#94: Americans Want and Need a Presidential President

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For the most part, it’s not good that many Americans lack a fundamental knowledge of the workings of government.  At least we have a leader on this front, since, as John Bolton says, the President’s own lack of knowledge is “stunning”.

For just a minute, Donald Trump’s lack of knowledge, incuriousness and even contempt for knowledge on the workings of government has turned to our nation’s advantage. This is the good news and the bad news. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Trump-expulsion of Dreamers could have been prevented by any of hundreds of thousands of high school civics teachers, bloggers, or small town lawyers. Luckily, Trump listens to no one and insists that his minions listen to no one but him. The court’s finding that Trump’s actions violated the Administrative Procedures Act by being “arbitrary and capricious” offers a simple solution that Trump could have followed all along--- don’t be that way.

In his executive order protecting Dreamers, Barack Obama knew that he had no clear statutory authority and that he was stretching presidential powers as far as he could, since Congress had failed to act. All Donald Trump had to do was carefully and meticulously prepare his executive order, following the procedures of the Administrative Procedures Act by providing a “reasoned explanation”. The majority of the Court has a low standard for the extent to which it wishes to adjudicate the reasoning. The Court simply maintained that the reasoning can’t be absent, which it was.

Of course this means Trump still has a path to expel Dreamers. Luckily, he is running out of time, since a federal district court is likely to enjoin his next action, making that injunction subject to appeal, and putting these matters off until after November.

All of this is bizarrely similar to Trump’s 5-4 loss on adding an immigration status question to the Census. Here too Justice Roberts ruled that the Trump administration’s reasoning was “contrived”.  Trump could have been successful by paying even minimal attention to the details of the law, or at least permitting his supplicants to guide him. He now has tweeted that it’s all proof that the Supreme Court “doesn’t like him.” Since he is thoroughly unlikable, they shouldn’t like him, but of course that is not what has caused these two significant defeats.

There will be plenty of painful times ahead with this Court. They may do some more damage to the Affordable Care Act or the right to choose. They will likely give Trump’s tax records to a federal grand jury, but perhaps not to Congress, which has sought them. There will be further victories too. It would be hard to find one more monumental than last week’s ruling unequivocally providing LGBQT employees protection under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Trump’s losses in court are richly related to the varying stages of his mismanagement of the pandemic and his antipathy to Black Lives Matter. In all these cases, he starts by dredging his approach from the nearly empty pool of his knowledge of government, polluted by his visceral notions based upon falsehoods. He tests the approach out on Sean Hannity or Rudy Giuliani and calls it good to go.

It isn’t working. Knowledge is making a strong comeback, as it has proven necessary to fight a pandemic. Whether they are mask wearers or not, voters don’t agree with Laura Ingraham that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a part of “medical deep state”. They think he is an expert on infectious diseases. Women with a high school diploma, part of the backbone of Trump’s support in 2016, are now trending toward Joe Biden. They want a presidential President, especially in these troubled times. 

That’s the secret of our impending success. We are running a man who knows all about how government works at the exact time that voters have finally noticed that the present President does not. Trust in government still polls at low levels, but there is an accompanying notion that government should be an indispensable force for good in trying times. From COVID 19 victims to George Floyd, the memories of the dead are still with us. No Trump tweet, rally or prevarication will erase that.

In the face of the Trump decline, there is also no danger that the positive polls will lull us. In fact, instead of being lulled by a lead, many of the same people who are giving us our current significant polling advantage are simultaneously worried that Trump will ultimately prevail, even though millions of independents have extricated themselves from him. Some are even convinced Trump will win, not daring to let any hope enter their heart.

Every election is different from every other. What we have done since 2016 is learn all over again how to convince people to get out and vote, and to fiercely fight the voter suppression techniques that are the shame of the Republican Party. 

This is the year that we will do huge things for our country. Here are three things that we ought to be taking on right now:

1) Help Ban Chokeholds Nationwide
	In the past, chokehold bans have not eliminated the application of chokeholds by police officers. This is different. The over eight minutes during which Derek Chauvin carried out the slow murder of George Floyd won’t be forgotten. Citizens will be empowered to monitor the streets, and cell phone cameras will play a new role in preventing misconduct. With your help, cities and towns across the country will explicitly ban chokeholds.   Check and make certain your own city has taken the right steps, or check whether your state has passed a law that covers all cities and towns. This chart by 8 Can’t Wait compares the use of force policies in scores of cities. It is a good time to call your mayor.
2) Add to Your List of Targeted Senate Races
	When Republican Joni Earl got herself elected to the United States Senate in 2014, she used her farming background to say she would “make them squeal” like a pig by challenging federal budget deficits. She ended up making corporations and the wealthiest donors squeal with joy instead, as they hogged the advantages of an Ernst supported tax bill unbalancing the budget by another trillion dollars. Donald Trump has at least one fact straight, that he is in trouble in Iowa. That’s why he pleaded with Xi Jingping for China to buy agricultural products to help him get re-elected. Farmers and farm communities who stood with him believing in his blustery trade war with China are reconsidering as the Trump administration now argues with itself where the trade deal stands. Joni Earl is an enabler of it all, and a good choice as resisters seek to flip another Senate seat, building upon our promising positions in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. A new poll has Joni Earl’s long time lead evaporating. It is time to send a little love in the direction of Theresa Greenfield.
3) Get on Joe Biden’s List Today
	The Biden campaign has enough work to do without having to worry about whether we support him. The more voters he can lock down, the more time he can spend on people who he needs to persuade either to vote for him or to vote at all. Even if you have found a different way to invest in getting the outcome we need this year, give a donation directly to the campaign of the next President and “sign your name to stand with Biden”.

The surreal behavior of Donald Trump is everywhere, every day. To his huge disadvantage, so is reality--- a resolve by Americans by people in community after community to beat the pandemic that is ravaging us, and a new commitment to address the racism that we have never expelled. 

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#93: You Must Know That There is a Way Forward

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It is all overwhelming, but you must know there is a way forward. The killing of George Floyd has exposed the never healed wound of racism in America. If we make it so, this will be a point where we turn in a new direction. The massive outrage will be translated into new rules, laws, protections, and oversight of policing in America. We will find that this time is different, that not only will policing change but that as a society we will renew the way we are addressing systemic racism and huge wealth disparities.

The pandemic will continue, and with it a similar sorrow of preventable, agonizing deaths. Trump’s tale of an error free pandemic response is not believed, or believable. There are tens of thousands of caskets which should not have been put into service. Scarily, at this stage of battlefield exhaustion we are newly vulnerable. Somehow, millions of us feel invulnerable, or we suppose that we have done all we can.

There is an uncomfortable parallel between our spiraling out of control on these two fronts. We do not accept as much responsibility for racism as we must. And, we are not worried about the virus as to the extent that we should be. In both cases, we are still telling ourselves an untrue personal story, and a fable about our nation in the world.

Every time we as a society hear news that we have been bad at doing something good, we think that it is anomalous. We say, “No, that isn’t who we are.” Even if we never speak of American exceptionalism, the idea of it is so ingrained in us from our school days forward that we may as well have “We’re number one” printed on our garments.

That makes it essential to understand why the idea of the United States as a beacon can remain genuine even as we see our greatest failings exposed. It’s because of kindled dreams, the true story that those who are born here and those that come here can lift themselves up. It is more difficult nowadays to make the dream come true, but tens of millions have enjoyed more freedom, more opportunity, and more education than the generation before it. That’s our brightest beacon, and Donald Trump won’t have succeeded in extinguishing it by the time we remove him on November 3.

We will be left battered, with the virus still infecting us, systemic racism unchecked, our greatest environmental hazard unaddressed, and our role in the world diminished. The test for us as citizens after November 3 is to find our way into a new era. The challenge of our elected leadership, including a new Democratic majority in the Senate, will be to help generate the momentum that will help carry us forward.

We are eager to hear of the selection of the Vice President but are otherwise cheered by where the election stands. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we couldn’t help but notice that there has been some deterioration of the Trump position after the bible was brandished and the New Testament ignored. It doesn’t hurt that there are two things wholly present in Joe Biden and entirely absent from Donald Trump-- knowledge and appreciation of the workings of government, and empathy for human suffering.

The formula for our impending electoral success remains. There is plenty of persuading of independents to be done, mostly to reinforce their movement in considerable numbers away from Donald Trump. Even more dominant is our need to generate turnout, which we have been ably rehearsing these past three years. 4.3% of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 did not vote in 2016. We will fix that.

The troubled times call us not to pause our efforts but to redouble them, relentlessly seeking to bend the arc of history toward justice. Presently, we can do these three things:

1) Sustain a Huge Political Movement
	New registrations and higher turnout are much of the focus of the immense organizing effort that is underway. Indivisible and Swing Left did not exist until November of 2016. Their work has been indispensable. Other organizations have come forward, like Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote, the Sister District project, and at the regional level, such exemplars as Common Purpose.  New attention must be paid and is being paid to how sharply focused, sustainable grassroots efforts will be fostered and supported over time. That is why we should support the focus of the Movement Voter Project which has vetted and is generating assistance for 450 local and state progressive organizations
2) Protect Government Watchdogs
	The system of internal government watchdogs has had strong bi-partisan support since its inception. Now, Donald Trump is firing inspectors general one at a time, every time one of them offends him (easy to do) or a cabinet secretary. This amounts to a lot of carnage, because the entire idea of inspectors general is to push back against the misuse of power and the misappropriation of funds. Standing in the way of the new rounds of firing is Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who intended to have as his political legacy the creation and protection of a strong system of internal oversight through inspectors general. The law requires Donald Trump to provide justification for inspector general firings, and Trump thus far has said his justification is that he “lost confidence” in each appointee. Grassley has no choice but to put a “hold” on selected Trump appointees until Trump complies with the law.  Grassley’s enthusiasm for standing up to the President may fade. It’s time to use Charles Grassley’s comment system to thank him for his efforts thus far, and to urge him to continue to seek protection of inspectors general.
3) Be a Part of Our New National Commitment
	George Floyd’s murder started something that isn’t going away, and shouldn’t go away. We must recommit to finding the racism within ourselves, and tirelessly ferreting it out in our country. With regard to police brutality, from the outset we must work at the level of every single community to re-examine the nature of policing, including its priorities, staffing and funding. Unfortunately, this necessary intense effort has been branded by more than a few as “defunding”. In his life, the writer of this missive has twice been confronted by individuals who inexplicably indicated a strong interest in killing him! Calling 911 was and is an outstanding option for people in such situations, and it’s unwise to confuse Americans by telling them that 911 is going away, even if that is not necessarily what one means by defunding. This discussion over the language of defunding will continue, and eventually a language of massive reform will emerge. In the meantime, it behooves all of us to understand and be engaged in what is being sought city by city, notably by the 8 Can’t Wait Movement.

Now we have an agenda before us that must be addressed both immediately (by banning chokeholds) and over several years. Both the pandemic and George Floyd’s murder have signaled us to be wary of embracing a false equilibrium, some new level of satisfaction in ourselves. Instead, let’s remove the divider in chief from his position, and go back to looking together for what America can become

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#92: Trump Ordains Disease and Death for the Faith Community

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Infamously, Donald Trump said in 2016 that he could “shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue” and not lose his supporters.

On Thursday, he did it, though he switched the scene of the crime. He increased the virus death rate of church, synagogue, and mosque-goers by maintaining that such places of assembly are “essential services” which should be opened by Memorial Day weekend. He threatened Governors who have correctly understood that places of assembly of large groups of people are paramount venues for the spread of the virus. 

In an act of unsurpassed cynicism, he has steered people toward disease and death in order to seek political favor. It does not excuse him for a single second that he does not know which of them will draw their last breath, or how many, or even that some welcome his sentiments. He knows that the virus can and will be transmitted through such gatherings. His 5th Avenue is now places of worship across America. 

As Sunday’s New York Times demonstrates heartbreakingly, the virus has ravaged America. It is astonishing that the President of the United States would exacerbate a pandemic. But, from all that we have seen since November 2016, it isn’t surprising.

We have taken the measure of the man, again and again. We’re not going to be discovering hidden virtues. That a huge proportion of likely voters have made up their mind convinces commentators that this will be a turnout election, not a persuasion election. In his excellent analysis in the American Prospect, Democratic strategist Robert Creaner comes down on the side of turnout as the most consequential, but not until he underscores the value of each approach. 

These strategies matter a lot, now that we have demonstrated that our own nation can fall into a tailspin over 80,000 votes in three states. Getting it right demands that we take both the persuasion and turnout approaches, while we obsess over one fact--- that the majority of Americans who are uncertain about voting will vote with us if they vote at all. As we do our campaign work, this is the single most important characteristic of the 2020 election--- Trump does not have a significant pool of prospects he can add to his core voters, and Biden does. Turnout is extraordinarily important, but persuasion is still hugely important. They are not mutually exclusive.

To underscore the critical nature of persuasion, 3.6% of Obama voters in 2012 switched to Trump in 2016. 1.9% of Romney voters switched to Hillary Clinton, so 5.5% of voters declared their independence. Obviously, there is enough persuading going on that we could win an election just by reminding voters daily about Trump’s malfeasant non-management of the response to the pandemic. Importantly, persuasion of independents turned in our direction in 2018, playing a big factor in winning back the House of Representatives.

Even with the unbelievable switch of 3.6% of Obama’s vote in 2012 to Trump, we could still have won the election handily. Another 4.3% of those voting for Obama in 2012 did not vote at all in 2016. Democrat turnout was down considerably in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia and thus the “firewall” was breached.

Our turnout has turned up. In the off-year elections of 2018, our turnouts were huge. They were 40% greater than the regular off-year turnout for those aged 18-29. The Asian-American and Latino turnouts were the highest off-year participation ever.

It’s comforting on both the persuasion and turnout side that we just have to keep on doing what we have shown we can do since November of 2016. Of course, we aren’t in the mood to leave anything to chance. For most of us, that means emphasis on the turnout side, as we do postcard projects, calls, and (virus permitting) trips to battleground states to provide campaign assistance to local groups and candidates. Our primary participation on the persuasion side is to donate directly to Biden and other candidates, to help them get their message out.

Our emphasis on winning largely through increasing turnout has given Trump a principal goal in life beyond a new round of misogynistic, jingoistic, racist tweets- voter suppression. As anti-Democracy as it is, at least Trump has settled on a single, actual fact-- the lower the turnout, the better his chances. As he and other Republican leaders seek to change the law or abuse the law to stifle turnout, we have a secret weapon we can deploy--- Donald Trump! His constant attention to what sort of untruth or insult will motivate his “base” is itself the number one motivator of Democrat-leaning voters. Get yourself out there in the public, Donald Trump. Do not be shy.

Beyond getting Trump out and about, our strategies are strong as are the organizations that boost them. State by state, we battle Republican efforts to purge as many voters from the rolls as they can, sometimes for the most minor of address defects. In some states, Republicans have limited the number of polling places, or sought to establish all new identification standards. Since the pandemic started, the biggest of all battles has been over mail-in ballots. Predictably, Trump (now a Florida voter) has both mailed in his ballot and asserted without the benefit of evidence that such ballots are a major source of voting fraud.

The truth is that Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State and other election officials have been administering vote-by-mail systems without incident for years. In 5 states (including Utah) vote by mail is the preferred option. In another 29, voters can get an absentee ballot simply by requesting one. Already, activists are getting absentee voting applications in the hands of potential voters. There has been some progress in 11 of the 16 other states, as these states consider the impact of the virus.

Now is the time for each of us to up our effort on turnout. We can be sure we are protected in the courtroom by such outstanding efforts such as the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU and the American Civil Liberties Union. As is customary with this missive, we can emphasize three things:

1) Help Advance Absentee Voting In Texas
	Happily, there are scores of local organizations working on voter registration and turnout. They are coupled with high profile national efforts, which will drive media attention, thus boosting local activity. Michelle Obama’s national When We All Vote is the perfect national partner. They are ready to take your pledge to fight for fair elections and boost ballots by mail. They have all the informational resources you need and have identified a number of steps you can take today.
2) Enforce the Florida Constitution
	In a stunning vote in 2018, 65% of Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment restoring the voting rights of felons once they have served their sentence and completed their probation. Ever since, the state’s Republican leadership has been trying to keep this civic rebuilding project from happening. They passed a law limiting the voting restoration to felons who have paid all fines and penalties, even though there is no state system for tracking what, if any, penalties pertain. Now, a federal district court has ruled the law violates the constitutional amendment. Florida activist groups are back to helping these former felons to register. You can do calling or texting by signing up with the very good Florida activist organization We Got the Vote.
3) Boost Latino Turnout Nationwide
	Julian Castro has joined forces with Voto Latino, a national organization that aims to register one million new Latino voters between now and November. Among the swing states where the Latino vote will prove critical are Texas, Colorado, Florida and Arizona. This is as good an investment as you can make,

Yes, things can seem a little surreal, as Jared Kushner talks about the White House success stories, the death toll exceeds 100,000 and Donald Trump seeks to crowd 10,000 people into a convention hall. It’s up to you to get us back to a day where we can rediscover our promise, together.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#91: John Kasich, Here’s What the Country Needs You to Do

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Donald Trump has turned out to be much worse than most of us feared. It seems like ages ago, but some opined that once he was elected President, he would honor the norms of the office. That line of “reasoning” is that he was modifying his persona from businessman to con man to get elected, and was fully capable of behaving between the lines when the situation required. It turned out that he does not have any such ability to control himself. There have been scores of instances where he has acted “presidential” for much of the day. Then the dark hours of the night arrive, and he again pours out what he really thinks. Donald Trump tweets at midnight. He insists that he didn’t say what he said, figures out someone to disparage, makes up some new stories, and shoves America toward the abyss. It isn’t hard to determine that this man is not well.

In 2016, others believed that the enormous responsibilities of the office would make him better. By all accounts, Trump was touched by his meeting with Barack Obama on the day of his inauguration. Not so much since! Meetings with groups of global leaders have not lifted him. The other leaders know he is unprepared, and they are unwilling to demonstrate the level of obsequiousness that he requires. The leadership role afforded to American presidents has not and will not be offered to him.

It was also argued that after “winning” such a narrow “victory” he would tack toward the center, as a means of being competitive in his attempt at re-election. That didn’t happen because he craves adoration of his declining but loyal base. It has trapped him, because the misogynistic, jingoistic, self -adoring person that he serves up to his base is the same person that is driving independent voters away from him.

The favorite argument of all that hoped for a far better Trump than the one we got was that the appointment of White House staff and cabinet secretaries would itself improve Trump. Wily veterans would caution him against awful policies and make certain that he would stay within the Constitution. James Mattis, John Kelly, Dan Coats and Rex Tillerson say that’s what they did. If so, the evidence is submerged, and in any event, they are long gone. What’s left in the White House is the sycophantic Stephen Miller, who wouldn’t object if Trump were to decide to strafe the House of Representatives tomorrow.

If we ever harbored such a notion, the idea of an improved Trump left us long ago. Ironically, years after we recognized every sorry dimension of Donald Trump, the virus delivered him the ultimate opportunity to step up like a leader does. Instead it revealed all the dysfunctions that make up the man. He’s left without his usual tools, because you can’t con a country about 80,000 body bags.

There are hundreds of Republican elected officials in the House and Senate and in state capitals that know that he is not fit to be president. Imagine the deal you have to make with yourself as you head to work if you are Senators Susan Collins or Lamar Alexander or Charles Grassley. You have been around for a long time, you have seen presidents come and go, and you have treasured the notion that you have served the people in your own careers. Now, during the end of your career (involuntary, for Susan Collins), you lose a little bit more of your soul every day you pretend that Trump is a functioning president.

You tell yourself it has been essential for you to go from independence to servility. You say to your loved ones that your continued presence in the political system has mitigated Trump’s worst actions as in Susan’s Collins real but uneven defense of the Affordable Care Act. You conveniently forget the hundreds of times when you needed to stand up and you sat down. You relish the episodes where Mitch McConnell lets you object on principle, even though you know that only happens when your objection has no impact on the final result. You have rationalized it all you can, but the truth is that when the need for you to act was greatest, you chose your career self-preservation over the needs of your own country.

Trump’s power within the Republican Party is not an illusion. Republican members of Congress rightly perceive they can be defeated in the primary by Trump’s tweets, even when pushing back against him is favored by the broader electorate. Thus, the Obamacare votes of John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney’s stand on impeachment are the only profiles in courage among Republican elected officials in the past four years.

After all of this time, there is a new opportunity. Biden forces are very serious about their organization of Republicans for Biden. This will have much greater scale than similarly focused efforts in past years, because Biden and his campaign aides will find plenty of Republican-leaning supporters outside of the ranks of elected officials. 

Biden has already secured endorsements from former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel and former Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. This is just the beginning, not least because the news cycle on Republican rebels is being driven by presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George. This story will be a gift that keeps on giving. George Conway and former John McCain adviser Steve Schmidt and a host of other former Republican aides have formed the Lincoln Project. They have already attracted rage tweets from Trump after their political ad accusing Trump of pandemic mismanagement. They raised $1 million in donations the next day.

The juicy detail that George Conway is married to Trump’s trusted advisor will spark the Republican opposition effort all the way until November. Donald Trump will not be able to contain himself from elevating Conway’s group through his counterattacks, which will increase their donations and make them even more able to field political ads.

The activities of the Lincoln Project will be a strong complement to whatever the Biden campaign can accomplish in obtaining endorsements from former and present Republican elected officials. Here are three things we can do to support all of these productive adventures.

1) Ask John Kasich to Do the Right Thing
	Former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich supported impeaching Trump, and he has severely criticized the President over his mismanagement of the virus response. Now that he has done those two things, he and Trump will not be hanging out together. He is not going to be elected president, so he is destined for the not terrible life of a commentator and influencer. So why not influence what is the most important election in his lifetime? Now is the time for a former Republican Governor of the stature of Kasich to tell the truth about Trump. Happily, John Kasich says he likes to hear from people expressing their dreams about America. You can tell him that this is his own defining moment by writing him at info@johnkasich.com. Even more compelling is that on his website he is offering us all a chance to text or send a short video of our own uplifting story! What could be more uplifting than him deciding to tell voters the complete truth about Donald Trump?
2) Make the Lincoln Project a Fixture from Now Until November
	This group of former Republican aides has already made the decision that calling out Trump for what he is will be more important than the arc of their individual careers. They are unflinching. It is up to all of us to provide them the resources to underscore Trump’s malfeasance on a regular basis. Give them your email and your dollars and let them continue to drive Trump tweets.
3) Provide Your Personal Testimony
	Any number of the recipients of this missive have once seen themselves as Republicans or have assiduously voted for the candidate, not the party. For those for whom this is the case, the Republican Party in which they once harbored interest has vanished without a trace. Amazingly, there are Republicans and independents who still think they are seeing some remnants of a party of strong global alliances, fiscal moderation, and adherence to the rule of law. It is time to make a list of your friends who cling in any way to those lost dreams and get personal with them on these matters. For some, Trump’s continued mismanagement of the pandemic response will provide a new opportunity for a heartfelt exchange.

The new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that we are in excellent position for the last six months of the campaign. It is ours to win. There is no doubt at all that we have the energy and the motivation to get this job done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#90: What We Will Make Happen Six Months from Now

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With all this uncertainty, there is nothing more subject to unhelpful conjecture than what the “new normal” will be. The new normal depends in part on vaccine development and other medical advances. We are all making personal calculations regarding our well-being and that of our loved ones. Depending on how safe we become, we might eventually start participating in the economic and political life of our communities the way we did last year. But, not for a while yet. In the meantime, our requirement is to craft ways to win this election without a lot of us leaving home.

While we are attending to this, many are revisiting where we stand in the world. The age of American exceptionalism is over? It never began! Where it was claimed, it was the worst kind of self-congratulatory excess. We have the worst form of government in the world, except for all others. We have been a generous nation worldwide, but insufficiently so given our resources. The Bill of Rights is splendid, but the battle to make it a living document must be fought daily. We are absolutely a land of opportunity, but our wealth is so grossly mal-distributed that opportunity is diminished.

Today’s prevalent comments that we were a failed state before the pandemic hit are an exercise in fatalism. Even at our worst, we are no failed state. We are instead a work in progress, still advancing the truths we know are self-evident. We can motivate ourselves with dismay over what we are not. Better yet we can propel ourselves by understanding and seizing upon our promise. 

We are also struck by columns that note that the rest of the world is stunned by our lack of leadership, or even by our bullying and misinformation. We are right to be disheartened by this unsurprising news, even if we were never quite the global leader we thought we were. We must remind ourselves that our place in the world is subject to further change, and the world’s democratic leaders know that as well. We will hugely modify our nation’s role in the global community on November 3.

This has been a four-year fight, and our successes have been notable. The elections held in 2018 and since have turned our way. The people who didn’t show up at the polls in November 2016 are now doing so regularly, and will be there for us in November. The possibility that we will take back the Senate as well as the Presidency is no longer pipe-dreamy. As we acquit ourselves on the campaign front, we have the comfort of seeing Nancy Pelosi skillfully gain leverage on everything Congress considers.

It seems surprising that we also have some continued protection from the Courts, or at least more than we expected when we first headed into this mud hole. Who knew? In just this last week the Supreme Court did four things worth noting:

• In an 8-1 vote, they required the federal government to honor the insurer reimbursement that has been guaranteed in the Affordable Care Act. The Court ruled that the Congress was unlawfully withholding funds. This is all about keeping Obamacare alive so that it can serve as the necessary building block for the significant health care expansion which will be forthcoming under President Biden.  
• Justices Roberts and Kavanagh sided with the four liberals to declare moot a National Rifle Association attempt to weaken gun restrictions. (Justice Kavanagh would have stayed with the conservatives were it not for a technical flaw in the case.) The court resisted their temptation to unravel some regulatory efforts that have emerged in states in response to countless mass shootings. 
• Justices Roberts and Kavanagh joined with the liberals in a 6-3 decision defending the Clean Water Act from an attack from the Trump Administration and the State of Hawaii. The Supreme Court weakened the appellate court’s standard a little bit, but they still required that industrial pollutants reaching the ocean through groundwater be subjected to Clean Water Act enforcement, thus keeping the Act from being eviscerated. 
• The ongoing efforts to examine Trump’s tax returns for violations of the law remain alive. The Supreme Court had scheduled video-conferenced oral arguments for May 12 but has now requested supplemental briefs. It is important to distinguish the separate claims of the Manhattan grand jury with those of the Congress, with the grand jury being more difficult for the court to ignore. It could turn out that the Court will sidestep at least part of the case. This might still leave the banks and accounting firms which hold the records obligated to turn them over.

No irrational exuberance here. With its current makeup the Supreme Court will continue to remove hard earned protections of the people. It will turn out that the Bill of Rights is not as encompassing as we had hoped. Nonetheless, it seems clear that in some cases Chief Justice Roberts is trying to steer the Court away from where justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas are trying to take it. We can make certain that the citizen organizations that stand ready to litigate have sufficient resources. The Clean Water Act case was relentlessly pursued by Earth Justice, a nonprofit which carries a huge docket of local, state and federal cases, and which deserves support. 

As we win and lose individual cases, we cannot help but be reminded of how momentous elections of the past have put some justices in the position of cackling wickedly while determining which previous constitutional protections to unravel. This judicial era started in 2000 with Ralph Nader insisting there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush, siphoning off the votes Gore needed in Florida. That gave us justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and the balance has been tipped ever since. Inexplicably, Ralph Nader is still out there claiming some sort of moral authority.

In addition to supporting the litigating organizations and electing Joe Biden, the way forward to strengthening the Judiciary could not be clearer--- regain the majority in the United States Senate. The outlook is good. We need to net three seats. At least eight Republican races are in play, and we have one Democratic seat at risk, Doug Jones in Alabama. We are feeling very good about beating Martha McSally in Arizona, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Susan Collins in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. There are any number of other races that have promise, such as the efforts to beat Lindsay Graham in South Carolina and the soulless Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Iowa, Kansas, Georgia and Montana are thought to be especially promising. Let’s do these three things.to make certain that we pursue that promise.

1) Beef Up the Montana Campaign for Steve Bullock
	Governor Steve Bullock was cultivated by national Democrats for a reason. He is a popular governor. However, this is no easy challenge and Bullock is running even with Republican Senator Steve Daines. We shouldn’t discount the possibility that we will pick up 6 or 8 seats, but this one could definitely put us over the top. Bullock should be on every Democrat’s investment list.
2) Understand and Support Biden’s Approach to COVID
	Joe Biden has proven that he knows everything a president should be doing in a time of a pandemic. If your friends are thinking that Biden should be winning every news cycle by battling Trump’s criminal mismanagement on a day by day basis, have them read the lucid argument for the other approach. Democratic elected officials should be criticizing Trump’s disinfectant-drinking, UV light-implanting, testing-capacity-overstating, meat supply-enhancing world. Biden should be the serious, experienced, empathetic leader above the fray over what Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx said back to Trump.
3) If You Haven’t Enlisted, Now is the Time
	Since the month that Trump was elected there have been well organized efforts to win the November 3, 2020 elections. The initial response of Indivisible was momentous, and they were followed by Swing Left, the Sister Districts project, and several other credible national organizations. Efforts in individual states have been very compelling, especially as they recruit volunteers and deploy them to generate voter registration and turnout in targeted states. If we are limiting ourselves to forwarding clever parodies about Trump but not participating in the campaign, we are a correctable step short. Figure out which organization to ally with, and it will guide you. In addition to Indivisible cells and independent working groups, look for state organizations that sponsor both campaigning at a distance and traveling to campaign. See if you can find an exemplary organization in your own state, like Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight in Georgia and David Domke’s Common Purpose in Washington State.

It is a terrible time. To be sure, there are hundreds of thousands of heroes. You want to remember and be grateful to them and try to ignore the bizarre action of a man who should be acting like a President, but who most certainly does not have it in him. Time for a new world, almost exactly six months from now.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#89: We are Going Out and Getting Ourselves a New President

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.

There’s a narrative out there that says that Donald Trump is doing the same things that other presidents would do in a pandemic. This school argues that we are blinded to his actions because we irrationally apply our dislike of him to everything he does, or because his style doesn’t meet presidential norms, or because he is talking too long at press briefings.

This narrative is untrue. Trump is not even close to doing the same things as other presidents would do. We are not blinded to his actions, we are painfully aware of them. Every step along the way has been far too slow, and has cost lives. February (the most important month for the countries that have done well) was a lost month. By then, Trump had the information upon which he needed to act. Through misrepresentation, he was trying to protect the economy from the health crisis, and by this malfeasance, he ended up worsening both. 

Of course, Donald Trump is not the only one to fall dismally short, thus costing American lives. But he is the only one who has the powers of the President of the United States. For months now, we have been lacking testing kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for our caregivers. The Defense Production Act gives the president clear authority to attend to the supply chain in a time of national emergency. This is the one thing that he could have done that would have been most telling and which was clearly within his powers. Instead he said he would not be a supply clerk and sent 50 governors into a scarcity-plagued open market, all the time sniping away at them. His son in law denied that the national stockpile was intended for the use of the states, even though that is precisely its purpose.

It is common during dark hours for everyone involved to remind that they themselves stolidly and persistently sought to warn and protect us all. Donald Trump can rail at the press all he wants. His problem is not fake news, but the news--- he is on tape in February saying it will all be gone when the warm April weather comes. It isn’t. He can counter punch reporters and Governors each day, but it’s the under-equipped medical teams and the body bags that are etched in our consciousness and will remain so. There is no better analysis of the missteps and the missed steps than that of the New York Times.

Then of course there is the astonishing representation by the president that he has absolute powers to overturn gubernatorial stay at home orders. He’s walking away from that by now, after being told of that pesky 10th amendment to the Constitution, reserving powers to the states and to the people. How sad that the richest and most powerful nation could not have been a leader when the world needed it most. In this country, we are standing together, fighting for life itself, and determining a direction, he is nowhere in our group of guides. His compass points to himself.

What to do is to honor the caregivers and essential workers who are serving us all and follow the rules that Governors have set down. We can help each other every day and we remind ourselves that this will not be over when the stay at home restrictions are reduced. As all of these things are taking place, we can go out and get ourselves a new president.

We are making excellent progress in that regard. Consider the news of the week:

• Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Joe Biden was full throated and left no doubt that he will be behind Biden from now until November. We have now officially skipped the three agonizing months of back and forth that we suffered in 2016 and which dissipated Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Now it’s time to show Bernie’s supporters what they already know--- there are monumental democracy-saving differences between Trump and Biden.
• The fact that Barack Obama has been silent until now makes his pointed, eloquent endorsement that much more powerful. It is available on You Tube. When there is a podium, Obama will be at it. His ability to focus us on what counts is a huge boost. 
• The Senate races are looking good. Susan Collins unfortunately spent the last four years trying to not upset Donald Trump, and thus sacrificed her principles weekly. She is running behind former speaker of the Maine House Sara Gideon. Amy McGrath is definitely in play in Kentucky against the soulless Mitch McConnell.
• Rather than getting our promising outlook just from polls, we can look to the latest in real time election results. In Wisconsin, after Republicans carried out their voter suppression strategy, Democratic Supreme Court nominee Jill Karofsky won. This was even though Republicans refused to turn to mail voting and the Milwaukee polling places were shrunk from 180 to 5.
• Polls show Biden ahead of Trump in several states that we lost in 2016, such as Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

It’s difficult. We have to attend to our lives, our families and our communities, and not let political matters distract us from the vigilance the virus continues to demand. Yet, we cannot ignore one of the most glaring truths that the virus has brought us. It matters who is president. A President who is a learner, who understands and can sort out evidence and recommendations from health professionals, who is aware and thus can exercise his specific, very considerable constitutional and statutory authority, who knows what government can do and how it can do it would be an extraordinarily valuable person during a pandemic. Recognizing that the world is a very, very dangerous place, let’s get a president like that and do these three things:

1) Make the Checks Stimulating
	Legally, Donald Trump cannot sign the stimulus checks. So, he has ordered his name put on the subject line of the checks! We cannot stop him, but if we have the means, we can make sure a portion of the checks he has put his name on go to help our country defend against him or recover from him. There are scores of organizations to whom donations are tax deductible and which are trying to strengthen America in the age of Trump. For a part of your stimulus check, consider Michelle Obama’s voter registration effort, When We All Vote.  Or send a part of your stimulus to the best effort right now to add to the number of states with mail-in ballots, the Brennan Center for Justice. Or, give some hungry people some food that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are trying to take away.
2) Celebrate a Nutrition Victory and Learn More
	Ever since Trump was elected, environmental, health, science and nutrition groups have been pushing back against his wholesale attack on governmental regulation. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has just secured a victory in at least temporarily restoring school nutrition standards.  Science in the Public Interest seems like such a novel concept in these times that you may wish to honor it by getting regular briefings from the Center.
3) Put Yourself on Joe Biden’s List Now
	We need to make certain that Joe Biden (and his running mate Kamala Harris/ Stacey Abrams/ Amy Klobuchar) have a list of millions of small donors. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you wouldn’t want to go through 2020 without recognizing that this is the place to be.

You can’t help but be worried about America, and weary of the struggle. But you can decide what to do to handle those worries, and to generate all new energy from the weariness. And, you can recognize how much difference that will make.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#88: We Will Keep Our Communities Strong

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.

Our collective national calamity is robbing us of loved ones, making fear ever present and threatening to deprive us of the feeling of community that we cherish. We are not accustomed to mustering the strength that is being demanded of us. We cling to any information that we are influencing the curve, that testing will become commonplace, that the number of hospital ICU beds equipped with ventilators will continue to grow, and that we soon will reach the peak.

South Korea and the US got their first confirmed case on the same day, January 21. There will be enough time between now and November to understand what happened then. In South Korea, they ran 55,000 tests in February, identifying cases, initiating quarantines and flattening their curve from the outset. During the same time, Donald Trump was saying the virus was going to disappear, that we have it under control, and that Democratic efforts to underscore its danger were a hoax. With Fox as Trump’s science adviser, we tested less than 1,000 people in February and are only now doing testing at necessary levels. Because it has taken us much longer to act, our curve has yet to flatten and tens of thousands of people will suffer preventable death.

As time passes, there will be plenty of say about Donald Trump and this national health crisis. To this day, as body counts rise, protective gear shortages persist, and emergency hospitals are being constructed, Trump is being his own self. While America is sheltering, mourning and weeping, Donald Trump is tweeting his press conference ratings.

The most telling of all of the morally reprehensible acts Trump has committed has just been visited upon us. A month after assuring us the virus was under full control, 10 days after telling us we could well re-open by Easter, he has a new announcement, that as many as 100,000-240,000 people might well die. Unfortunately, this statement does not represent an epiphany for him, or at least it isn’t all it represents. In advance of summer or fall campaign ads, he is setting himself up with a high number so that he and Kelly Conway can seek to claim later that his hard work averted the worst. 

The end of this worldwide scourge will come, and with it will come Trump’s downfall too. You can’t counterpunch Dr. Anthony Fauci or even Governor Andrew Cuomo, even though some Trump supporters have tried. Even more compelling, there’s no workable con when it comes to the number of body bags. All spring and summer they will be a reminder of what government at its best can do and what it can fail to do when it is not at its best.

It is unlikely that the Congress will put together a fourth legislative package any time soon. If it happens, we can be sure that Nancy Pelosi will stand up strong, as she did in shifting much of the $2 trillion stimulus package from Mitch McConnell’s wishes to the needs of the people. Joe Biden has put an excellent plan forward on what we should have done and what we can do next. 

On the election side, the Fox News poll is holding up well, with Biden leading Trump 49% to 40%.  Other polls demonstrate that our margins in 300 swing counties are strong. The issue will remain whether we can get people voting, which we were able to do in record number in 2018, 2019 and in this year’s primaries.

With heavy hearts, we summon ourselves to do these three things:

1) Put Bernie on a Different Course
	A previous missive outlined the long list of things that we can say to the small but still meaningful minority of Bernie Sanders supporters who are unsure of where they are headed. There are some things we should be stressing to Bernie himself. At this point, he has two avowed motivations, to pursue a slim chance of being nominated and to make certain that his policy ideas get traction with a broader range of Democrats. The fact is, there is no path to victory. Maintaining his campaign in this period of national crisis does not strengthen his already considerable impact on our collective agenda. It weakens it. He has been friends with Joe Biden for decades. The way for him to increase his influence is to come together now. Write him on his “comments” page, pick an issue, and tell him it is time to be with us.
2) Preparing for the Possibility of an Election During a Pandemic
	We are likely to have been freed from social distancing in October and November. Since we don’t know that for certain, we need to be preparing now for how our elections will be well managed. Luckily, states manage the election process, not the Trump “led” national government. No one is doing a better job of monitoring the states and proposing improvements that can be made between now and November than the Brennan Center at New York University. Analyze the state by state guide they have just published. Decide what you need to say to your state legislators and governors, and say it today.
3) Send Mitch to a Back Bench
	There are a number of Senatorial seats in play where we can win back our majority. Maine, Colorado and Arizona are extremely promising. Things are looking better and better in North Carolina, where the Republican incumbent Thom Tillis has fully bought into Trump’s chamber of horrors. He signaled that he might object to Trump’s usurpation of Congressional powers but caught himself in time. Cal Cunningham is our candidate. He is a former State Senator and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. If you have some money to spare, it would be a very good idea to send it to his campaign.

It will be like it is now for several weeks at least, if not months. Our family, our neighbors and our communities come first. We will emerge. When we do, we will not have lost our obsession with putting our imperfect and beloved country back on the right path.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington