#14: When it Was 2021, It Was a Very Good Year

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.  

Please email me 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, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks. If you would like to participate in a monthly working section of activists please email dsh347@gmail.com. The Cockeyed Activists meet the last Sundays of the month, the next meeting will be July 25 at 7pm PDT.

As Democrats skirmish with Democrats over the infrastructure bill and what comes after, it is good to remember three elements of the good news for our country that did not seem possible a year ago:

1. Joe Biden is off to an excellent start, getting the pandemic under control, restoring America worldwide, passing the American Rescue Plan using the 50-vote budget reconciliation process and utilizing executive orders to undo much of Trump’s damage.
2. The bi-partisan infrastructure bill called the American Jobs Plan is still slated to pass this fall. It authorizes an unprecedented level of investment in public transit, railroads, highways, bridges, broadband, electric vehicle charging stations, water supply systems, and the electricity grid. It is the biggest investment in public transit in our history.
3. Joe Biden never expected that the final infrastructure bill would include the “human infrastructure” elements in his original proposal. Several of these measures will be a part of a second budget reconciliation process which will likely emerge as the American Families Plan, focused on education and health care. Joe Manchin has already agreed to provide the 50th vote, depending on the scope of the plan. 

Joe Biden was the man with the plan from the outset. Focused as he has been on ending the pandemic and restoring the economy, he has also intended not to waste a good crisis. That is, he has used the national public health emergency as a jumping off point for bolder, broader proposals to move America forward. His poll numbers are strong, and Republican efforts to paint him as a socialist are laughable.

Integrated with these country-changing policy efforts is a political plan for the off-year elections. Normally, the off-year races are unkind to sitting presidents. Biden aims to change that. Republican Senators are retiring in North Carolina, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania. They are expected to retire in Wisconsin and Iowa, and we are expecting to be competitive against Marco Rubio in Florida.

The above administrative and legislative actions demonstrate Biden cares about middle class and blue-collar families, once the bulwark of the Democratic vote in the Midwest and the Northeast. In addition to attending to this part of his electorate. Biden hopes that Trump will provide the same assistance in these targeted races that he did in helping us get Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock elected in 2020.

In the first six months of his presidency, Joe Biden has gotten it and gotten it done. It has been a very good year, with these features:

Accomplished by Executive and Administrative Action

• re-entered Paris Climate Accord and seeking its expansion.
• re-established the NATO partnership and resumed leadership within the G-7.
• vaccinated America, with 327 million doses administered so far.
• overturned Trump executive orders on environmental regulation and in countless other areas.

Accomplished Through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (using the reconciliation process, where only 50 votes are necessary), which:

• funded a new round of stimulus payments
• extended unemployment benefits
• provided assistance to the states reeling from the economic downturn
• provided a child tax credit which can reduce children in poverty by almost 50%
• offered other pandemic related aid

Bipartisan Proposals likely to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate and become law in some form after action by the House:

• infrastructure bill including large increases for public transit, passenger railroads, electric vehicle charging stations; water system replacement of old pipes; electric grid broadband; and projects to decrease the impact of climate change
• policing bill, the framework of which has been agreed to by Republican Senator Tim Scott, Democratic Senator Cory Booker, and Democratic Representative Karen Bass
• new investment on technological competitiveness with China, emphasizing research and development

There are things missing from the list. The For the People Act will not pass. It was always a symbolic effort to underscore Republic perfidiousness in Georgia, Texas and elsewhere. It was mostly a good deal, although federalizing elections would have been a bit scary if we had it during the last four years. We will not get any legislative action protecting Dreamers, or accomplish even the slightest bit of immigration reform. There is new money to fight climate change, but very little regulatory improvement.

We are in immensely better shape that we were last year. We need to get ourselves some more House and Senate members on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. As a first step in that effort, let us keep working toward free and fair elections:

1) Hold Accountable Those Who Would Trash the Constitution
	Unbelievably, 141 House members voted on January 6 to de-certify the election results of one or more states. These House members have joined in Trump’s big lie every step of the way, and most continue to parrot fictions about state election processes, threatening permanent damage to election integrity. Several leading American corporations have taken note of this threat to democracy and have frozen their political contributions to these House members. Not Toyota, which announced that they support candidates “based on their position on issues that are important to the auto industry and the company” and would not make decisions based upon the certification votes. Call Toyota’s public affairs manager Carley Cesaretti at 469-292-8754 and tell her how much more you expect of Toyota.
2) Use Shareholder Actions to Monitor Corporate Political Actions
	There has been more success lately in shareholder efforts to cast more light on corporate political shenanigans. A good way to keep track of our progress on this front is following the efforts of the Center for Political Accountability, which attends to these matters on our behalf. Sign up here:
3) Stand with Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders
	During the worst of the pandemic, Donald Trump fueled racist attacks on Asian-Americans. According to a Pew survey, 1/3 of Asian-Americans are now afraid of being assaulted. We can stand up for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as a political force by setting aside a portion of our political contributions budget for the AAPI Super Pac, which is working to increase political involvement. Success has been impressive. There was an 84% increase between 2016 and 2020 in the AAPI vote in Georgia. Nationally, 2/3 of the AAPI vote went to Joe Biden.

You can keep a bad man down. This summer is the time to accelerate our political efforts, setting the groundwork for 2022 success. Even with Joe Biden having a good year, we cannot take a single thing for granted.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#13: Activists, Please Get Back Up Off the Couch

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. 

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, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks.

Donald Trump is finished, don’t you think? He is tired, focused only on his increasingly bizarre lies about election fraud, and bored with the actual challenges undertaken by government. He requires a higher level of sycophantic behavior from his staff than ever before, which is setting the bar very high. He actively socializes only with those who will kiss his ring. He is over-leveraged, facing a billion dollars of cash calls to protect his properties. A Manhattan grand jury has been empaneled and could return an indictment for tax fraud. He is done, no?

No, he is not, at least not necessarily. Overconfidence is our monstrous nemesis. Ages ago, we underestimated Trump when he came down the elevator and after the Access Hollywood tapes. Ever since, we have been trying to fathom how voters could support him, even though all this time he has had his own television network in FOX. But since 74 million voters did just last year, we are obligated to take him seriously.

As Salon says, Trump is not delusional. He is a shameless, manipulative, exploitative opportunist. And those are his good points! But he has been every one of those things for quite a while, perhaps since kindergarten. We must come to the painful recognition that under certain circumstances, this human (or a dedicated apostle) could win the Presidency in 2024. Through his efforts, we could lose the Senate and House in 2022. 

The signs that this absolutely will not happen are many. 

Joe Biden is the President for times like these. His empathy is genuine and comforting. He has been the man with the plan since his election. He knew he had to make his mark in his first 100 days, and his American Rescue Plan did exactly that. The boldness of his proposals stunted the predicted battles between progressives and liberals before they emerged. His approval rating is more than 10% better than any Trump had in his four years. The reasons why Republican leaders rarely attack him directly is because voters like Biden as a human being.

In a matter of months Biden will be fairly credited with ending the pandemic. He inherited and fixed a nonfunctional vaccination program which did not come close to meeting its pledge of 20 million administered vaccines by the end of 2020. It will be close, but Biden will meet his goal of 70% of adult Americans being vaccinated by July 4. Ironically, the man who was President when vaccine development was accelerated is so busy mocking Fauci and masks that he has taken himself out of the line to receive some credit.

Perhaps most importantly, Trump and his crowd have almost nowhere to go to find more voters, which is why they work so hard on voter deception and voter suppression. Women have fled Trump by the millions not just because of what he stands for but because of the person he is. Because he will remain that person, there will be no changing their minds. Much was made of Cuban-Americans in Miami voting for Trump, but Latino voters supplied the margin of victory for Biden in Arizona and New Mexico and across the country two-thirds voted for Biden and Harris. Besides, what is it that the Republican Party stands for nowadays, besides not taxing the richest Americans and not investigating the attack on the Capitol?

Well, then, where is our vulnerability in 2022 and 2024, beyond the fact that millions of activists must re-engage?

First, our 2020 victory margins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were modest. Even with Joe Biden being seen as the friend of the working man and woman, Trump still has some traction among workers in the manufacturing sector. Of course, much of this is based upon falsehoods, since faux-populist Trump’s tax bill ignored these workers in favor or their employers. Both the American Rescue Plan and what will end up in a bi-partisan infrastructure bill are intended to reach out to these voters, who had asked what the Democratic agenda could do for them, and who thus have received a robust answer. However, more than a few manufacturing workers wonder which Democrats beyond Biden are thinking about their place in the economy.

Second, voter suppression threatens our victories in Georgia and Arizona. As much as Trump is trying to litigate past outcomes in these states, his party is more focused on trying to influence future outcomes. Their impact on the total vote is small relative to the massive voting rights abuses of the past, including literacy tests and poll taxes. However, the intent of these laws is at the highest level of malevolence--- trying to sway an election by keeping minorities from casting their votes.

Third, we still participate in a language of exclusion. An egregious recent public discourse is the narrative fed by the media that most everyone in the country is deciding whether to return to their office or commute from home. More than half of American workers did not occupy an office in the first place. Those who do not have the option to work from home might be wondering whether the rest of us have noticed them building houses, making things, fixing the plumbing, repairing the car, preparing meals, stocking the grocery shelves, providing care for or educating our children, and countless other jobs.

The anti-Trump movement that took back the House, the Senate and Presidency remains unfinished. Its present sleepiness and overconfidence are unacceptable. It is time for activists to get off the couch to turn back to what we know how to do. Let’s do these three things:

1) Become a Cockeyed Activist
	Many of us are are out there, feeling positive about the future but still wary and unwilling to let up on our collective efforts of the past four years. In addition to the several Zoom presentations this missive has sponsored, we are instituting a monthly hour-long session for such active activists. Each will include new insights on what is transpiring, and recommendations from all participants on paths to take, organizations we must boost, and ways to be our most effective. We will do all of this on the last Sunday of each month at 7 pm Pacific time --- June 27, July 25, August 22. Send an email to dsh347@gmail.com if you plan to participate as often as you can.
2) Take Back This Senate Seat
	The off-year elections are not normally the time in which the party of the President expands its hold, but the fact that the Senate is tied 50-50 makes it an anomalous year. Offering more hope is the certainty that Republican Senators are retiring in Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and the likelihood that they will retire in Iowa and Wisconsin. These are all winnable states, and all have excellent Democratic candidates who are emerging. One such candidate will play a special role in making sure the needs of workers in manufacturing companies are articulated and advanced. This is Tim Ryan of Ohio, now a House member, whose candidacy will resonate far beyond his home state. On the House floor, Ryan told Republicans to “stop talking about Dr. Seuss” and start focusing on helping working men and women. Boost him, please.
3) Do Not Forget This November
	The best way to gain momentum for 2022 is to remember that our huge successes in Virginia in 2019 need to be replicated this November, just five months from now. To make certain we will maintain our majority in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, Swing Left is wisely and helpfully targeting ten races we can support. 100% of our donations go to these candidates.

Given that participating in the American political process can sap one’s energy, there is nothing wrong with taking a break once in a while. But let’s not overdo it and quit while we are ahead. Let’s all of us get back to work.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

# 12: Squelch Trump’s Big Lie

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 steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020. 

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, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks.

Threats to democracy can be damnably complex, or even intractable. The Big Lie is neither. Donald Trump contends that the election he lost by 7 million votes was stolen. This very simple Big Lie puts democracy at risk in the United States, diminishes the integrity of future elections, and casts a shadow over the peaceful transfer of power that is our hallmark. Internationally, it extinguishes our beacon.

Even from this man, it is reprehensible and contemptible. A similar claim from any past presidential candidate of any party would have been immediately dismissed. We are at this point for two reasons. First the Big Lie has been monetized by Trump, Fox News commentators, and numerous Republican candidates. Second, the retribution visited upon Republicans who refuse to live the lie is swift and sure.

Most Republican elected officials have now gone way beyond ignoring Trump’s impeachable offenses. They know the lie will diminish us all. They know their complicit actions are craven, but they nonetheless consent to this dance with the devil, whose grimy embrace will never be unlocked.

Still, the defeat of the Big Lie will depend largely upon other Republicans who can not abide by it. Since the lie is fed daily and is too dangerous to be ignored, our response must be daily as well. Let’s do these seven things now to defend our country. Please share these steps with your friends so that they will take action too!

1) Yes, You Must Support Liz Cheney
	No one is asking you to select Liz Cheney as your favorite person, or to ignore innumerable past political sins. What is compelling is the answer to this question. What is in it for her politically in taking on Donald Trump over the election lie and the January 6 insurrection? The answer is NOTHING. There is no chance that she will ultimately be granted political rewards for her stand. Still, she is not going to blink. Her principles on this issue are the best thing we have going. There will be no viable Democratic candidate, so she has a chance to save her seat in Wyoming against a Trump-endorse candidate. If she is able to get herself reelected, it will be a huge victory over Trump and over the lie itself. Her ability to do that depends upon her having sufficient campaign resources give to a conservative Republican today.
2) Protect the Truth in Maricopa County
	At this point, the epicenter of the election integrity war is Maricopa County, Arizona. The Republican controlled State Senate is teaming with the “consulting firm” CyberNinjas to do a third recount of ballots sans procedures and with an eagle eye out for bamboo traces. This is to be sure that Southeast Asian operatives did not dump tens of thousands of ballots on unsuspecting Maricopan election officials, a QAnon theory. The Republican controlled Maricopa County Commission is fighting back against this madness, Republican board chair Jack Sellers says the Senate is “making an attempt at legitimatizing a grift disguised as an audit”. Call Jack Sellers’ office at 602-506-1776 and ask his staff to pass on your admiration for his integrity.
3) Keep Posted on the New Republican Movement
	Whether or not you have ever been a Republican, or ever hope to be one, it is useful to understand who is behind the Call for a New American Renewal. These are 150 Republicans including former Governors, members of Congress and Senators. They aren’t forming a third party and instead are trying to start a principled movement. We wish them all the best with that. Send them your email to keep track of them. If you are not thus sated, listen in on their huge June 16 Town Hall.

4) Maintain Your Election Law Grounding
	You can’t keep tabs on the Big Lie and all the associated smaller lies without a reliable source regarding the truth. Following the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University is the very best way of understanding all the ways in which we are pushing back against the voter suppression that the Big Lie is feeding. They provide state by state analysis and are an indispensable litigator. You can give them your financial support or just sign up for their reports.
5) Expect More from John Kasich
	John Kasich has completed his two terms as Governor of Ohio, and he is not ever going to the Republican candidate for President. From this point forward, he will either influence the American agenda with his credibility and his insights, or will fail to do so. It is Kasich who should be speaking out on behalf of Liz Cheney. It is Kasich who should be making it a daily point to call out the Big Lie. Time to email him at info@johnkasich.com and ask him what he is waiting for. Remind him his country is at risk and that he could be doing something about it. He cares about his legacy.
6) Energize the Corporate Community
	Even the modest actions that companies have taken to fight voter suppression laws in Georgia, Texas and Florida have terrified Republican operatives. Some companies have already pledged to withhold financial support from members of Congress who continued their support of the Big Lie on January 6 even as our Capitol was under attack. This movement needs greater traction. Find the email address of the CEO of the largest corporation in your state and write her or him a note asking how they intend to fight the Big Lie induced voter suppression. If a leader of this movement is going to emerge, it will be Kenneth Chenault, the former CEO at American Express. Chenault was behind the best and most important joint corporate letter so far. He is very difficult to reach. Call his venture capital firm General Catalyst in New York at 212-775-4000 and tell him this country needs his continued help.

7) Improvise and Promote Your Own Big Lie Combating Strategies
	Share this post with your friends! Write to this missive on other things you plan to do to fight to Big Lie and we will pass on your ideas. Examine the Lincoln Project and see if they warrant your support, especially for ads that expose the Big Lie. Carefully consider that principled Congressperson Adam Kinzinger has started a PAC to support Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, always remembering that we would prefer to have those seats for Nancy Pelosi.  Also, keep an eye on the Dominion lawsuit, which will expose multiple elements of the lie and force Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and others to pay damages. Watch the Fox News debacle and look for an opening. If it ever transpires that they are going to have to pay for the lie (even in advertising revenue) they will 1) flee from it, and 2) pretend they never said it.

1)    There are Biden’s policies to be passed, and election campaigns to advance. Val Demings is running to unseat Marco Rubio in Florida! None of these adventures will go as well as we want them to if we let the Big Lie stand out there moldering, sapping our country’s strength.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#11: Time to Go Out and Win Ourselves Six Senate Seats

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. 

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, Our Unfinished Work, every three weeks.

It has gone better than planned. After he was elected President of the United States, Joe Biden expected he was going to have to settle for 48 Senators on his side. Raphael Warnock, Jon Ossoff and Stacie Abrams and all of the rest of us got him to 50 on January 5. Of course, we had a little help from Donald Trump, but by then he owed us a lot more than two Senate seats.

At 48 Democrats, Biden would have needed two votes from Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney to pass the American Rescue Plan. Those votes would not have been secured without a huge reduction in necessary spending. The difference between needing to get those votes and instead getting an aye from Joe Manchin is a trillion dollars of expenditures for economic recovery, repairing the tattered Affordable Care Act, and sharply reducing child poverty.

At 50 votes, the narrative that Manchin is blocking all of the best that is within us is false. He is providing cover for 6 to 8 Senators in each party who want to preserve the filibuster to make the parties work together at least on the basics. He was there to get us to fifty on the American Rescue Plan, and he will be there to support much of Biden’s infrastructure wish list. He has provided the key fiftieth vote to confirm countless Biden nominees. Passing the monumental climate change law we deeply desire (and need) would take sixty votes, since it is not subject to the budget reconciliation process. Manchin would be a problem there if he could be, but we are not close to sixty. On this front the President is moving us along nicely, using executive orders, other administrative actions and diplomacy. It is not close to enough climate change action, but it reflects Biden’s commitment and tenacity. This movement is accelerating rapidly.

We are getting what we worked so hard for. On vaccinations, Biden has instituted the delivery systems, the reliable supply and the clear messaging that were nowhere to be seen in December. Biden is using three budget reconciliation bills, countless executive actions and able elected officials to turn the country in a new direction. This will serve the United States and the world well for the next two years.

In November 2022, we face the off-year elections that will stop us or enable us to move forward with even greater energy. Perish the thought that we would end up with fewer than 50 votes, giving Mitch McConnell back a gavel, used before almost entirely to comfort the comfortable. Even the fact that Donald Trump now hates Mitch McConnell is not redemptive.

Why would we return to this ugly world? Instead, we will get Joe Biden at least six more Democratic seats that will strengthen his hand, expand his agenda, and help us prepare for the 2024 presidential election.

The greatest grassroots political effort of our time has been lulled by the absence of tweets from the big liar about the big lie. We need to start paying more attention to these matters right now, as hugely consequential Senate campaigns get organized. We are buoyed by the movement of voters away from the “Republican Party,” a party that stands for what, actually? Republicans are warring internally, but as one pundit has said, most are circling Trump’s Death Star.

The Trump battle with Mitch McConnell over which Republican Senatorial candidates should emerge is encouraging news. It will result in some wacky, easier to beat candidates, like Missouri’s felonious and previously disgraced former governor, Eric Greitens. Moreover, there are already several announced retirements, creating open seats where Republican Senators would otherwise be running for re-election. We will need to defend Mark Kelley in Arizona and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, both of whom are now running for full six years terms. There are these very promising opportunities:

• In Pennsylvania, the totally disgusted but insufficiently courageous Pat Toomey is retiring. Democratic Secretary of State John Fetterman, an important force in fighting against Republican election fraud lies, has entered the race and there will be a strong Democratic field.
• Republican Senator Richard Burr is retiring in North Carolina after voting for impeachment and shepherding a fair report on Trump’s dalliances with Russia. Democrats hold the governorship. Former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley, an African American, just entered the Senate race. She is an extremely attractive candidate who has won twice statewide.
• In Iowa, 87-year old Republican Senator Charles Grassley has yet to announce he is retiring, but he will do so.
• In Missouri, Roy Blunt is retiring. Republicans are seriously considering nominating the previously fallen Eric Greitens, who resigned as governor after being accused of blackmailing an ex-lover.
• Marco Rubio in Florida has a polling problem. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murray is already running, and Rep. Val Demings may run as well. Demings is the former Orlando police chief that Joe Biden considered for the vice presidency.
• Ohio provides an excellent opportunity with the retirement of the moderate but Trump-genuflecting Rob Portman. There is a big squabble among Republican candidates. On the Democratic side, Representative Tim Ryan is a very strong candidate, and he is all in.

Given these excellent opportunities, let’s hasten to do these three things:

1) Give Tim Ryan a Fast Start
	Tim Ryan is a ten term Member of Congress whose ties to blue collar workers mirror those of Joe Biden. He is a good bet to reach the voters that elected John Glenn and Sherrod Brown. He has already started his campaign and has $1.25 million while the Republican field is still being buffeted by Trump, who organized a bizarre “Hunger Games” tryout. It is a good thing to get back in the habit or writing checks to candidates, and there is no better place to start than Tim Ryan.
2) Convince Our Side to Get to Work
	It is now a long time ago, but we should not forget that Indivisible and Swing Left (and others) stepped up to organize against Trump after the 2016 election while the Democratic Party itself was in the highest level of disarray. That is why we were able to take back the House in 2018. With regard to strategies to take back some more Senate seats in 2022, Indivisible is invisible and Swing Left is becalmed. You can use Act Blue to donate to Senate races through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It would be even better to use your existing connections to either or both Indivisible and Swing Left and tell them that you are eager for them to get going with developing and sharing their targeting strategies.
3) Set the Record Straight
	By now we have heard everything from Trump supporters. But there still can be a time when you can be appalled by what a member of Congress just said. Jim Jordan excoriated Dr. Anthony Fauci for depriving Americans of their liberties through mask requirements and limitations on large assembly. Fauci has responded that the real deprivation of liberty has been the death of 560,000 Americans due to the pandemic. It is time to call Jim Jordan’s district office in Lima at 419-999-6455 to give his staff your thoughts on these matters. Ask them what kind of man would rail at a simple request to protect others from an agonizing death?

Our efforts continue, and we have accomplished so much. As of today, we don’t have daily tweets to recall Donald Trump’s contempt for democracy. We need to recognize that we don’t need that reminder. Let’s get to work on these Senate seats as if today is October 1, 2022.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#10 Never Forget to Call a Lie a Lie

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. 

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, Our Unfinished Work, every two weeks.

Every day, we have the pleasure of having a president who is an adult, who is experienced in managing the government and who has compassion for people. The era of the daily counterpunch and the hourly lie is behind us. For now.

Are we entertaining the notion that the four-year ordeal could not possibly happen to us again? Are we letting our intensity and our advanced political skills atrophy? Can we get focused every week on what must be done on both the policy and political side? As important, can we take full advantage of the relationship between the two, making sure independent voters understand what Joe Biden is doing to battle the virus and restore the economy?

We have a good start. Americans strongly support Joe Biden’s efforts to vaccinate the country. He has good support as well on the American Rescue Plan, the initiative to restore the COVID-ravaged economy. Americans are behind most of the individual elements of the infrastructure-rebuilding American Jobs Plan, but less comfortable with those elements once they are all assembled into a large package.

With hardly an exception, Joe Biden has been pitch-perfect. He knows how important his first year in office is, and he planned for it. The policy efforts stand on their own, but it is not difficult to ascertain one of their primary political objectives. Biden intends to move millions of blue-collar workers away from Trumpism by making them a clear winner in the economic recovery, which is good for them and good for the country. On the political side, this is intended to restore our previous political strengths in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the margins of victory in 2020 were modest. Not coincidentally, restoring our strength will help us flip Republican Senate seats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2022. It will not hurt in contesting the open seats in Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina.

Biden will not ever let “When will workers return to their office building” become the question of the day, as it often is in the media. He understands that tens of millions of Americans do not occupy offices. They grow things, manufacture things, provide health care, and serve people in physical space and real time. He will not stop being president for all of us, and independent voters will appreciate it at the ballot box.

That is why Republicans across the country want to change who puts a ballot in the box. Calling the Georgia voter suppression efforts “Jim Crow on steroids” is inaccurate, as it understates by comparison the virulent earlier voter suppression history of the Jim Crow South. In 1956, because of intimidation and violence, poll taxes and literacy tests, only 27% of African Americans were eligible to vote in Georgia. For the elections just completed, 68% were registered, a higher percentage than whites.

As so often is the case, Stacey Abrams had it right. These current Georgia voter suppression efforts are “Jim Crow in a coat and tie.” Ostensibly, the Brian Kemp and legislative efforts were devised under the rubric of election reform, to help voters trust the system even more. But the same people who passed the law have been lying about nonexistent voter fraud to tear down that trust. The new law compounds the lie. There is not a single word of it that would have been written if Republicans had won the Georgia elections. Pure and simple, Brian Kemp wants fewer minority voters because they make it more likely that he and his gang will lose.

And so it goes across the country. In our most recent missive in Our Unfinished Work we outline the specific steps we can all take to fight the rampant voter suppression attempts underway. We will block or defeat the bulk of them across the country, but we cannot stop them all. The new kid on the block is going to be helpful. Motivated by the prospects of boycotts, large American corporations are joining this fight. We are not being lulled into thinking that they will always be with us, or even that they are fully with us now. Nonetheless, this involvement matters a great deal. If corporate leaders continue to call the big lie of a stolen election a lie, it may well stimulate reconsideration of the Georgia bill. If not, it will slow down the voter suppression efforts in other state legislatures.

We can build upon the efforts of these temporary political partners and do these three things:

1) Keeping the Lie from Growing
	Incredibly, the former President has developed a new routine that the insurrection of January 6 was all about hugging and kissing. In an interview with Laura Ingraham, he emphasized the “great relationships” between the 400 now arrested insurrectionists and the Capitol Police, saying the insurrectionists “walked in and walked out.” Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois tweeted in response to the Trump interview: “No remorse and no regret. It is quite honestly sick and disgusting.” Representative Rodney Davis, the ranking Republican member of the House Administration Committee, charged with examining the happenings of the day, has stayed silent. Please phone him at 202-225-2371 to say that his allowing Trump’s hugging lie to stand dishonors the life of policeman Brian Sicknick who died of his January 6 injuries.
2) Support African-American Corporate Executives
	The strong corporate pushback against the Georgia bill to suppress voting did not materialize magically. It started with former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, who maintains and utilizes a list of fellow African-American corporate executives. “The Fierce Urgency is Now” was organized by Chenault and sent by 75 executives. Send a personal note to Kenneth Chenault’s at General Catalyst Partners at 434 Broadway, NY, NY 20013 and pass on your thanks for him spurring a movement.
3) Help Joe Biden Address Home and Community Care
	The Biden-Harris infrastructure proposal is called the American Jobs plan, but a fifth of its proposed expenditures would go to rebuilding the uneven home and community health care system that attends to the needs of the elderly and disabled. Biden does not expect this $400 billion multi-year initiative to pass in its entirety. He is trying to increase America’s commitment to home health care in the millions of instances where it is the best option. A group of organizations flying the flag of the #CareCan’tWait Coalition has put together a major media campaign to make certain we do not turn away from this challenge. A strong part of that Coalition is Caring Across America You can get regular updates and send your donation to them to help make certain Joe Biden’s proposal starts something.

The lie that the election was stolen, the lie that voter suppression is thus required, and the lie about  the January 6 insurrection will not recede naturally. We did not get to our present favorable position by expecting justice to automatically prevail. Let’s do the work that needs to be done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#9 We’re Fighting for Free and Fair Elections

 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. 

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, Our Unfinished Work, every two weeks.

Of all the things that dismayed us during Donald Trump’s four years of non-governance, especially disheartening was the lying. The number of untruths was staggering. The Washington Post documented 30,573 lies, and CNN underscored the most notable. Small lies and misrepresentations turned into huge ones, as Trump claimed Obama’s veterans’ health choice reforms, inflated the too high trade deficit with China, said for four years that his health care bill was about to be released, and falsely accused others to protect Putin. No crowd was ever small, no opponent noble, and no autocrat unimpressive.

It is no surprise that the small lies turned into big lies that have killed people. The insurrection of January 6 would never have happened without the election fraud Trump started perpetrating months before the election and continued until officer Brian Sicknick lay dying after the assault. Trump quietly received the vaccine, but he intentionally created the climate in which millions of Americans refused to receive it. Thus, he bears responsibility for those who will no longer be on the face of the earth.

Getting Pinocchio to recognize his nose is a lost cause. It is even a possibility that the Twitter-less Trump will continue to fade. Whatever level of super-spreading his serial untruths generate, we can battle back against the related made-up stories of Trumpian Republican Senators. Someone should tell Mike Pence that as insurrectionists screamed “hang Mike Pence” Ron Johnson was not worried about safety, since those invading the Capitol were not from Black Lives Matter or Antifa. Strangely Johnson had said in a previous statement that some of the insurrectionists were Antifa, wearing MAGA hats to blend in. He needs to settle on a single untruth, rather than trying out multiple stories.

The newest intentional prevarications have to do with Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Republicans deployed Senator John Barasso of Wyoming to say that only 9% of the package is devoted to “defeating the virus.” The artful wording leaves out efforts to revive the economy and help people whom the pandemic has crushed, bringing us to a total of 85% of the package. We can surmise that Barasso knows that already.

Looming over all this obfuscation is Trump’s big lie of election fraud. Even those Republicans who are ashamed of the events of January 6 are trying to breathe life into the fraudulent fraud claims being made in state legislatures across the country. In nearly every state, the Republican dream is for fewer people to vote! The sweeping Democratic response is HR 1, the For the People Act, which has passed the House. It will not get the necessary 60 votes to move forward in the Senate. It is a strong bill in its restoration of voting rights guarantees and its important tackling of campaign funding. It is not without its flaws, because it affords the federal government preeminence in matters of voter registration and the casting of ballots that heretofore have been left to the states. How would that have turned out when Donald Trump was president?

In the absence of a new federal law, there are wars being fought over voting in every state capital. The greatest Republican emphasis is on restricting mail in balloting, requiring further signature checks and limiting when and where polls are open. The number of separate proposals that would suppress voting is frightening. The outstanding Brennan Center is tracking them all. 

It is good to remember that the threats to us differ greatly depending upon the state. Thus, understanding which states to prioritize is an important part of this battle. For instance, some of these anti-democratic proposals outlined by the Brennan Center are in states where we have no chance of electing a Senator or President, such as Wyoming or Idaho. Even in these states we shouldn’t forget that local candidates or even Congressional candidates can be hampered by the suppressive actions.

Happily, scores of these proposals are in states with Democratic governors who will veto them if they make their way to her or his desk. The especially good news is this protection is available to us in battleground states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Virginia. The first three of these are providing us juicy opportunities to flip Senate seats in 2022.

Alas, there are 23 states where the vote-suppression can accelerate because suppressors control both branches of the state legislature and the Governor’s office. 

Of these, eight are especially significant in the voting rights battle. This is where our greatest immediate efforts should be directed. In these cases, Republicans who control the state capital are trying to restrict voting to give them a better chance of defending or picking up seats in the United States Senate to make Mitch McConnell majority leader once again. It is difficult to fathom anyone wanting such a thing.

These states include Ohio and Iowa, where Republican Senators Rob Portman and Charles Grassley will retire; Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota, where Donald Trump might intervene with his own candidate and provide us an opening; and, Arizona, Georgia, and New Hampshire, where we must defend the seats of Mark Kelley, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Maggie Hassan.

As the Brennan Center emphasizes the suppression strategies are many. They include but are not limited to eliminating “no excuse” mail in voting, eliminating or reducing ballot collection sites, expanding signature verification, reducing early voting (including after church on Sundays in Georgia), and expanding purging of the voter list. This is what you do when you are worried that you cannot win a free and fair election.

We can do these three things right now to fight back against these injustices.

1) Be Guided by the Best
	There is no one in the country who is doing better work to protect the right to vote than the Brennan Center for Justice. They have a range of e-newsletters that will keep you abreast of the challenges we must confront.  And, there is no one doing better on the work on the ground than Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight, battling against “Jim Crow in a suit and tie” in Georgia. They have expanded to Texas and are national leaders in the articulation of what ought to be done. It is easy to get their action alerts. For those who have it to give, these are both good places to send money.
2) Find Your Ideal State Partner
	It is always good to understand what is going on in your own state, so chicanery can be stopped. It is not as easy to identify the best partner in fighting suppression in Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, South Dakota, Arizona and New Hampshire (with Georgia well covered by Fair Fight. Among the promising suspects are Indivisible chapters, League of Women Voters chapters, and state Democratic Party organizations. Among the national organizations, All Voting is Local is worthy of examination.
3) Expand Corporate Support
	With Stacey Abrams’ pointed encouragement, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce has discouraged the Georgia State Legislature’s voter suppression proposals. The two key companies in that effort are Coca Cola and Home Depot, both interested in their own economic prospects and neither wanting to see Georgia continue its 150-year path of suppression. Thank the Georgia chamber by emailing their governmental affairs manager Lisa Sherman lsherman@gachamber.com In addition to commending her, you can beseech her to tell her story to other state Chambers.

White males comprise a lower percentage of voters than at any time in our nation’s history. Celebrate and defend the still growing diversity of our country!

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#8: Build Upon a Great Day

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. 

If you are not already on our eblast list, please click here to be added. 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, Our Unfinished Work, every two weeks.

We stood tall against a country-diminishing, soul-deadening presidency. We devoted ourselves to a huge and relentless campaign effort from the day Trump “won” in 2016 to Warnock and Ossoff’s victories in Georgia on January 5 of this year. We took back the House, then the Presidency, and then the Senate, and we never once lost our focus. So, let us not let it happen now. 

We can prevent that by reminding Robert Reich and all other regular counselors that our proposed significant increase in the federal minimum wage was not going to be found by the Senate parliamentarian to be a legitimate part of the budget reconciliation process. Even if Vice President Harris had overruled the parliamentarian, which she would not do in the first place, we would not have had the votes to sustain the Vice President’s action. Nor do we have the votes for the “nuclear option”, which would eliminate the sixty-vote requirement to close debate. We do not have the votes to pass a single payer health care system, or to pass the set of legislative ideas known as the Green New Deal.

What do we have? We have slim majorities in the House and Senate which are going to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a stimulus bill that will help us end the pandemic and rebuild our economy. They will go way beyond the $1400 stimulus payments. In one law they will bolster states and cities damaged by the recession, extend unemployment insurance, help to reopen schools and expand the earned income tax credit to further boost those with low incomes. They will increase our capacity to vaccinate at huge scale. They will provide help for folks who cannot pay their rent and do some major repairs to the Republican damaged Affordable Care Act. They will set the table for Biden and Harris for the next two years.

It will be a great day when Joe Biden signs the bill into law. It will be added to all the other good days that have unfolded since January 20. It turns out that what we have is a lot. What is surprising is not how little Joe Biden has accomplished in six weeks with the Senate split 50-50, but how much. Joe Biden has been able to erase nearly all of Trump’s executive orders because they were executive orders, and not laws. Trump had been chronically unable to get the 60 votes in the Senate to close debate. And we want to eliminate this provision, leaving us demagogue-vulnerable from this point forward?

Biden has started the rebuilding work with our allies. He has put people in cabinet positions who believe in the mission of the agencies they will run. The strides during the next two years will be great. The way that we will get done what needs to be done for our country is to expand our Senate and House majorities in November of 2022 and retain the Presidency in 2024. Right now, this looks like an excellent prospect, given that the other party is dominated by grumpy white men in an increasingly multi-racial country. With the deepest of irony, it turns out that Mitch McConnell would support Trump’s nomination after excoriating him for fomenting an insurrection. Are they really going to stay banded around the big lie and the big liar? Is that the plan? We will take that in a heartbeat.

There is a huge amount of work on the campaign side. What needs to be left to chance is nothing at all. But it would be helpful to remember that the number one thing that we can do to be successful on November 8, 2022 is to restore the country under Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’ leadership.

The repairs to the Affordable Care Act and the several steps on climate change show that this Administration will be focused on these two matters from their first days to their last. Even though we have seen them as the most difficult things, we have as great a national consensus and an array of tools through which to move forward as we do in these three challenging areas.

Reproductive Freedom

Even though the pro-choice Presidential candidates have received more votes than their opponents in seven of the last eight elections, our situation in the Supreme Court has deteriorated and Roe v Wade itself is at risk. It is possible that Chief Justice John Roberts and either Justice Bret Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett would join the three liberal justices to defend the core of Roe v Wade as settled law. We can’t depend on this. If the court were to do the worst, the protection of the right to choose would vanish immediately in 22 states, including several that have passed “trigger laws” in anticipation. 

In addition to blocking additional states from passing anti-choice laws before the court rules, we can support the Biden/Harris efforts to remove federal restrictions advanced by Trump. Biden has already reversed the prohibition on US funded international organizations discussing the abortion option. The administration is working to remove similar restrictions on Planned Parenthood and other domestic organizations that receive federal dollars. There is also the more difficult but achievable restoration of Medicaid funding for abortions by eliminating the Hyde Amendment. 

Wealth Maldistribution

In America in 2020, the wealthiest 10% of households held nearly 70% of the assets (up from 60% twenty years ago) and the bottom 50% held 1.6% of the assets. The very rich got a big boost from the 2017 Trump tax “reform” and they are getting a further leg up during the pandemic. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are on this case. What they are seeking goes beyond the ongoing battle over the federal minimum age to the even higher calling--- a sustainable, living wage that will enable a family to house, feed, clothe, educate and secure health care for themselves.

Three provisions which will remain a part of the stimulus bill will have considerable impact on lower income populations in 2021. First, there are the $1,400 stimulus payments themselves. Getting less attention is the increase in the tax credit for children, and making it “refundable”, meaning it will be provided as a payment even if there is no tax liability to offset. There is also a major expansion of the earned income tax credit, long a central poverty-battling tool and which is also refundable.

There will be tax reform during Joe Biden’s first term because individual income tax rates and some tax breaks will expire in 2025, necessitating reauthorization before then. This gives Biden uncommon leverage in forcing Republicans to the table and will help him guarantee that tax reform decreases wealth maldistribution, rather than exacerbating it.

Immigration

Perhaps the most difficult challenge facing Biden in the Congress is finding a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. He is going to need some more Democrats elected in 2022 and some Republican Senators to get close to the necessary 60 votes. In the meantime, Democrats are more likely to get traction on three fronts, all of which have a bit of support from a small, beleaguered band of “moderate” Republicans.

Most likely is creation of the still absent statutory protection of Dreamers, including a proposed three-year path to citizenship. The Obama order providing protection only survived the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on procedural grounds because of Trump’s fumbling of his executive order. There are also efforts underway to open a path for longer term agricultural workers and some proposals to increase employment visas. Importantly, the Biden administration is working hard to re-unite 600 children with their parents after they were separated at the border.

It would not be wrong while we focus on good public policy to take care of another matter. The Voter Protection Project has identified those who voted to ignore the Electoral College results who are the most politically vulnerable. They are starting with a $10 million fund to defeat their targets in 2022. We know what to do about that. 

Then, let us remember that we need independent advocacy to keep the above three opportunities squarely in front of Congress. These organizations will help us to achieve the most possible, rather than settling for easy compromises. We can sign up to make certain their strategies are clear to us and we are thus properly deployed, and we can decide to donate as well. Let’s do these three things.

1) Relentless Advocacy for Reproductive Freedom
	Planned Parenthood is a major advocate for reproductive freedom. Luckily, they have benefited greatly from donors responding to Trump’s relentless attacks on their programs. NARAL Pro-Choice is a great option for their political focus and relentlessness. They are out in front on overturning the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions. You can get regular briefings by texting NARAL to 21333.
2) Fighting Poverty One Program at a Time
	The Center for Law and Social Policy has the detailed understanding of complex federal anti-poverty programs that is the prerequisite for making these programs better. They can make certain that we take best advantage of the changes in the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit in the stimulus bill. They can also guarantee that we are ready for the next tax policy battle. Their e-news signup is right on their front page.
3) Coalescing Around Immigrant Rights
	The National Immigration Law Center has always been in the forefront of litigation on immigrant rights. They are intentionally expanding their work to strengthen immigration coalitions and to expand advocacy now that Congress is getting back to hearing immigration bills.

Joe Biden just announced a new deal between Johnson and Johnson and Merck to accelerate the production of the third vaccine. This means that every adult in the country can be vaccinated by the end of the May. It is this kind of immense breakthrough for which we worked for four years, and it is just the start of what we can get done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington