorbing the Mueller report. For now, let’s keep getting our work done. Let’s not let ourselves be carried away by the inevitable backing and forthing among Democrats, including the new members of Congress. Most of these issues are well worth fighting over. We are not going to do something that will keep us from coming together in the summer of 2020.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#56: We Will Extricate a Country From a Morass

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.

This missive will be shorter than has been the custom. It isn’t just that it is the holiday season, but that we all need a little time to sort through the new crises. Budget politics and the wall are not the least of the issues, but they pale in the face of new deal between Donald Trump and Turkish premier Recip Tayyip Erdogran.

We knew Trump would try our souls, but this is the selling of a nation’s soul. Kurdish fighters have been in Syria successfully fighting ISIS with our help. That Trump would agree to abandon the Kurds in the face of Erdogan’s desire to kill them all is our nation’s new shame. Defense Secretary James Mattis proved he could bear a lot of things, but not this.

There have been plenty of other major challenges in the last two years as we together have sought to protect a nation from its president. We have had some considerable success:

• As Trump has sought to treat Putin as a special friend, Congress has resisted. Our policies and sanctions have remained in place and in some cases they have been strengthened. True, there is disarray in Europe, but the NATO alliance will hold, and we will remain an essential part of it. Angela Merkel has been replaced by her like-minded colleague Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer. If Theresa May’s government falls over Brexit, her nation will turn to the center and left, not to the right.

• Robert Mueller has been protected sufficiently by Congress and is expected to issue his report by mid-February. If Trump had been able to devise a way to stop Mueller, he would have done so. It hasn’t just been Democrats who have been protecting Mueller, it is Republican Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr. Whether or not Trump is impeached, the multiple tracks of justice-seeking will continue. Notably, this is not just about Mueller’s powers, but those of various state and federal prosecutors. Talking to Mueller and prosecutors, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen know things Donald Trump doesn’t want you to know, which soon will be revealed in detail.

• We took back the House by 40 seats, and generated the largest gap between Democratic and Republican votes in the history of midterm elections. We have filled our House with a new generation of younger, accomplished, principled, diverse Americans who are nicely distributed among the “wings” of Democrats. Over time, we will be as thrilled that we have them as we are overjoyed we have subpoena power. And, that’s saying a lot because the subpoenas will expose the con man at the highest level of his conniving.

It’s important to remind ourselves of these things daily because we need to be steady as this disgrace of a presidency exposes itself layer by layer, and the resultant wounds of the United States become even more apparent and in need of healing. The response of a nation to the Syria action and the Mueller report will reveal who Donald Trump is, and who we are. We are not having a minor dispute over small things. We have known for many months that these battles are about the very future of a country. It is a time that will demand something extra from us, and that’s what we will give. 

In less than two years, our resistance will win back the Senate and the presidency. We are unbowed.
Between now and when the new Congress convenes on January 3, let’s concentrate on one huge element which has been missing up to this point:

Motivating Republican Senators to Act on Behalf of Their Nation

During a constitutional crisis, a bi-partisan response is indispensable. Thus far the willingness of Republican Senators to step forward has been underwhelming. These days, there is no Arthur Vandenberg helping start the United Nations, no Jacob Javits fighting for civil rights, no Howard Baker standing up to Richard Nixon.

It’s good for us to understand that it is not a trivial matter for a sitting Republican Senator to face off against a vituperative and vengeful president who controls their party. It can easily keep you from being re-elected, and all of your life you have wanted to be a U.S. Senator. You have also convinced yourself and those who love you that even though you have not stood up to Trump in ways that have counted, you have been a quiet force protecting the nation. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting against the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act is the nearly singular exception. 

We can understand these things, but we can no longer tolerate them. There are glimmers. Senate Republicans do not intend to help Trump issue a free pass to Kashoggi-killing Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Previously unable to walk in Howard Baker’s Tennessee footsteps, Lamar Alexander has put his foot down on Trump’s proposal to change Senate rules to have fifty votes build the wall. The incredulous opposition of Lindsay Graham and the straightforward rebuke of Mitch McConnell over the Syria move and the resignation of Mattis may represent the first straw for a dozen or more Senate Republicans.

These are Republicans who do not love Putin at all in any way. They believe in international alliances anchored by friendship with France, Britain, Germany and Canada. It will not be easy to motivate these people to act, because the political cost to them could be great. They need to know that the cost to the country of them not acting will be far greater.

Please pick one of these vulnerable Republican Senators to target for your year-end activity. They are among the 22 Republicans up for re-election in 2020, compared to only 12 Democrats, who are mostly in safe seats. They Republican Senators know 2020 is coming.

Intensify. Please use the links to call the Senator, and call one or more of her or his district offices - all if you can spare some time. Do some internet searching and see if their legislative director or chief of staff has revealed contact information, and call or email them too. Do some research to determine their likely opponents in case you will need to use that information sooner rather than later.

Tell them that it is your strong expectation that they will defend our country today:
Joni Ernst of Iowa
Thom Tillis of North Carolina
Cory Gardner of Colorado
David Perdue of Georgia
Steve Daines of Montana

These are difficult times. One can disempower oneself as one ruefully absorbs the news. Let’s allow anger and bewilderment and sorrow to cause the redoubling of efforts instead. We will not let this man do these things. In the not too distant future, we will have new leadership for the troubled country that we love.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#55: We Will Be Able to Dream About What America Can Become

When I started this series of missives in November of 2016, I was despairing. I felt even then that we could take back the House in 2018, and that we had a shot at protecting the Affordable Care Act. But I did not imagine that our resistance would reach its present capacity. The reason we had the largest mid-term election margin since World War II is because we all obsessed about taking back the House. Certainly we were fortunate to have some outstanding candidates, but the Person of the Year for 2018 should be the Trump resister, who made those campaigns rock.

Responding to my own despair and that of my dear family, I pledged to provide a missive every two weeks until 2020, when we will no longer have to use the word President and the word Trump in the same sentence. Just think of how elevating that will feel, to once again start to dream about what America can become. In each of my 54 blog entries, I have tried to chronicle what has been happening in a way that cuts through the overwhelming amount of information available and which identifies matters of special importance. I have sought to provide important context about how certain decisions are made and have avoided the temptation to dwell on snarky things that one could say about Donald Trump. I have offered three specific things that my blog readers can do about all of this. I have been pleased at the number of people who act on these three things most every time they receive the missive.

I started with a list of 250 people. Gratifyingly, I have received a steady stream of “enrollments”. Now, between the e-blast, the blog itself and the Facebook post I have 2200 “followers”. This does not account for the further “reach” gained when recipients share the blog with their friends. If you will, please help me add those friends to our list and think of others who can join in on this adventure. The strength of the resistance is that there are hundreds of groups like ours who are intent on changing the world, and that we all just proved that we can. Please help us do even better by 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 where you can read and share these messages. You can also catch up on current and past missives on my blog page, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020.

Donald Trump made a very bad bet. In his previous life first as a real estate developer, and later as a marketer, he developed these habits--- promote your own brand aggressively, exaggerate as much as you can get away with, never apologize, and counterpunch against anyone who criticizes you, regardless of who they are and the significance or aptness of the criticism. He did not reckon that the brand promotion would be recognized as giving thanks for himself on Thanksgiving. As a real estate operative, he did not have to deal with fact checkers who keep posting and proving his prevarications. Once you are president, an ability to admit error and change course is essential, or you could get caught pretending that Kim Jong Un is your special friend who is ridding his country of nuclear weapons. He is not and they are not. Finally, the counterpunching eventually just makes you the world’s biggest bully. 

Many Republicans say that Trump’s political error in November was not talking enough about economic gains. They should be so lucky. He hemorrhaged votes in the suburbs not because these voters didn’t know what he has done, but because they did know both what he has done and, importantly, who he is and how he has done it. From the time that Ike was their uncle, Americans have judged a President’s character and voted as though character mattered. Too bad for Republicans that they have cast their lot behind someone whose tweets remind us of absence of character every single day.

It’s fair that in dying George H.W. Bush was remembered for his dedication to public service, and why wouldn’t we contrast it to Donald Trump’s lack of such dedication? And, it is fair that we find a lesson for these times around Bush’s gentler, kinder personal sensibilities which were seen as uncommon and were thus appreciated by other elected officials.
Of course, that’s why it was so disappointing that the father’s coalition effort to liberate Kuwait from Iraq morphed into the son’s made up war that has destabilized the Middle East. The senior Bush, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice got played by Dick Cheney, and the world has been paying for it ever since.

All of which provides lessons for us as we realize we need to evaluate both the character and the policy approaches of the score of Democratic presidential candidates that are emerging. This vetting will seem odd for a while. For two years all of us have been focused on making Donald Trump an un-president. We have not had to stand by our own candidate. When we start doing the sorting, we are going to rediscover some differences among us.

We can handle that, because there is not as much of a gap between Democratic “liberals” and “progressives” as media commentators would want us to believe. You would be hard pressed to place all our shiny new members of Congress and our presidential candidates on some kind of center to left continuum. We will be able to nominate a ticket that keeps most all of us fully engaged in this movement. This outcome will be even more likely because Democrat primaries award delegates proportionally to the votes received, which will mean delegate totals will grow slowly, and the winnowing process will be as orderly as any group of Democrats can produce.

Those of us who are themselves part of a generation that brought us Trump, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will understand why Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren still would deeply love to be president. It might be the hardest dream of all to put away. As kindly and gently as we can, we should let that them know that we are turning to younger generations, who bring a freshness to our party that will serve us well in November of 2020---- These candidates are Obama’s generation! Barrack Obama is 57. We could definitely stand more of that, no? Cory Booker is 49, Kamala Harris is 54. Amy Klobuchar is 58, Deval Patrick 62, Joaquin Castro 45, Michelle Obama 54, and Beto O’Rourke 46. There are others. Let’s see what their policy approaches are, and what character they can demonstrate.

Right now, it seems that all we are doing is waiting for Robert Mueller. There is no doubt that what he will have to say will be hugely consequential, and it is possible that it will mean that Trump will be unable to serve out his term. Here is a good place to never get ahead of ourselves. The fact that Democrats now control the House means that there will be evidence backing up some of our darkest suspicions about Trump and the Russians. And it could be that the evidence will be so strong that the House will be duty bound to pass articles of impeachment.

However, impeachment talk is political candy for some House members and they could stand to reduce their daily helping. They need to remember successful impeachment would require the votes of 20 Republican Senators. Without those votes, what would we be hoping to achieve? Now that we control the House, we have plenty of ways to expose the truth and support the upcoming indictments outside of the impeachment process. The real prize is not just in taking back the Presidency, but in restoring the American institutions that Trump has weakened and the rights he has trampled. Let’s keep our goals in the appropriate order.

And, in the meantime,we know the lame duck Congress is still sitting there in Washington D.C., and (for the moment) even worse, the lame duck Wisconsin State Legislature is still in session. It would be awful if those bent on whatever mischief they can get away with fell out of the habit of hearing from us. Here are three things we can do right now.

1) Stop the Perversion of the Democratic Process in Wisconsin
	The reason why the Wisconsin State Legislature is trying to limit the powers of incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers is they can, as long as outgoing Republican Governor Scott Walker doesn’t veto their cynical, anti-Democratic actions. Some of these late night measures now before the Governor have been vetoed by him before, back when he was feeling it wasn’t such a great idea for the legislature to limit his powers over mostly minor disagreements. Among the provisions under consideration are moving the state’s job creation agency out from under the Governor’s control, and changing how the state decides to participate in lawsuits against the federal government. Republican Scott Walker might veto some or all of this package, which passed the Wisconsin Senate by one vote. If he does, it will be because he suspects the package passing will put him and Wisconsin Republicans under a cloud for a decade. Call the Governor’s office at 608-266-1212 and tell them they are right about that. In addition, attend to the fact that the bill restricts early voting to the two weeks before the election, for no other reason than to suppress voters. The advocacy group One Wisconsin Now believes they have legal grounds for a challenge. You can hear their argument, and you may decide to help them out.
2) Pass Criminal Justice Reform in the United States Congress Right Now
	It is difficult to collect a lot of praise from resisters for Jared Kushner. But it is indisputable that he has been an advocate for federal criminal justice reform, including considerable improvements in drug sentencing and modest improvements in judicial discretion. His early understanding of these issues came from his own father being incarcerated. Though Democrats would have liked the existing bi-partisan bill to go much further, it is still a breakthrough, and it will still release thousands of people from prison who no longer belong there. Can you imagine how much that matters to them and to their families? Mitch McConnell has still not committed to bringing the bill to the floor so the Senate can pass it (which it will) and so the President can sign it. Write or call your own two Senators. If they are already supporting it, please ask them respectfully to not come home for the holidays until they get this done.
3) Members of Congress, Tear Down that Wall
	There will be a government shutdown battle over walling out Mexico that will culminate on December 21. The dispute is between the $5 billion the House provided for a section of the wall and border security and the $1.5 the Senate provided for border security. The Republican leadership is trying very hard to avoid even a partial governmental shutdown on this issue, because they have discerned that it will be blamed on their party. As of this point, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are not being helpful to the Republican leadership, because they agree with the Republicans that Trump shutting down the government will be blamed on Republicans. This wall issue will be with us until Trump returns to marketing hotel properties he does not own. So, it would be a good idea if organizations of which you are a member make their opposition formal. Here’s the list to which you can add your favorite organization.

One step at a time is the way that we need to go about all of this. Through the hardest of work, we won back the House. For our troubles, we saved our country from some but not even close to all of the worst things this highly unusual American presidency will bring us. Let’s keep on. Let’s see each of ourselves as a member of the first team that is carrying on this fight. And, let’s remember we will have some repairs to do even after we regain the Presidency less than two years from now.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington