#5: How We Can Climb Together Toward the Light

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

We will be sharing these messages every two weeks by eblast and on our blog, Our Unfinished Work. Please click here to be added to our email list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can also read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement.

Because of the ever-changing location of the moon, we are obligated to accept that the darkest hour is not always before dawn. Even if it were, how would we know within the moment whether it is going to get just a little bit darker? There is no certainty, but today we are poised to climb toward the light.

In his address, Joe Biden could not have been more pointed or more authentic in calling for and pledging a new day. Given that he is a supremely empathetic person, it’s best to believe that he shares the pain of all of the country, not just those of us who have struggled each day to endure his predecessor. Even though he would be willing to put all 331 million of us on his shoulders if he could, that is not what is necessary. He just needs to use his powers to make things better one month at a time, each and every month. 

Bizarrely, things have become so bad that the get-better-by-the-month objective is doable. Establishing a national goal of 100 million vaccines in 100 days was strategically brilliant. As vaccine production will continue to accumulate and accelerate, Biden knows we can access plentiful arms of greatly endangered Americans. He understands that it will be a major factor in reopening the economy, and that after this is all over the 100-day effort will be seen as a very significant part of our removal from peril.

Biden and Harris will be able to build upon the goodwill that will surface as the pandemic misery dwindles, hopefully by summer. Nonetheless, there is a huge gap between what we have dreamed they will accomplish and that which they will surely accomplish. We will all work to close that gap.

We already know that Donald Trump is not going to be convicted of an impeachable offense, even though it could not be more evident that he is guilty. Mitch McConnell remains untypically unequivocal about Trump’s abuses, now stressing that the January 6 mob was “provoked” by Trump and was fed lies. For this truth telling moment, we still will forever refrain from thanking Mitch. He knew what Trump was doing long before the election, let alone immediately prior to January 6. He put his fellow members of Congress in harm’s way. If he and ten other Republican Senators had vouched for the election by mid-December and congratulated Biden, the Stop the Steal lie would have receded, and the Capitol would not have been breached.

Republican Senators who have been threatening to supply the 17 Republican votes necessary to convict Trump, were doing so to keep him within some boundaries during his final White House week. Their further goal in wounding him is to lessen Trump’s hold on the party going forward, and to remind him that they could have been killed. Still, they will not vote to convict in sufficient numbers. Some will seek protection for their position through the Constitution’s lack of clarity over whether the President can be tried after their term of office is completed.

In the meantime, Joe Biden realizes that there is not any substitute at all for hitting the ground at a sprint. The 17 executive orders he issued on Inauguration Day immediately reversed terrible Trumpian actions of the past four years. Among other things, his administration rejoined the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organizations, stopped the walling off of Mexico and protected the Dreamers from deportation.

There is extensive discussion about the extent to which Joe Biden’s possibilities will be stymied because the Democrats have narrow margins in the Senate and the House. In all too many instances, this certainly will happen. But the powers of the President to lead us and change our direction are immense, and Joe Biden knows how to utilize them. He will use executive orders and Senate budget reconciliation rules to make considerable progress on climate change and on expanding the Affordable Care Act.

We should join Biden and Kamala Harris in kindling big dreams. As the poet Amanda Gorman said during the Inauguration, we can always reach the light “if we are brave enough to see it, and be it.” We can build further from the five things that we should most expect of ourselves and our leaders in the next two years:

First, Joe Biden will become a successful, memorable national leader. He may well be the most empathetic elected official in America today. Moreover, being at the center of the battle against the pandemic requires advanced knowledge of how to make government work and a respect for what government can do at its best. Biden has both and the previous President had neither. Plus, Biden is willing to use the Defense Production Act to accelerate any lagging parts of vaccine production, which Trump was inexplicably unwilling to do.

Second, Joe Biden will bring about a resurgence in the Center/Left. There is not going to be a Green New Deal right now, but there will be a green new deal. Biden has plans to attend to each separate element of alternative energy investment, including its role in boosting job growth. There will not be Medicare for All, but Biden will achieve a public option and coverage for many millions more people. On a host of other issues, flipping the two Georgia Senate seats increases the influence of the more moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Mark Kelly and independent Angus King. This helps make certain that Biden will be able to advance legislation, though with less gusto than would be the case if he had 55 Democratic votes. He has excellent leverage on tax law because individual tax rates will expire late in his term.

Third, Joe Biden will benefit from accomplishing some things that both sides want. The word populist refers to an authentic intent to hear and respond to the needs of the people, especially those not connected to power and privilege. It is a travesty that Donald Trump was ever called a populist. The economic anxiety of 50-year-olds living in manufacturing-dependent areas is real, and responding to that anxiety more intensively and with bipartisan appeal is on the Biden/Harris agenda. So is the bipartisan agenda of restoring our position in the global community.

Fourth, we will all push back against the “steal” that never was. Half of Republican voters still believe the election was stolen. Once he was told that many Democratic votes by mail would be counted after many Republican votes at polling places, Trump suckered Republican voters about his win being taken away in order to raise money and feed his wounded ego. Without our vigorous response, these lies will poison every single state legislative discussion on mail in voting and other election rules. One plus is that more than a few Republican candidates in 2022 will be obligated to stand up for electoral integrity as a part of their defense against Trump-endorsed candidates.

Fifth, we will not allow our daily news to be gripped by social media and by Fox News. The aging of Rupert Murdoch and the split in the Republican Party will mean that Fox News commentary will no longer be a vassal state of Donald Trump. Trump’s at least temporary lack of access to 80 million Twitter followers will give Biden a better opportunity to develop his messages.

Let’s do these three things to defend election integrity and thus move our dreams forward:

1) Make Voting by Mail a Strong Option in All States
<	The 2020 elections saw a huge increase in voting by mail, helped along by pandemic-spurred changes in state voting rules and processes. 27 states expanded vote by mail, and 34 allowed voters to state the pandemic as their reason to seek the mail-in ballot. 80% of voters can get access to a mail-in ballot. Fighting voter suppression requires us to keep these numbers high. One way to do that would be to sign up for briefing materials and support the best national vote by mail organization, Vote at Home and through them, the national Vote Safe Coalition which advocates for mail in ballots.
2) E-Mail Representative Dan Newhouse
	There is nobody in the House of Representatives who made a harder choice to vote for impeachment than Republican Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington State. Newhouse farms 600 acres near Sunnyside in Eastern Washington. 2/3 of the voters in his district vote Republican. Newhouse went from signing the anti-democratic Supreme Court brief in December to impeaching in January, saying a vote against impeachment would validate the violence in the Capitol. Dan Newhouse deserves our thanks. To try to get around the email flood, write to his legislative director Sean O’Brien at sean.o'brien@mail.house.gov.
3) Help Corporations Turn Away from Anti-Democratic Giving
	139 House members and 8 Senators sought to block the final electoral college count, even though their only Constitutional obligation was to total the ballots and announce Joe Biden the winner. In the wake of the Trump-provoked insurrection, a score or more of American companies have decided to cut off all political contributions to these 147 elected officials because of their assault on democracy. This is sending shock waves through Congress. Even more companies have decided to pause their campaign donations altogether. This is having the positive effect of slowing the flow of corporate money that had been accelerated by the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United. It would be good to write to Marriott and thank them for their leadership among companies who are shutting off the 147. Email them at customer.care@marriott.com.

Aptly quoting Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden said “my whole soul is in this.” Of that there can be no doubt. After enjoying a splendid Inaugural day, let’s get back to giving him the help he needs.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#4: How We Can Make This the End of an Error

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

We will be sharing these messages every two weeks by eblast and on blog, Our Unfinished Work. Please click here to be added to our email list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can also read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement.

Dear friends, I finished this missive Wednesday morning just before rioters stormed the US Capitol. In it I stressed that Republican Senators have been with Trump every step down this sorry path. Their subsequent words have been heartening but they are way, way too late. The wounds our nation has suffered have been at their hands and not just those of Donald Trump.

It is too early to say how much the president's bizarre participation in encouraging the Capitol siege will decrease his political stock going forward. Either way, the proof that we can and will take this on is there today in the election of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and the glorious dismissal from the podium of Mitch McConnell.

It was a horrible day for America, but we can make it into a signal of the end of an error not the start of a new one. This 230-year-old grossly imperfect dream filled experiment in self-governance is well worth fighting for.

Just as much as his mother and father, Republican Senators created Donald Trump. Deliciously, it has now cost them their Senate majority. They always knew that he worshipped only at the church of Trump, that he is monumentally incurious, that he forms his policies only on "gut" instincts, and that he has no allegiance to the Bill of Rights. They understood that he has no sense of how government works, no focus, no empathy, and no work ethic.

It seems like the president's political stock has fallen a great deal but we don't want to assume that. Nonetheless, for four years they regularly offered their obeisances. They left him unchecked and ignored their own oaths of office. It is not redemptive that some have voted on January 6th to confirm Biden's selection. They decided to swim only after they filled the moat with water and sank all of the available boats. Once Pennsylvania was decided on Saturday, November 7th, they could have declared the presidential election over and congratulated Joe Biden. If they had, they would have won both Georgia Senate seats this week.

They didn't do that. They created their own divided party and fueled the stop the steal movement that will poison much of America's political life for some time.

There have been multiple schools of thought about Donald Trump's impact in years to come. One theory has already been discarded - that his soul crushing act will diminish quickly, giving way to golf. He will push on, requiring our ongoing vigilance. He isn't going to accept any responsibility for the Georgia results. He would call in a drone strike on Lindsay Graham, Melania and Ivanka if it would help him maintain his following. Even as we celebrate the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Trump resistance must continue.

The careful, exceedingly conservative Senator John Thune of South Dakota has been afforded an advance peek at what is to come. After Thune said Trump's January 6th schemes would "go down like a shot dog" Trump started recruiting a 2022 primary opponent and has pronounced Thune's career over.

And so it will go in the Republican party's new age. There will be epic inter-party battles in 2022. Trump will seek to unseat Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, guilty of following election law.

Of the 34 Senate seats up for reelection in 2022, 22 are held by Republicans. All six of the states with the closest races for president in 2020 will feature Senate races in 2022. Republicans will defend in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania (all promising for Democratic pickups) and Democrats will defend in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

Donald Trump Jr. has said that it's now Donald Trump's Republican Party and there’ll be plenty of challenges from those who differ with that view. Those primary wars will provide new opportunities and openings for Democrats way beyond the expected results in off-year elections. That is because Trump will force his endorsed candidates to lock down the base over and over, cede the center and seek to win through expanded turnout.

The better way for Republican candidates to win in 2022 in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina and Wisconsin would be to secure the base and compete for independent voters, mostly in the center. Trump's alternative approach is terrifying to Republican strategists because it denies the nation's demographic destiny, which helped yield 81 million votes for Joe Biden.

By relying almost entirely on the turnout from this base, Trump is betting on a segment (white males over 30) that is a smaller percentage of the voting population than it has been at any time in our nation's history. Biden, Harris and the Democrats have instead sought support from the multi-racial multi-ethnic society that we have already become and from the electoral emergence of 18-to-30-year old’s. This all underscores why Republicans are working so hard to suppress new registrations and the voting of non-white populations.

As these scenes unfold Trump resistors should not take diverse voters for granted. For their part Biden and Harris would never do such a thing. In the last 10 weeks our political situation has improved greatly. Let's keep moving in the right direction by doing these three things:

1) Support Targeted Organizing
	There are separate powerful political advocacy organizations intensively focused on African-American, Asian American and Latino populations. Now, rather than November 22 is prime time to make certain these organizations are strong, and that the Democratic agenda is responsive to them. Don't wait to support the Asian American Advocacy Fund, Mi Familia Vota, and Stacy Abrams Fair Fight.
2) Thank Doug Ducey
	On Election night early returns from Arizona sustained us, showing us our first path to 268 electoral votes. From that night until Arizona electoral votes were certified,, Republican Governor Doug Ducey withstood enormous pressure from Donald Trump and stood tall for election Integrity. Please write to thank him engage@az.gov.
3) Renew Your Campaign Committee Connection
	We will all need our independent campaign organizations sooner than we think. There would have been no presidential victory on November 3rd and no Georgia Senate sweep on January 5th without millions of calls, texts, postcards door-knocks, and dollars generated by independent organizations. It's time for us to re-enroll and hear what's next on the to-do list.

Wednesday, January 6th could mark a turning point for America. Let's go out and make it so.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#3: We're Not Even Close to Being Done

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

We will be sharing these messages every two weeks by eblast and on blog, Our Unfinished Work. Please click here to be added to our email list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can also read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement.

A surprising thing happened in America at 7 am on Thursday, December 17. In the 20-minute CBS news summary there was not a single mention of Donald Trump. There was no tweet revisited, con expanded upon, citizen counterpunched, scientific fact dismissed, or false election claim advanced. 

For those glorious 20 minutes, America’s possibilities were in view. On television, vaccines were administered and snowstorms described. Fresh, distinguished governmental officials were appointed with the new president detailing dreams they will all seek to realize. 

It turned out this was just a fleeting moment, but nonetheless we have seen a future where we can attend to the American agenda. In the meantime, Trump is occupying his last 30 days with an extraordinary set of rants and lies. He is conspiring with people who are as dysfunctional as he is. This is a pool more and more limited as time passes. It is up to us to move the country forward, limit his screen time, and try to decrease the damage.

How do you drive away from someone when they’re desperately clinging to your rear bumper? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know what to do in the longer-term to put this bizarre person behind us. It’s a matter of getting things done. Administer the vaccine. Escape from the pandemic. Repair the economy. Address our country’s enormous wealth disparities. Fix the tattered Affordable Care Act, and tackle climate change as if lives depend upon it. Fight for racial justice in an all-new way. 

Before those goals are sought, we must retain our focus on the damage that Donald Trump will continue to cause between now and inauguration. We are using our phenomenal organizing skill to put Georgia in play on January 5 hoping to take advantage of dissension in the Georgia Republican ranks. You don’t get 80 million votes for your candidate and then stop.

Even now that Mitch McConnell has called the election, the damage to the democracy being caused by Trump is on the shoulders of the Republican leadership in the Senate. It was they that enabled Trump to advance his lies about fraud all the way from November 3 to the electoral college vote on December 14. They believed Trump would stop once the Supreme Court refused to hear his case. Since McConnell and Cornyn and Thune know Trump this expectation does not qualify as rational. Children waiting for Santa Claus to come have a stronger basis for their belief.

Trump’s current destruction is concentrated in three areas:

First, the fraudulent claims of election rigging and the ascendancy of Sidney Powell send a signal worldwide that we are not currently a beacon for the fair and peaceful transfer of democratic power. Imagine being an American diplomat somewhere in the world trying to talk a military leader into honoring the vote of his country’s citizens. Will our country sanction him after he tells made up stories about their voting machines?

Second, Trump’s last month has seen several actions by the Department of the Interior to expedite mining claims or decrease protections of existing wilderness areas. These projects include the transfer of public lands in Arizona for a huge copper mine, a helium drilling permit in a Utah wilderness area and open pit lithium mine in Nevada. As the New York Times outlines, a number of these actions are contestable by environmental organizations but a few have been timed to make reversal less likely. 

Third, the most significant rending of the constitution will come right at the end as Donald Trump makes a further mockery of the already mockable pardon process. Even if Trump ends up pardoning himself, and the courts uphold that pardon, it would not free him from charges that can be brought under state law in New York. Any number of miscreants from his administration will receive his pardon as will various other people who have received his attention, perhaps even Joe Exotic. There will be almost nothing that anyone can do about it except express dismay and find and keep a better president.

There are 100 things that we can do to stand in the way of the megalomaniacal person. Let’s start with these three:

1) Stop Tommy Tuberville
	There’s an argument that we should want an up or down vote in Congress on January 6 on whether to overturn the results of the electoral college which selected Joe Biden for President. This will be unsuccessful and will create enmity in the Republican party for several years. That’s why Mitch McConnell doesn’t want the vote to happen and why he’s trying to achieve a unanimous Republican caucus to prevent it. To have a vote at all requires at least one senator to join a small group home of especially disgruntled Republicans members of the House. Donald Trump has found new Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville who probably knows less about the constitution than he does. Tuberville may be willing to bring this matter to a vote. He shouldn’t because it’s just one more American trip through a garbage dump. We have had enough of that.  Email Tommy Tuberville and tell him that America wants him to do the right thing. He doesn't have an office yet since he won't be a senator till January so let's reach him at contact@tommyforsenate.com.
2) Win the Mining Battles One at a Time
	For decades the Natural Resources Defense Council has been the leading litigant on federal lands management. They are on the front lines of defense in stopping Trump’s new efforts to open up mining in protected areas. Now is a good time to sign up for their information briefs and to give them whatever financial boost is possible.
3) Do the Next Best Thing to Stopping Trump's Pardons
	There is no way to rescind presidential pardon powers. However there is a way to make our new President more successful. Give Joe Biden the Senate majority by winning the two seats in Georgia. The state has been flooded with money. At this point pick a smaller organization working hard with limited resources. A great choice is Mi Familia Vota seeking to expand Latino turnout.

In less than a month Joe Biden will be president and Kamala Harris will be vice president. We all did that together and we’re not close to being done. 

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#2: Getting the Truth Down From the Scaffold

This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

We will be sharing these messages every two weeks by eblast and on blog, Our Unfinished Work. Please click here to be added to our email list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can also read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement.

It is too easy to fall into jibes about banana Republicans. It is more essential to see the continued challenge to the integrity of the election process as a huge problem for America, and one that isn’t going to go away soon. It tarnishes our democracy worldwide, and diminishes the trust of the American voter.

Trump’s reaction was foreshadowed well before the election. He said that either he would win, or that he would maintain that he was cheated out of winning. On this front, as historian Henry Adams (grandson of President John Quincey Adams) said, “I expected the worse, and it was worse than I expected.” Much more disheartening is that Republican Senators have gone AWOL. More than a month after the election, they have settled on the view that Trump has the “right” to pursue his increasingly outrageous ventures. Roger Stone is now claiming that North Korea delivered fake ballots to Maine harbors in the dead of night.

The shameful thing is that Marco Rubio and Lamar Alexander and Susan Collins and John Cornyn all know that Joe Biden is the president-elect. They know that putting Rudy Giuliani out there day after day has been a disorienting, democracy-damaging disaster, halted only by Giuliani contracting the virus. They will not honor their own oath of office for fear of retribution from Trump. Perhaps Henry Adams was foreshadowing Alexander, now nearing the end of his notable career, enabling Trump daily and gnashing his teeth at night. “It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. It was always the good men that did the most harm.” Perhaps not always, but if we all know that Trump is a con man, what does that make those who will not expose the con?

In the meantime, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are putting together a very encouraging and diverse team of senior advisers and heads of Cabinet agencies. Every day brings evidence that adults are in the room. Because it has to happen, a bi-partisan stimulus package will be agreed to in the upcoming week. Tellingly, this deal was made possible by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Manchin’s corralling of five Republican Senators represents good news and bad news for the next two years, if not the next four. Whether or not Democrats take back the Senate in the Georgia runoff elections of January 5, Manchin is showing that Mitch McConnell will not have the stranglehold that he had during much of the Obama presidency. McConnell will have a difficult time getting Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney to regularly walk the plank to support the goals of a Trump dominated party. 

This bodes well for much of Biden’s aims, but not for his most ambitious goals. Because he can issue executive orders and send John Kerry around the world, Biden will be able to claim a leadership position for the United States on climate change. But, Congress will not pass anything remotely tracking the scope of the Green New Deal. Similarly, even with Bernie Sanders wanting more, the health care agenda will be fixing the tattered Affordable Care Act and expanding its coverage.

With or without Manchin’s bi-partisan efforts, it would be glorious to claim the two Georgia seats and push McConnell away from the podium. Last minute donations can go to the turnout increasing New Georgia Project, which is doorbelling. Those resisters not yet signed up to do calls, texts and postcards can find a home at Common Power. 

This focus on Georgia reminds that beyond the Biden/Harris legislative/executive agenda for the next two years will be a hyper-focused nationwide battle over election systems and rules. This will be elevated by Republican refusals to accept the election results in six states in particular and everywhere else in general. The venue for false claims about large scale fraud will shift from the courts back to state legislatures. Terrified of Trump, Republican legislators and many of the Governors will put truth on the scaffold.

To lessen the spread of the virus, this year several states made it easier to vote by mail. In every instance, Republicans will try to change the conditions under which mail in ballots can be sought. In addition they will seek to decrease early voting, reduce polling locations, and add to voter identification requirements. Who knew it was okay to have a party obsessed with suppressing voting? They are trying to lower the turnout of all people who do not look like them. We can help make certain they do not succeed by doing these three things.

1) Find a Home for Your Voting Rights Advocacy
	You can’t be an effective voting rights advocate without getting regular information about our progress and what you can do to help. Hedrick’s Smith’s Reclaim the American Dream has a resource guide to national (and some regional) organizations focused on these issues. Stacey Abrams’ Georgia-based Fair Fight is organizing volunteers in each state and would like you to sign up. In most states, Indivisible chapters are focused on these issues. The national organization Vote at Home is centered entirely on mail-in voting. Beyond all of these organizations, it’s nothing but a great idea to ask a friendly state legislator who is the most effective voting rights advocate during legislative sessions.
2) Make Charles Grassley a Project
	This country badly needs a Republican United States Senator to aggressively vouch for the integrity of voting in America. It needs to be someone who has not regularly rebelled against Trump. Charles (Chuck) Grassley disappointed all of us in not blocking the Supreme Court hearings but he is nonetheless ideal. He has had good relations with Joe Biden, with whom he served for 30 years. He is retiring in two years, so Trump can’t touch him politically, and he is sore at Trump for firing Inspectors General of several Cabinet agencies. Time to send him a note and call him and ask him to use his influence to help restore the faith of voters. Use this form for your comments and call his Des Moines office at 515-288-1145. In a polite way, let them feel the intensity of your concern.
3) Guarantee Our Nationwide Capacity to Litigate
	The last two years have seen notable victories in state and federal courts by those fighting voter suppression and supporting the efforts of states to increase mail in voting and access to the polls. No one does this work better than the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. Even without your financial assistance, they will keep you posted on their full docket of cases. Checks from all of us will make them even stronger.

We secured 80 million votes on November 3 and we needed all of them. We worked hard for all of those votes. We will keep working that hard because that is what it has taken and will take to get Trump and Trumpism behind us.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#1 First Ways to Tackle Our Unfinished Work

This is the first of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

We will be sharing these messages every two weeks by eblast and on blog, Our Unfinished Work. Please click here to be added to our email list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can also read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement.

Talking about, thinking about and celebrating the Biden-Harris victory is not even close to getting old. Joe Biden has handled the last three weeks of Trump’s slanders of America with grace. Each staff and cabinet appointment is a part of our national restoration. Each is just the first of a thousand steps Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take. On the national security front, Joe Biden has already sent the signal that we are eager to renew global alliances. Somewhere out there Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau are smiling.

We’re smiling too, since it isn’t smart to move too quickly away from this celebration. We found Biden and Harris ten million more votes than have ever been cast for a presidential candidate. We won because our efforts were monumental. We need to remember that fact because it strengthens our resolve and confidence for our incomplete work, which will require the same relentlessness we just displayed. Because of all that is at stake, we will make it a bit of an obsession.

Of course, our list starts with the January 5 runoff elections of two United States Senators in Georgia. We have a solid chance and having the Senate majority is a big prize. Before we even think of what we can do in Georgia, we need to establish some rules for ourselves. Ten Commandments have proven to be a stretch for America, so let’s start with three.

First, there is hardly any political instinct more self-defeating than our ongoing dismay that a lot of people voted for Donald Trump. From the outset, Trump was grossly unsuited for the Presidency. We saw a man who was all about himself, indifferent to the needs of the people, incurious about how government works, and insulting most everyone when the mood struck, which was pretty much always. The fact that this is obvious to us, that this was all a con, increases our consternation that there were millions who bought in to supporting him. However, we can stop generalizing right now about who these voters are collectively (QAnon! Evangelicals!) because they aren’t a single thing collectively. We know we can win without them because we just did. But, if we don’t want Trumpism to be a danger in the future, and we do want narrower divides among Americans, we can do a more serious job of sorting out who’s not with us.

Second, we won’t win two and four years from now unless we maintain our big tent. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris understand that depending upon the issue, it is difficult to distinguish between progressives and liberals. Neither word involves the awarding of shiny badges for exceptional advocacy. Disagreeing passionately over the most desirable course of action should be seen as a central part of who we are. Let’s bring it on, and let’s stop worrying quite as much about incorrectly being called socialists. The people who call us names to seek political advantage are not fact checking every day. Let’s worry more about fixing the economy, stopping the virus, tackling climate change and expanding health care. If we do a good job of all these things, the labels will take care of themselves.

Third, let’s focus on our demographic destiny. Non-white voters will continue to increase as a percentage of all voters. All of the attention to the Cuban-American vote in Florida has masked the fact that over 2/3 of all Latino voters nationally supported Biden-Harris. Latino voters were instrumental in the victories In Arizona and Nevada, and the increase in voting by African-Americans more than explains our margins of victory in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

All three are pillars upon which we can build. We have resolved to get to work right away. Georgia is there as a prize, if we can go get it.

On the hard to get Georgia side, Democrats in Georgia have had a difficult time generating voter turnout in runoff elections. Of course, that was before Stacey Abrams made it her own personal job. Obviously there are a lot of people working by her side, but if you want a fair fight, there isn’t anything like her organization Fair Fight. 

Further, Republican Candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are trying to make the race about resisting the socialistic impulses of Joe Biden. The problem there is that it is hard for voters to see that he has any. Further, Loeffler and her primary opponent Doug Collins tacked even further to the right as November neared, emphasizing who would have the blindest loyalty to a re-elected Donald Trump. That left Loeffler and Purdue a little more vulnerable with centrist voters.

The biggest problem for the Republican ticket is the internecine war within the Georgia Republican party over the ethical election management behavior of their Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Loeffler and Perdue, undoubtedly drawing upon their deep moral reservoirs, have called for Raffensperger to resign, for his error in not finding a way for Trump to win the hand recount. Some Trumpists have called for their loyalists to sit out the election because Loeffler and Perdue have been insufficiently rabid about throwing out Raffensberger. In addition, Trump so far has shown little interest in the race. If he does get more involved, it will be all about him, which is not such a good thing for Loeffler and Perdue.

So, we have a solid chance here. We should do these three things forthwith:

1) Recognize a Profile in Courage
	The Republican Secretary of State just did something that is awesomely difficult today. Not only did he stand up for the integrity of the Georgia election he called out the unethical behavior of Senator Lindsay Graham when Graham phoned to intervene. Email your personal thank you to soscontact@sos.ga.gov.
2) Disburse Piggy Bank Balance
	Money is pouring into Georgia. It’s all about finding a good place to send the last of your 2020 campaign dollars. One important option is sending to Fair Fight, where Stacey Abrams will take 1/3 for her organizing efforts, and send 1/3 each to Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. There are other good options. The New Georgia Project is focused on younger voters. The activists at Mi Familia Vota who were so indispensable in Nevada and Arizona are all in on the effort to boost the Latino vote in Georgia, especially in the Atlanta area. Here's the link to the special fund to boost their Georgia mobilization.
3) Use Our Core Tools
	Many resistors have settled into regular involvement with organizations that do phone banking, send personalized postcards, and text targeted voters. For those unaffiliated volunteers who have time and a hankering to unseat Mitch McConnell as majority leader, Vote Forward comes highly recommended. They are all set to help you send handwritten letters to selected Georgians.

So there it is. If you think this is difficult, just think how hard it would be if we had lost on November 3. We can keep on doing this, and our world will be the better for it.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#104: Trump Won’t Be Living in Our House Anymore

The movement of which we are all a part will restore a wounded America's promise. Because our agenda has not been completely fulfilled, we will be continuing this blog under the rubric of “Our Unfinished Work". This new approach will be shorter and will deal every two weeks with a single issue or challenge. Each time it will include specific action steps we can carry out. Please stay with me as we protect and take advantage of our gains and build toward the fall of 2022. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages.

You can read analyses of when and how Donald Trump will ultimately acknowledge the impending presidency of Joe Biden. You can review Senate scenarios. You can check in on arguments between Democrats, thankfully focused for the most part on future public policies. Or, you could do the right thing, set all those things aside for a minute, and then let your heart nearly burst with gladness and relief. Let your wounded soul heal a bit. Celebrate. Do not permit yourself to move away from this moment of victory too quickly.

Refugees, we are saying goodbye to Stephen Miller, whose idea was to exact maximum pain upon you. Students, Betsy Devos is exiting, after not supporting public education in any way. Americans who don’t think the Justice Department should be a presidential law firm, say so long to Bill Barr. Jared Kushner, we are thrilled you are leaving but we will hear more about how you unsuccessfully deployed your college friends as the front line in the virus battle. Mike Pompeo, soon Trudeau, Merkel and Macron will not be obliged to return your calls. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, all of those executive orders you enforced will become unenforceable.

Most of all, Donald Trump, we have no illusions that your legendary mean-spiritedness will cease, or that you will develop new allegiance to the truth. You will continue your sullying and bullying. We know you will have to be watched, and opposed, and fact-checked, and we are definitely up to that task. We are your worst nightmare. We are not going to go away. We are happy that you aren’t going to be living in our House any more.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris emphasize that possibility is the word that guides us going forward. Week by week, we will need the same relentlessness that made us successful on November 3. And, to follow their leadership, we must fully understand what we won and what we must still secure.

What we have already won is huge. Soon after his inauguration, Joe Biden will reconnect to NATO, recommit to the Paris Accords, rejoin the World Health Organization and rescind current travel bans placed on Muslim countries. From that point on, he will be our leader in ending the virus and its grip on America, and the resultant rebuilding of the economy. He will be the appointer of judges, and the creator and sustainer of global alliances. He will be the manager of thousands of talented people who will return federal agencies to their mandates. Notably, he will take over the executive powers and fashion the executive orders which have been the province of Trump. On that front, in a few months he will undo virtually all that Trump has done.

With regard to the anticipated behavior of the Senate, it is way too early for pundits to grant Mitch McConnell superpowers. Regardless of who wins the two runoff races in Georgia, McConnell’s role in 2015 is an imperfect analogy to what will emerge in 2021. Biden will get tax policy leverage because current individual rates expire in 2025. The House speaker is Democrat Nancy Pelosi, not Republican Paul Ryan. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney are in a different position relative to their party. 

However, regardless of the Georgia results, the Senate makeup will make it impossible for Joe Biden to get anywhere near everything he wants from Congress. In these two years, he will be able to expand the Affordable Care Act and (with the help of executive orders), significantly address climate change. Neither of these two efforts will be as expansive as Biden had hoped. 

These battles will put immense pressure on the 2022 elections, where there will be 34 Senate races, including 22 Republican seats. Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania have already announced their retirement, and Republicans will also have to defend their seats in North Carolina (Richard Burr) and Wisconsin (Ron Johnson.) The map advantages the Democrats, though off year elections usually favor the party that doesn’t hold the presidency.

Buoyed by defeating Trump, and by the many things Biden and Harris can do whether or not Congress has an expansive agenda, resistors are ready to continue the fight. We can start by addressing our own understandable angst over how anyone (let alone 70 million people) could buy into Donald Trump’s con.

The problem with “This makes me feel awful about America” is that it doesn’t lead to any productive path. Trump has had his own personal television channel in a nation glued to screens. He surfaced racism, homophobia, misogyny and countless conspiracy theories to attract a scary amount of voters. Trump has also accessed voter fears in these four areas which are worth recognizing, however painfully. We are better off remembering these currents than ignoring them. We will win and hold the Senate sooner, and occupy the Presidency longer. 

• As pro-choicers we don’t have anything to do about it, but Trump had a number of voters whose support depends entirely upon the candidate being against the protections provided by Roe v. Wade. These voters are willing to ignore all other candidate characteristics, as they just proved.

• We want to dismiss the “socialism!” claims out of hand, especially in their bizarre application to Joe Biden. Liberals and progressive take to social media and mock the claims, wondering whether Republicans remember they embrace “socialist” programs like Medicare. This exchange is not going away, but we can improve our communication on the obvious and meaningful differences between American progressive social policy and taxation policy and the practices of Northern European countries. Many Democrats love Bernie and the party very much needs the progressive wing, but the fact that he has proclaimed himself a “democratic socialist”, is bound to make these discussions more complex.

• Trump has tapped into the decline in trust in government that has been an issue since Ronald Reagan ran against the government in his own presidential re-election campaign. Trump could not have been a worse manager of government. His mismanagement of the virus took him down, but it is still good to remember that Democrats rarely seize on stories of how they have made individual governmental programs more effective.

• Most subject to change than the three above issues is that many voters in industrial states are mourning the decline in family wage jobs for high school graduates. These jobs are sorely missed in many a community. Joe Biden is seen as responding to this problem, but other Democrats are not, which helps create an avenue for Trump’s fake populism. Even though Trump fleeced the same people in his tax “reform” this is still ground that must be taken.

As we navigate all of these matters, there is nothing sweeter than getting more votes than the other side, whatever the margin. That is what we can do on January 5 in Georgia. The two Republican candidates are spending their time attacking the election management of the Republican Secretary of State, who is being defended by the Republican attorney general. Meanwhile, their campaign themes up until now, have been working hard for President Trump. Such themes from the past will require revision. Besides, why would anyone want to bet against Stacey Abrams? Let’s stand with her by doing these three things:

1) Support Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight
	Ever since voter suppression cost her the Georgia governorship in 2018, Stacey Abrams has been delivering. There are countless other heroes that helped Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take Georgia, but none as indispensable as she was. She said we could do it when we hardly thought it possible. The Georgia Senatorial runoff elections are on January 5. Rev. Raphael Warnock can beat appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler, who just survived a bitter primary. Jon Ossoff barely trailed incumbent David Perdue on November 3. Why not start this effort out right? Especially since the Georgia voter registration deadline is December 7, and especially if there is still money left in your donation jar, send a big socially distanced hug to Stacey Abrams by donating today.
2) Put Yourself on Raphael Warnock’s List
	Jon Ossoff has done a good job of getting the attention of supporters from around the country. We need to get strong support for Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior minister at Martin Luther King’s church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta. Rev. Warnock led the campaign for Georgia to participate in Medicaid expansion, thus delivering health care to several hundred thousand more Georgians. Unbelievably, one of the reasons why Republican Senators have not congratulated their old colleague Joe Biden is that they are afraid that it would cause Trump to be less enthusiastic in campaigning for their Georgia candidates. They think they might lose these two seats! One more reason to sign up to help Rev. Warnock today. Note his “Emergency Runoff Fund”.
3) Send a Signal to GSA Administrator Evelyn Murphy
	This is a big moment in the career of General Services Administration director Evelyn Murphy, who so far has been unwilling to sign the paperwork so the transition process can continue. She has a statutory duty to proceed but so far is unwilling to face the wrath of Donald Trump. Join Move On in petitioning her to do the right thing. And, email their media office at press@gsa.gov and ask when their agency is going to put their ethical requirements as public servants ahead of politics.

For four years we worked so hard to get Donald Trump out of our nation’s House. True to prediction, “The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.” If we put our shoulder back to the wheel right away, there will be more to come.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#103: The Harder the Conflict the More Glorious the Triumph

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, leading up to the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.

This is the next to last of a series of 104 missives, filed every two weeks since the calamitous election of November 2016. In this house, we listened to classical music for a week after that election before we could bear to turn on the morning news. Then we decided that writing about the path forward and providing specific action steps every two weeks would help us play our own role in the resistance.

Word of mouth has given this blog nearly 2000 followers! We are a small part of the countless activist efforts around the country, mushrooming from the initial efforts of organizations like Indivisible, Swing Left, and Move On. We are all acquitting ourselves. Early on, many of us turned from despair and each became a part of a gigantic effort to have November 3, 2020 bring a fresh outcome and reclaim the idea of America. We are proud of our relentlessness during what has turned out to be an awful time. 

We are not going to be distracted by predicting an outcome. We feel good about our prospects and are eager to roll up our sleeves to repair this country, which was in need of serious work even before the Trump debacle began.

It is still about keeping our equilibrium. Without getting ahead of ourselves, we can be pleased at the levels of early voting in swing states. High turnout works to our advantage, so it is fair to be happy that Donald Trump, through his voter suppression efforts, has become the inadvertent chair of our Get out the Vote campaign. Given his past lack of verisimilitude, voters aren’t buying any of Trump’s attacks on Joe Biden, and they know we haven’t turned the corner in battling the virus. Thanks to a demonstration of integrity by the Wall Street Journal (who considered and rejected the story) they aren’t buying Trump’s false claim that Joe Biden benefited financially from Hunter Biden’s international contracts. Trump had been counting upon that as an October surprise. 

There are multiple paths for Biden and Harris to get to 270 electoral votes. It’s thought by many that we won’t know the outcome on election night, but that is no certainty. Yes, our key states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will have been delayed in the certification and counting of mail in ballots by their state laws. However, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina all certify their mail in ballots as they arrive, guaranteeing that their election night totals will be meaningful. The Biden/Harris ticket showing well in one or more of those states would be terrific election evening news. And of course we will be keeping an eye on Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas as well.

Of course, getting the Senate majority is fundamental too, all the more so because of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court (which hopefully will cost Lindsay Graham his Senate seat). Here the important thing to remember is that there will not be 50 Democratic votes in the Senate to expand the size of the Supreme Court, regardless of Biden’s support or opposition.

Where court expansion comes into the picture is in tandem with another Democratic tool. If we gain the majority, Majority Leader Charles Schumer will increase the likelihood that Democrats will select the “nuclear option” which would change the rules to eliminate the 60-vote requirement to close debate. (This requirement was already eliminated by Harry Reid for federal judicial appointments and by Mitch McConnell for Supreme Court). The Democratic majority would start by using both court expansion and the nuclear option as a threat. They are hoping their prospective use of the nuclear option will generate lower resistance by Republican Senators to major legislation on health care and climate change.

On many legal fronts, control by Democrats of the Presidency, the House and the Senate will also enable them to fix any court-identified “defects” in the Affordable Care Act or other laws targeted by the increasingly conservative Supreme Court. Unfortunately, this repair option will be more difficult and complex in response to the Court’s interpretation of equal protection under the law, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Protection of the LGBQT community is threatened by the narrow interpretations of “originalist” judges. Whatever unfavorable rulings that emerge may be difficult for Congress to respond to through statutory changes. Eventually, we could end up requiring a stronger (but very difficult to achieve) constitutional amendment to protect previous legal gains. Moreover, as much as Republican Senator Susan Collins stresses otherwise, these justices do not see Roe v Wade as “settled law”.

So, the battles of the future will be intense. The first step is to win back the Presidency and the Senate by doing these three things:

1) Make a Nostalgia Filled Contribution to Theresa Greenfield
	Remember back to the days we you were sending more money than you planned to political candidates? With your help, Act Blue handled $1.5 billion in Democratic donations in the third quarter. If you are interested in revisiting old times with one more click, choose Theresa Greenfield, battling in Iowa against incumbent Joni Ernst. One of our Senatorial candidates is going to win or lose by a few thousand votes, and it would be a horrible thing to have happen to Theresa.
2) Don’t Miss Out on the Last Week’s Campaigning
	There is still campaign work being done around the country, including the all-important “curing” of ballots, which is helping voters correct the errors on their rejected ballots. Here is a full list of things you can be doing from the star activist Bill McClain: Ballot curing is an opportunity to make a difference in close, swing state elections. Click here to volunteer with Swing Left. Faithful America is running a series of textbanking events: join anytime between 2 - 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday (Oct 28) this week. They will likely announce additional shifts later in the week, too. Text young voters with NextGen Share the Vote.org link on social media and with friends in swing states. It makes it easy to find voting info, polling locations, etc. in every state.
3) Take Care of Yourself
	Go for a socially distanced walk. Take stock of your mental health. Lean on friends.

Thomas Paine reminds that “the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.” After this is over, if it is over, we can all think about what we have learned and what we can do next for our country. 

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington