#71: We Know the Stakes are the Future of our Country

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On the matter of racism, do you think Trump and his rally supporters would be yelling “send her back” if the members of Congress had emigrated from Norway and their names were Gudrun and Helga? This is another major episode in the shame fest that has become the Trump presidency.

It further sparks a debate among resisters about the extent to which Donald Trump devises strategies and seeks to execute them. Does he set out in the morning with a plan? The evidence is that he doesn’t decide his next steps in the usual way. Even when he weighs alternatives and decides which action would be most likely to succeed, or (now in dreamland) which is the most likely to be beneficial to the country, that process is fraught from the outset. 

His decision making is heavily influenced by his belief that you always counter-punch. He would disparage a nun, an infant or Mike Pence, or all three in the same sentence, so attacking the “squad” is easy. He also believes that apologizing should be reserved for other persons. Whenever he expresses anything close to regret, he disavows his “apology” less than 24 hours after he makes it, as he just did with the four members of Congress. Plus, it is widely known that he’s not squeamish about prevarication. 

Over and above all of these things, what is hugely important to understand about his actions is that he’s determined to use the same negotiating style over and over. This is to stake out and aggressively defend an extreme position in hopes of moving any ultimate resolution in his direction. That’s why we get his public statements about bombing other countries into oblivion, and his claims regarding the huge economic benefits of trade wars and tariffs, which even he knows are false. These statements are all part of the alleged “art of the deal”. Given the becalmed status of nuclear proliferation talks with North Korea and trade talks with China, it is more accurately the artlessness of no deal.

Similarly, Trump thinks that ICE raids and separating children from the parents at the border will make the Democrats more likely to come to the table on immigration issues. Once, he let slip that he would like to work it out for Dreamers. He stopped that right away because he was afraid that it would diminish his hard line negotiating stance. All this is important to know because understanding his addled sensibilities makes it easier to combat his actions and to predict what’s next.

In Tim Alberta’s American Carnage, Paul Ryan says that Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about how government works. This has not been received in the country as a startling revelation. If Trump knew about government, he would have known how to get his citizenship question in the census without inducing the Supreme Court to block him. Instead, the Trump aides sat around the Commerce Department and White House and settled on what lie to tell to the courts .They decided to say they needed the citizenship question to help them enforce the Voting Rights Act, which was so palpably false that even Chief Justice Roberts found it annoying. So he provided the 5th and deciding vote to block the question.

What Trump doesn’t know includes how much deal making within the branches of the federal government (or between the federal government and a foreign government) differs from a Manhattan real estate deal. In real estate, the push and pull can be about a single transaction. Depending upon their leverage, one party can gain enormous advantage at the expense of the other.

Which leads us to what Nancy Pelosi and Xi Jipeng have in common. Neither is a Manhattan real estate developer who is short of leverage and who Donald Trump can bully and threaten. Both have control over multiple things that Donald Trump needs, and thus have plenty of ways to defend themselves against his bluster. Trump needs Speaker Pelosi’s help to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and pass the new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. He needs Xi Jipeng’s help in dealing with Kim Jong-un.

Making things worse, Trump doesn’t seem to get that Pelosi and Xi-Jipeng and countless other adversaries need to win too. In these governmental negotiations, Trump’s adversaries have got to be able to define what they got out of the deal or they can’t or won’t proceed. If anything, Xi-Jipeng has more at stake politically than does Trump. Nancy Pelosi’s speakership depends on standing up to Trump, which she has done nicely. She is not going to conclude a negotiation and watch Trump spike the ball. Especially in dealing with Congress, Trump tries to turn up the heat, but his claims of the other side’s perfidy are always dramatically overstated and thus do not accomplish their purpose. Besides, with regard to the debt ceiling compromise, the only way he has to turn up the heat is threaten to close the government, which would shave ten percent off the stock market, thus making even him averse.

Finally, Trump employs this same insulting practice of adopting the extreme, bullying position with the best friends we have in the international community. Canada is our number one trading partner and sent its soldiers at our request to Afghanistan. Why do Republican Senators enable Trump to pummel these friends, and why would even a malevolent person like Trump do it in the first place? Because he thinks it puts him in a better negotiating position. Meanwhile, we continue to isolate ourselves in the community of nations.

Certainly some of Trump’s mean-spiritedness contributes to the extreme positions as well. But, once we fully understand that extreme positions are a main ingredient of his negotiating strategy, what do we do about it?

In each instance, we take him at his word. Whatever indefensible extreme he outlines as his position, we address immediately and seek to take advantage of politically. If he says (as he just did) that he is the greatest thing that has happened to Puerto Rico, we emphasize the multiple times he has stalled aid. When John Bolton gets him to talk about full scale war with Iran, we emphasize that two years ago the international community (including Russia and China) had already reached an enforceable nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Iran, which Trump in his extremism took apart.

We temporarily move our gaze away from debates between those aspiring to be an authentic president and do three things to counter Trump’s most extreme positions.

1) Fight Back Against Food Stamp Cuts
	The expression “there is a special place in hell reserved for...” is put into play way too often. It’s cheeky to determine who among us should or should not be an occupant of a place that may (or may not) exist only metaphorically or metaphysically. Nonetheless, there is a special place in hell reserved for people who would seek to throw 3 million people out of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps), most for having assets greater than $2,000, while having recently passed $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The new USDA SNAP rule renews a battle that we won last year in Congress. For bad measure, it also eliminates the eligibility of 300,000 kids for free and reduced lunches, forcing them to re-apply.  What more would you need to know about what kind of people Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue and other Trump minions are? Are they heading home proud of the day they spent at the office? The rule was just published today, so the opposition is just getting started. There’s a sixty-day period for public comment and we’ll go from there. Right now, the best thing to do is ally oneself with the best SNAP advocacy group, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).
2) Make Trump Hear the Truth about Detention Centers
	Donald Trump says that border detention centers are “clean” and “well run”. The non-muckraking USA Today published a report calling them “nightmarish” and “unfit for children”. Whom to believe? Pass on the USA Today report to your friends, post it on your Facebook page if you still have one, and write a letter to your local newspaper if you still have one.
3) Fuel Mark Sanford’s Efforts to Challenge Trump Within his Party
	It seems clear that John Kasich is not going to contest Trump within the Republican Party, which isn’t so hard to understand. What’s left in the Republican Party is a very uneven collection of Trump supporters. If you were a member of that one-time party of international alliances, free trade and fiscal restraint, you have been gone for some time. And it’s clear that former Massachusetts William Weld is not going to attract any attention at all. Now comes former South Carolina Governor and former member of Congress Mark Sanford. Unlike Kasich and William Weld, Sanford has a lifetime conservative voting record. He felt Trump’s wrath because of differences over fiscal policy, civility and for recognizing human impacts on climate change. Trump did him in during the 2018 primaries, paving the way for Democrats to flip the seat. Mark Sanford running against Trump would be a gift to the country, because it would underscore all the party’s toadying to Trump, and raise again the mystery--- Where has the Republican Party gone? Each Sanford event, interview or article would help reveal that Trump hijacked a party, and hopefully help drive the last of the true Republicans away from Trump.  Sanford is likely to run against Trump. He doesn’t have a campaign site yet, but he has a web page. You can get on his list, encourage him to run, and follow what transpires.

We resisters are continuing to build upon the November 2018 results. As intensive as our efforts have been, we are going to do far, far more between now and November 2020. There is no danger we are going to get distracted. We know what to do, we know the stakes are the future of our country, and thus we will prevail.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#70: Help American Voters Remember their Core Beliefs

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It turns out that selecting a President among all candidates not named Trump is going to be a lot of work. Of course, it is well worth the effort.

What’s happened so far is all fine. Rhapsodies over individual candidates might ultimately emerge, but not just yet. No particular outcome is inevitable. There is no team of elite power brokers orchestrating the way it is going to turn out. Its unpredictably is part of its charm. Six months ago, few would have predicted that Mayor Pete would be displacing Beto O’Rourke, or that Elizabeth Warren would be gently pushing Bernie Sanders aside, or even that Kamala Harris would be getting a lot more traction than fellow Senators Gillibrand, Booker and Klobuchar. Months from now our expectations may well have been scrambled again.

Together we have developed unprecedented focus. There is more access to more candidates, more volunteer efforts to engage in, more donations to be made, and more things to dwell on or obsess over. With all of those good things comes two dangers, that we will be conclusion-jumpers, and that we will be captured by someone else’s faulty narrative.

In the first instance, we are prone to wishful thinking. No, Daniel Epstein’s arrest is not going to bring down his former buddy Trump, as much as we may wish it so. With the resignation of British ambassador Kim Darroch for privately informing his government that Trump is incompetent and inept, it would have been fair for us to jump to a conclusion that the secret is finally out. But, to foreign governments and not just a few Republican Senators (in private), it hasn’t been a secret at all. Darroch was stating the obvious. He is an extremely bright, well-educated, well-spoken man. Stupidly and wackily, Trump called Darroch stupid and wacky,

More dangerous than wishful thinking is fully accepting the narrative of any single pundit, AOC’s tweets, or the collective wisdom of one’s Facebook friends. On issues like Medicare for All, what has emerged is overreaching statements like “If that many candidates raised their hands on this issue at the debate, then we can’t win.” But we are just at the start of sorting out these issues together. What we have now in a very predictably messy Democratic way is not a pitched battle between liberalism and progressivism, as suggested by everyone’s favorite faulty narrative. Instead we will have is a fair discussion of how to protect and improve upon the health care guarantees of the Affordable Care Act, and how to keep from diminishing the ways the existing indispensable Medicare program serves seniors.

It’s a faulty narrative because considering all the issues in play, one would be hard pressed to take the Democratic candidates and put them on a moderate to liberal to progressive continuum, except of course for Bernie Sanders. That’s a good thing, and it makes John Hickenlooper’s use of the word socialism even more self-serving and ridiculous and unacceptable. All of these candidates are versed well in their own arguments regarding their electability. Let’s give them a chance to articulate their claims. In the meantime, let’s expect them all to understand every day that among others there are four voter cohorts we need them to attend to, and ways to make certain we don’t leave anyone un-reached.

• The all-important independent voters, who fled Republican Congressional candidates in flocks last November. They are wanting a President who is more like a President. Since they themselves consider both parties a possibility, they don’t like Trump’s daily vilification of the other side. A large number of these voters are suburban women, and rightly or rightly they have concluded that Trump is predatory toward women. The gender gap remains huge. Our candidates must make certain that voters know that the protection of the right to choose will depend entirely on their vote in 2020.

• Latino citizens make up more than 11% of the electorate. This will be the fastest growing cohort for some time, which has led to the resisters giving considerable support to voter registration efforts. Over 70% of these voters vote for the Democratic candidate, which is high but considerably lower than the percentage of African-Americans who vote for Democrats. Still, in the 2018 Congressional elections, nine Republican seats were taken by Democrats in districts where Latinos are at least 10% of the voters. Border issues are important regardless of how politically consequential they are or aren’t,, but even more powerful politically is providing a path to citizenship for Dreamers. We have to make certain our candidates don’t see DACA as yesterday’s issue. It will be back before all of us because the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in November, and it gives our candidates an important chance to spotlight Trump’s intransigence and mean-spiritedness. 

• Young voters aged 18-30 are more open to Medicare for All provisions that would eliminate supplemental coverage than are voters over 65, who have experienced the benefits of such coverage. As stated above, this will need some sorting out. Young voters got the message in 2018 that elections matter, voting at a higher rate in an off-year election than any time since 1954. Reversing Trump on climate change is a huge motivation for these voters, which will not be difficult for our candidates to remember. This is also the cohort that would be happiest to see the Democratic ticket include generational change, which some of candidates can offer and others cannot.

• Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were supposed to save us from Donald Trump in 2016. Obviously, other things were happening like the Russian intervention, but there is no question we slipped among blue collar voters. The more we remember the firewall was breached and rebuild it, the better off we will be in November 2020. The emphasis by our candidates on strengthening the middle class can resonate, but only when the economic message reflects the authentic nature and experience of the candidate, which is something we can check when we are doing our choosing. Happily, we have new leadership in these states which will help us boost our presidential candidates. We took all three Governor’s races in 2018. Tom Wolf won by 840,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer by 400,000 votes in Michigan, and Tony Evers squeaked by incumbent Scott Walker in Wisconsin. All won the blue collar vote.

As missive #69 emphasized, the Democratic position is favored over the Republican position on all of the major issues to be debated in 2020. It’s good to make the candidates dig deeper on these matters. Have we forgotten that deciding what the government is going to do with and for the people is the essence of democracy? But, it’s also good to remember the basics. If permitted, Donald Trump would take away choice from every woman in America, take away Affordable Care Act coverage from 20 million people, leave a million Dreamers subject to deportation, and refuse to defend the planet we all inhabit from climate change. Understanding these simple truths drives us every day, and calls for us to do these three things:

1) Sadly, Give Up on Susan Collins
	We must take back the Senate for dozens of reasons, most urgently to protect the constitutional rights of women in the next Supreme Court nomination. Unfortunately, as hard as Susan Collins has tried to moderate Trump’s worst positions, she twisted herself into a pretzel to back Brett Kavanaugh, even though she herself is pro-choice. She is a vote for Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader. We have a much better chance of taking back the Senate if we win Maine, so we need to thank Susan Collins for trying and send her home. Rather than spending the next year waiting out the primaries, we need to boost the best candidate right now, Maine’s Democratic Speaker of the House Sara Gideon. Why not give up coffee for a week, send the money to Sara Gideon, and let the prospect of taking back the Senate keep you awake?
2) Get College Campuses Ready for the Fall
	Registering to vote has been revolutionized. Online registration is possible in almost all states. National organizations like Rock the Vote can tell you everything you need to know about registering.  You can send high school kids the link as an 18th birthday present. You can also pay some attention to what four-year colleges and community colleges are doing institutionally to include voter registration opportunities as a part of the orientation experience of incoming students. Start by identifying the college nearest you. Search online for the name and email of their president and write her or him asking for a description of what they are doing about aiding in registration. Depending on their answer, help them find and utilize the tools they need, or notify the nearest Indivisible group regarding their current shortcomings.
3) Win a State Legislative Majority
	Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi are holding state legislative elections this fall. In all three states, it will be the last legislative election before the post 2020 census redistricting, so the stakes are huge. There are several organizations bent upon flipping the Virginia legislature and making inroads in the other two states, but Sister Districts is a premier effort. If you are out of money, they have multiple other ways you can help. If you have some money, give that to them too. Virginia is an extraordinary opportunity. Republicans hold a 21-19 majority in the Senate and a 51-48 majority in the House. Democrats have benefited from some recent court-mandated redistricting. If you do one thing today, get involved in what will be happening in November 2019 in Virginia.

There are a lot of people trying to figure out what Donald Trump is going to do next and working hard to prevent the worst of it. There is an enormously effective way to put this awful blot on our nation’s history behind us--- a huge victory at the ballot box on November 3, 2020. It can’t come too soon.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#69: Let This Be One Time Trump’s Telling the Truth

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It’s not a bad thing to be intent a nominating a Democratic presidential candidate who has an excellent chance of winning. Even better, there is no thought of nominating a sports star or tv personality to heighten our chances, and every likely nominee has something to say about herself or himself, though in some cases (Bill di Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard, Eric Swallwell, Kirsten Gillibrand) they do not have as much to say for themselves as we would like.

All 24 fall within the political range of “liberal” Joe Biden and “progressive” Elizabeth Warren. There is not nearly as much distance between all the main candidates as political commentators would like, as evidenced by their announced positions. Thus there seems a good chance that we can take this week’s 21 candidate fish fry picture from South Carolina and replicate it on the convention stage at the Democratic Convention in Milwaukee on July 16, 2020.



That coming together was way too slow in 2016. It was just fine that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had some policy positions to reconcile. It seemed obvious that Bernie thought that a Trump victory was unthinkable and that he could thus take as much time as he wanted to provide his full support of Hillary. Too bad he wasn’t right about that. The dance went on and on and dissipated campaign momentum. 

We’re the donors and supporters for all of these people, so we can have considerable influence how they come together during this election cycle. We can be the enforcers, keeping the candidate’s eyes on the prize, making sure their criticism of each other stays within bounds. Joe Biden was fighting for civil rights when other candidates were riding tricycles, so he is due some deference. Nonetheless, talking about James Eastland and Herman Talmadge should not carry even the faintest whiff of nostalgia. It was fine for Cory Booker to call Biden on that, as long as he remembers that it is Trump with the racist bones.

A good way to guarantee our candidates will be together at the end is to make certain they daily embrace our collective agenda on the challenges our country faces. It never happens that the American voter is resolutely opposed to all of the viewpoints of an American president, except for right now! So, why not have the number one thing we do between now and November be showing how wrong Trump is in what he wants for America, and what we want instead?

This means defining our differences with Trump on health care and the coverage of pre-existing conditions so often that candidates can barely muster the strength to say it one more time. Our debate over Medicare for All and expansions of the Affordable Care Act will be highly consequential, eventually. In the shorter run, the dominant health care issue is Donald Trump’s assaults on Barack Obama’s steps forward, famously thwarted by John McCain.

The voters are with us, not him. 68% of voters want secure coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. 66% believe global warming is caused by humans. 67% want Roe v Wade kept as is. 67% say separation of children at the border is unacceptable. 77% support the NATO alliance, and only 34% support the President’s tax “reform” law.

In the face of the views of voters and the action of the House, Donald Trump says we will focus on the core of his voters, rather than upon independents. Please please please let him be telling the truth just this once! That would hand over the Senate as well as the Presidency.

Through every Trump-stained day, the Congress remains a separate branch of government. On many of those days, Mitch McConnell grudgingly calls the Senate into session. He goes through Kabuki like gestures of feigned independence, fully aware that his soul has been claimed by another. Because now again a spirited Republican makes a run for it, and could use some cover, we need to attend to what is happening in the Senate. We need to identify the cases where bi-partisan action can do some good for our country, and do what we can to make that action more robust.

First, far more important than the daily coverage of AOC’s tweets are the actual bills that Nancy Pelosi’s House has passed and which Mitch McConnell has sent to his legislative graveyard. These include bills to block dark money in campaigns, protect net neutrality, establish universal background checks for firearms, defend Dreamers, establish paycheck fairness, and protect women against violence. In some cases, we can detect and drive new action from a hint of Republican shame that they haven’t taken up these bills.

Second, there are the bills in the Senate that have offended the conscience of Republicans who don’t think the Saudis should be able to bomb civilian populations in Yemen or dismember journalists. We can tend to the idea that we can stand for something worldwide outside of love letters to dictators, and we can make certain that Senators are held accountable if they turn their heads away.

Third, there is the budget legislation that is necessary to keep the government open and the required lifting of the debt ceiling. This is the hardest one for McConnell, because it can’t be evaded and because he has to deal with the hydra that is developing budget policy for the executive branch--- Trump himself, who regularly makes agreements with Senate leadership and then pretends he hasn’t, and Sean Hannity, who is his tv advisor, and who has shown some considerable distance from the approach of Walter Cronkite. The only way McConnell will get the necessary votes from Democrats is to attend to social welfare spending, which Trump can’t abide. Look for Trump to threaten to shut down the government, and to “own” any such shutdown this time too.

We must continue to intervene, which now and again has either brought success or prevented the worst President from doing the worst thing. There are a dozen Senators who are trying to have it both ways. They don’t dare to try to resurrect bills from McConnell’s graveyard, but they want to respond to voters and get re-elected in 2020. Here’s three ways we can light their path:

1) Support Lindsey Graham’s Proposal!
	Once Lindsay Graham forgot his best friend John McCain and started carrying water daily for Donald Trump, redemption became an impossibility. Now, happily, despite no redemptive path, he has joined Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner in introducing Senate Bill 1989, the Honest Ads Act. This measure would subject internet advertising to the same rules of disclosure as ads on television and in the newspaper. Thus it would defend against “dark money” advertising that infects social media. It has already passed the House as a part of a broader election reform bill. Mitch McConnell is predictably disinterested, but Graham will get the bill a hearing. It needs co-sponsors. Email your own two Senator and ask them both to co-sponsor this bill. Then call the DC offices of Susan Collins (202-224-2523) and Thom Tillis (202-224-6342) and ask them to join Lindsey Graham.
2) Weigh in On Emergency Border Funding
	It’s time for us all to get involved in the plan to provide emergency border funding. This too will end up being a bipartisan compromise. Democrats want funding to pay for the needs of those people housed in detention facilities, but don’t want to end up creating resources that can be transferred to ICE. At this point, the House bill is stronger than the Senate. Call Arizona Senator Martha McSally at 202-224-2235 and tell her that it is time for her to get focused on deplorable border conditions and that the world is watching. Sign up for emails from the National Immigration Law Center to monitor this situation.
3) Create an Entirely New Legislative World
	We can take back the Senate in the fall of 2020 with the same formula we used in taking back the House in 2018. 22 Republican Senate seats are up, at least a dozen Republican Senators are vulnerable, and we need a net gain of four seats. There are a lot of organizations playing a role in taking back the Senate, including Swing Left and their wonderfully reasoned Super State strategy. If you aren’t being focused enough right now, there are 59,000 resisters writing targeted postcards in targeted races through Tony the Democrat.

We can do this. From W.H. Auden in 1939:
     Defenseless under the night
     Our world in stupor lies;
     Yet, dotted everywhere
     Ironic points of light
     Flash out wherever the Just
     Exchange their messages:
     May I, composed like them
     Of Eros and dust
     Beleaguered by the same
     Negation and despair.
     Show an affirming flame.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#68: You Can Keep a Bad Man Down

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.

Until November 6, 2020, no expressions of joy or impromptu dances will be permitted. It is nice to have the most important election of our lifetimes shaping up. It certainly beats the alternative. But of course we are not close to done. We can drive ourselves through positive recognition of what we resistors have accomplished so far and will accomplish next year, and skip the head-shaking, energy draining despair part, which doesn’t do us any good.

It’s great to have Joe Biden poll four points ahead of Donald Trump in Texas, because putting Texas in play would be delicious, and it would signal the opening up of other states we haven’t won recently. The more states legitimately in play, the better for us. Trump’s disapproval ratings outstrip his approval ratings in lots of states he needs to win, like New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana. We won the Congressional popular vote by 8.6 million votes last November, and Trump is not showing signs of making inroads, or even knowing how to make inroads. Isn’t his act pretty clear by now?

The Texas poll is not even the best news. 57% of American voters have no plans to vote for Trump. A new Quinnipiac poll shows Biden ahead of Trump by 13 points in a head to head matchup, and Warren, Sanders, Harris, Booker and Buttigieg all significantly ahead as well. Analysts continue to stress Trump’s strength with his base, but he can’t win without a strong showing among independents, and they have walked away from him, many in a hurry. Among independents, Biden leads Trump by 30 percentage points! 

We can seek and achieve gains with each category of voter. Even diehard white male Trump voters can have their breaking point. An Iowa farmer might be less Trump-besotted after Trump destroys the Chinese market for his soybeans and then insists that it’s the Chinese who are suffering the economic losses from the tariffs.

It’s good to remember where we achieved significant gains in November 2018 that we need to sustain. We need to continue to be attentive to:

• suburban women, who put Trump over the top in 2016 and who have flown since, in many cases providing our winning margins in taking back House seats. It is clear that health care is a big issue for these voters, as is reproductive freedom, and Trump’s unabated misogyny.
• independents and Republicans who are lifelong free traders, and who are now in closer step with Democratic candidates, who seek trade protection and advantage but are not tariff-abusers.
• voters aged 18 to 30, who due to considerable registration and get out the vote efforts, cast ballots in their highest off-year election numbers in 40 years. They broke decisively away from Trump in 2018 and need to do it again. Trump’s favorability rating with this age cohort is under 30%.

Democratic leads among women, Hispanics, and African Americans are huge. Sure you can’t keep a good man down, but Trump is not a good man, so you can keep him down. 

The Congressional Research Service has established what we already knew, that the new tax law was a raiding of the treasury. Any growth it has generated has covered only 5% of the revenues lost. By far its greatest impact has been corporations repurchasing their own shares, benefiting their largest shareholders and thus comforting the comfortable. In response, our candidates will demonstrate their plans to get the middle class back in the nation’s field of vision. 

Our candidates are running on advancing health care, protecting those with pre-existing conditions, and once and for all, rejoining the community of nations in fighting climate change. They are running on restoring global alliances that have served our country well. They are seeking to decommission tariffs as an all-purpose weapon randomly applied against our friends. They are for advancing the rule of law, knowing how government works, and keeping dictators at a distance.

By October 1, there will need to be action on the federal budget and a lifting of the federal debt ceiling. Congress will face the latter decision earlier than otherwise because of the drastic reduction in federal revenues caused by tax “reform.” By the end of the summer, they will have another major issue depending on what position Fox TV commentators and Donald Trump develop. We will need a federal budget for the next fiscal year and an increase in the debt ceiling. Democrats will refuse to budge on wall construction. Both parties will try to avoid automatic budget cuts that reduce both defense and domestic spending, and will want to compromise by funding each other’s priority, thus increasing the deficit. Will Donald Trump seek to shut down the government, and own the resulting debacle all over again?

There will be a time this summer to try and push Mitch McConnell and his caucus away from the “legislative graveyard” they have created with House-passed bills. A few Republicans are inclined to push back against his intransigence. Perhaps more exciting, an even larger number of Republican Senators are battling Trump on his terms for selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Many members are interested in ways to rein in his out of control tariff-slapping escapades. Since mild disapproval of Trump’s course of action is seen by Republican Senators as eligible for inclusion in Profiles in Courage, we will need to defeat Trump before any kind of real Republican Party emerges. If then.

For now, with the Democratic debates coming up, let’s attend to our own candidates. At the presidential level, passion to fix the huge problems we face is the start, but not the end. Let’s find a presidential candidate and a vice presidential candidate who are leaders, who can unite their party, who can capture the imagination and support of the voters, who care about people, and who will soundly defeat Donald Trump. As we get them elected, let’s defend the House and give them the majorities in the Senate and in a growing number of state legislatures so they can get their job done.

Let’s do these three things now:

1) Pick a Presidential Candidate Who is Trailing
	It’s already become a game of inches for several of the declared Presidential candidates who are trailing. They dread being put on a media list of candidates who are surely going to fall by the wayside. In the near term, this list is very likely to include Bill de Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swallwell, and Seth Moulton, among others. You can help other candidates escape this list and get a chance to increase their traction over the summer. You know that Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Harris and Booker are going to be around for a while. If you haven’t done it already, pick someone who may be trailing those six and donate to their campaign now or get on their mailing list, so you will get a chance to hear what they have to say and so they will have a chance to move up a tier, or perhaps become a vice presidential candidate. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar? Washington Governor Jay Inslee? Entrepreneur Andrew Yang?  Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro?
2) Guarantee that Strong Candidates Help Us Take Back the Senate
	There’s not a better plan out there to gain control of the Senate than Swing Left’s Super State Strategy. It’s important to understand that strategy, get on their list and watch that space. Let’s not stop there. Let’s help move people around a bit so we can get our best possible Senate candidates. Let’s write Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke and beseech him to run against Republican John Cornyn for the Texas Senate seat in 2020. Use the ‘other’ field in Beto’s form to try and nudge him and his staff in that direction.  As time goes on, we may want to try the same persuasion with Montana Democratic Governor Steve Bullock, who could unseat Republican Senator Steve Daines by taking on this race rather than running for President.
3) Concentrate Your State Legislative Efforts on Virginia
	There are a small number of states holding elections for the state legislature in 2019. Our best shot for a flip is Virginia, and a very good way to increase our chances is to sign up with Flippable. They have picked good candidates and need your help right now.

Why let Donald Trump guide your thoughts every day? Free yourself from Twitter torment by doing all the things we already know we need to do--- register voters, keep truth on the throne and off the scaffold, and boost good candidates who are intent on restoring our democracy.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#67: Stop Trump from Tugging on the Thread that Holds Us Together

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.

Two things can be true at the same time. On CBS Sunday Morning, former nightly news anchor Scott Pelley delivered an impassioned, eloquent plea for us all to attend to our democracy. He called us all out for “recklessly tugging at the thread that holds us together.” 

Then, unfortunately, he lost himself by straining for equivalence. It is virtually impossible to get airtime for such an essay unless you criticize both political parties equally. Thus, Pelley accused both parties of chasing “shiny new scandals” and failing to seek compromise on immigration reform. He neglected to mention that the United States Senate passed a monumental immigration bill in 2013, with yes votes from all Democrats and 14 Republican Senators, and that House Republicans walked away from it. If today’s Republican Party won’t talk about the Dreamers, where is the equivalence?

Is there an equivalence in “chasing shiny new scandals?” Or otherwise, might it not be the case that the current President of the United States is uncommonly and relentlessly contemptuous not only of the norms of public office but of the rule of law in the country he is sworn to govern? Let’s honor and remember Scott Pelley’s behest that we show great care in our political actions. Let’s reject outright the false narrative that we are all there tugging on that thread. The truth of it all is that millions of us are trying to preserve the tapestry.

Consider these altogether separate categories of what Trump has visited upon the people.

• Rejection of any boundaries to the behavior of a President (norms) by laughing and sharing a dictator’s pathetic criticism of a formed Vice President.
• Absolute obsession with self over country. Countless incidents of hijacking of events seemingly designed for focus on others (veterans, farmers, athletes) so he can return to the church of the “extremely stable genius.”
• Heretofore unimaginable levels of dishonesty about everything, including hugely consequential policy matters like the mythical $96 billion in aid that he has provided to Puerto Rico.
• Great susceptibility to dictator flattery. What dictator will next write him a “lovely letter” that will then blind him to the actions of that dictatorship?
• Failure to learn on the job or to prepare for hugely consequential meetings with foreign leaders, or with anyone else for that matter.
• Inability to secure and deploy a cabinet and White House staff that is stable, reliable, and able to manage the executive branch on a daily basis.
• Illegal personal financial transactions, including the self-dealing of the Trump Foundation, and the insurance and tax fraud outlined by Michael Cohen.
• Ten separate meticulously documented attempts to impede Mueller’s investigation and to hide or misrepresent critical evidence. Continued misrepresentation of the report’s findings and blocking of any fact-finding inquiries.
• Ignorance and disregard of the constitutional role of the other two branches of government. Regular issuance of executive orders assuming powers not delegated to the executive branch.

In all nine areas, he will stop at nothing and do most anything. So, Scott Pelley, we are with you in the effort to stop the unraveling, but the first step is to remove the person who is tugging at the thread every hour of the day.

It is tempting to think that our opportunities to combat each of these areas of Trump malfeasance has equal standing or opportunities for progress. It isn’t so. If we forget the distinctions between Trump’s abuses, we will lose our opportunities to combat him. For instance, whatever we do, he will be just as susceptible to dictator flattery on his last day of office as he was the first, and he is not going to recognize or accept presidential norms. Of course, both cost him votes from independents last November, and will again if his 2020 candidacy moves forward.

Importantly, in the last three of the nine, the courts are involved. We have achieved traction and will be able to continue to grow that traction if we remember who needs to do what in the hearing room and the courtroom. Painful as it is for many, this is a much more productive course of action than passing a bill of impeachment in the House, since that would only give Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans the world’s largest and loudest microphone. It is not our moral obligation to bring unsuccessful impeachment charges against the president. It is our moral obligation to be successful in ending his dismantling of our country.

With regard to personal financial matters, the courts will soon permit access by Congress of Deutsch Bank and Capital One records of Trump dealings. They will uphold the statutory and constitutional authority of Congress to examine all of these matters. They will also uphold Congress’ right to access Trump’s tax returns, whether or not they limit the public release of those returns. Either way, the disclosure of financial information that reveals Trump’s practices will include information that the general public will not like at all.

On the front of Congress’ investigation of Russia’s involvement in the presidential election and Trump’s multiple obstructions, two important hearings are impending. Robert Mueller will appear before the House Judiciary Committee in the not too distant future. Thanks to Republican Senator Richard Burr, Donald Trump Jr. will be called before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss his Cohen-disclosed misrepresentations to investigators on the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. In both cases, the hearings will be closed, but both will fuel essential Congressional efforts, and both will influence the public’s unhappiness with the Trump moral code, or the absence thereof.

Finally, the efforts to use the federal courts to curb Trump’s over-reaching executive orders are also fruit-bearing. Working their way through the judicial system are federal district court orders limiting Trump’s emergency declaration which takes money from agencies for the wall; defending elements of the Affordable Care Act, protecting asylum seekers, and blocking drilling in Wyoming that had been advanced by the Department of the Interior. It is always possible that appellate courts will overturn such decisions, but at these legal challenges have stalled numerous policy abuses.

In all three of these aspirational litigational areas, important steps are taken by intention, not by accident. Here are three things we can do to make certain this indispensable, heartening traction continues to be gained:

1) Support the State Attorneys General
	In each of the 50 states, the attorney general is charged with protecting the state’s government and laws, including its constitutional position relative to the federal government. Attorneys general have become an important player in multiple federal court actions since Donald Trump was elected, beginning with their role in helping to block Trump’s initial Muslim ban. They are filing actions at a record pace. Other actions participated in by varying groups of attorneys general have focused on such diverse matters as Trump’s emergency declaration regarding the border wall, school lunch nutrition standards, and protection of transgender students. Notably, the Republican attorneys general of Montana and Ohio have joined 15 Democrats in seeking to protect the Affordable Care Act from the most recent Trump-Mick Mulvaney legal assault, to which even U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr objected. It could take a little work, but search devices are our friend. We need to each examine the role our own state’s Attorney General has played, and through an email or call we need to motivate her or him to stay focused on this important way to protect the rights of the states and of the people. If we live in Ohio or Montana, we need to thank the Republican Attorney General for standing up for the Affordable Care Act.
2) Support Richard Burr and the Senate Intelligence Committee
	As reviewed in a previous missive, Chair Richard Burr and the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr. They could not abide his previous testimony that he had only “peripheral” knowledge of the Moscow Trump Tower project, once Michael Cohen testified that he had briefed him a dozen times. Richard Burr has been under attack by Trump and some Senate Republicans for doing what is obviously the right thing. The Republican Senatorial voices defending him have been muted, to say the least, but they have notably included the conservative Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt. Please call him at 202-224-5721 and thank him for showing integrity and courage in this matter.
3) Strengthen the Nonprofit Organizations that Go to Court
	Because of the reaction of the resistance to the abuses of Donald Trump, litigating organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and several environmental advocacy organizations have considerable financial resources. Given the wholesale attack on a woman’s right to choose, let’s make certain that there are also plentiful resources for legal defense in the states that are under fire, which most recently are Alabama and Missouri. Here’s how to participate in their strength-building through Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood affiliates all use the same national/regional donation-sharing website. Be certain to click on “Specific Giving” to have your dollars go to the Planned Parenthood of the Southeast, or Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, or both.

So, it goes. There are less than 18 months to the election. We are acquitting ourselves nicely, and our prospects are excellent. But as we all know, it isn’t just about prospects, it is about what we do between now and November 3, 2020.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#66: It’s Time to Get the Truth Off of the Scaffold

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.

Joe Biden has been around for a long time. When he says Donald Trump’s presidency is an aberration, his judgement is based upon consideration of fifty years of American politics and governance. Trump’s candidacy might not even been successful if the election had been held on November 5 or 7, 2016 and certainly would not have been successful except for 1) Comey’s announcement; 2) multiple levels of Russian interference; 3) the cover-up of Trump payoffs by Michael Cohen; and 4) various levels of malfeasance which we will find out more about as time goes on.

So, Trump’s presidency is an aberration, in the sense that his election did not reflect any profound ongoing change in the views of the American voter. In fact, two years later, a lot of independent voters who had boosted Trump helped the resistance flip 40 house seats. We also added votes from millions of voters aged 18-30 who historically had been less likely to vote in midterm elections.

In one way, identifying something as aberrant behavior is a positive signal. It tells us that it is easier to reverse present awful conditions than it would be if there was some long term massive negative switch in voter preferences. It’s clear it isn’t long term, since we already shifted voter behavior two years later. On the other hand, feeling reassured because an election result is anomalous is a trap. We could end up waiting for the non-aberrant behavior to emerge, and be less focused on the business to which we must attend.

We aren’t going to lose focus. We’re going to continue treating this Presidential election with great confidence, but with caution. Given a choice between doing less and doing more to guarantee the right outcome, we will do more, and as the election approaches, we will do much, much more. Every day, we will refuse to accept this assault upon our country. The Constitution is threatened just as much as if enemy combatants just landed on the Florida panhandle, instead of Donald Trump having a rally there. 

Even though Donald Trump is not a trend setter, there is one bit of malfeasance and malfunction that threatens to be longer lasting. He did not invent prevarication in American politics, but he has put the truth on the scaffold so persistently and unabashedly that we’re going to have a difficult time removing it. As the protestant hymn reminds, if truth is on the scaffold, then wrong will be on the throne.

What to do? Luckily we have the Annenberg Center’s unparalleled and even-handed fact check capacity. They offer the suspecting and unsuspecting soul an equal chance to sign up for their weekly newsletter. Any person who has been thinking that Trump’s offenses against the truth are modest should read the Fact Check article outlining 17 Trump lies in 17 hours, a huge bolt of wool being pulled over our eyes. The broadcast media needs improvement on their own fact checking, but lately the national networks, CNN and (once a year) Fox have been including the correction of the Trump untruth in the same broadcast segment as the untruth, which is critical. The broadcasters look for cover where they can. They were relieved when Presidential adviser Larry Kudlow admitted that tariffs bring economic pain to producers and consumers. The media could thus quote Kudlow rather than correcting Trump on their own.

Of course, there are other ways to give truth a new ascendancy. We can all subscribe to a newspaper which takes its role seriously. (Digital subscriptions of the New York Times have increased sharply since Trump was elected.) We can politely refuse to let the false claims of others pass us by. We can make certain we are using reliable information ourselves. Newspaper op-eds which we often favor are discussion-starters, opinion pieces striving for attention, and rarely provide immutable truths. Rachel Maddow is indispensable, but nevertheless she and we are called upon to sort out which of her charges are meant for further investigation, and which are already surrounded by considerable evidence. Both categories are important, but the former requires a process where we continue to follow the issue as it unfolds. On a different front, Michael Moore does not have inside information on who is going to be elected in 2020, nor does billionaire Mark Cuban. As Trump has demonstrated over and over, having a Twitter account does not infuse the tweeter with wisdom.

Of all the places where Trump’s daily dance with the truth matters, the legislative process is most consequential, since lies can lead to people being unserved who desperately need help. Trump is not playing just some silly little game. A lie about tariffs can put a company out of business. A lie about protection from pre-existing conditions can lead to lack of health care coverage and a person’s death. Republican Senators have a bad habit of failing to correct Trump even when his statements are patently false. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley made an exception this week. He said that Trump does not understand tariffs and their impact on farmers. He stressed that telling him face to face doesn’t seem to help. Even after the pointed corrections of Grassley and others, Trump tweeted that it is the Chinese paying the tariffs, rather than US companies and the US consumer.

In the midst of the legislative process, Donald Trump makes up stories. This is not unintentional, and it is morally bankrupt. Here are three specific stories that he tells, how they foul the legislative process, and what we can do now to respond:

1) Make Certain Disaster Aid Meets the Needs of Puerto Ricans
	Donald Trump has created a smoke screen regarding Puerto Rico. He has insisted publicly and repeatedly that the United States has spent $96 billion to rebuild the devastated island, restoring electricity, rebuilding infrastructure, and responding to the needs of those left under-housed. The correct number as he knows is that the government has signed $22 billion in binding agreements, of which $14 billion has been spent. $96 billion turns out to be one estimate of what may be needed over the next two decades.  Trump has blocked recovery aid for Midwestern floods because the House included funding for Puerto Rico, including an emergency increase in food stamps, EPA help to fix water systems, housing funds, and a plan to rebuild public buildings. The House Democratic measure that included Puerto Rico aid passed nonetheless, gaining 50 votes from Republican members of Congress. Republican Senators are getting uneasy standing in the way of disaster relief and you can help them feel even more uncomfortable. Let’s go in the side door again, calling their district offices to insist these Senators reject Trump’s blatant untruths about Puerto Rico and approve a Senate bill that responds to Puerto Rican needs. We will go with six Senators who continue to contort themselves, trying to fulfill their oath of office and keep Trump from being angry with them.      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
2) Block the Untruths About Pre-Existing Conditions
	Donald Trump continues to say that Republican actions on health care protect people with pre-existing conditions. This is not true.  As was the case in the midterm elections, Republican perfidy on pre-existing conditions put them at political risk. Republicans in the House were especially annoyed when Nancy Pelosi gave them the opportunity to go on the record in favor of the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act, H.R. 986. Only four (Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Smith of New Jersey and Katko of New York) voted yes. It’s time to email one or more of the Republicans in your state’s House delegation and say this---- Now that you passed up H.R. 986, how do you intend to demonstrate that you are protecting Americans with pre-existing conditions?
3) Stand Behind the Facts on Immigration Reform
	Donald Trump is about to announce his proposed immigration “reform” legislative package, put together by Jared Kushner. Its provisions are grouped around wall building and eliminating immigration preferences for family members of citizens, thus blocking the path that the Trumps and the Kushners (and millions of the rest of us) followed in order to come to America. In seeking a “merit” approach, Trump continues to ignore or misrepresent the role that immigrants have played in building our country.  There are no provisions in the package to protect Dreamers. This is a clear signal for every one of us to support the largest youth-led Dreamer-supporting immigration reform organization in the country, United We Dream.

The polls are looking good. We may be able to keep the field of Democratic presidential candidates to under 30 candidates! Then we can sort them out one by one and win back the presidency of the United States.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington