#23: Seizing Our Role in Rejecting Autocracy

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 effort.

As divided as we are, most Americans don’t like attempted coups or hate filled speech. The idea that we are heading toward civil war is ridiculous. That’s not what the druggist in Peoria and the insurance agent in Indianapolis want at all. The rejection of the coup showed our strength more than our weakness.

But, if anything that is happening should fill one with rage and worry, it’s the obeisance paid to autocracy by Fox News, Donald Trump and too many Republicans. Wags say “As long as we are freezing Russian assets, why not Mar-A-Lago?” It’s too bad for our country that it isn’t just a joke.

It didn’t start ten days ago with Donald Trump calling Vladimir Putin smart and savvy, saying his invasion of Ukraine was an act of “genius.” In 2017, Trump said “Do you think we’re so innocent?” when asked about Putin’s attempt to poison a political opponent. Trump missed the fact that, unlike Russia, we do not haul our citizens off to jail when they dispute the government’s actions. We have tens of thousands of local governments who take direction from their voters. We have been accomplishing peaceful transitions of presidential power for over 230 years, every year except when Trump visited himself upon us. We could always use a little help, and every year is not a good one, but our arc bends toward justice. Putin’s does not.

Tucker Carlson’s rooting for Russia has become a staple of Russian state television. Donald Trump’s dismissal of claims against Putin were an embarrassing staple of his “presidency”. By last summer, over two thirds of Republicans were noting their admiration of Putin. Though that number has diminished as Russian tanks advance on Kyiv, it is not hard to see that that autocracy has found a new foothold in a party that once prided itself in its rejection of the Soviet state. In his attacks on NATO and his bromance with the “genius” Putin, Trump might as well have been saying “Mr. Putin, Rebuild This Wall!”. That is the net effect of his admiration of this dictator. At one point in our history, Trump’s affinity for autocrats would have disqualified him from any further public exploits. 

Over 70% of those watching the State of the Union liked Joe Biden’s sanctioning of Putin over his invasion of Ukraine. Even these positive numbers (including a nice boost with independent voters) are lower than they should be. So far, voters have little sense of the indispensable role this President played in convincing Europe to make the sanctions much more severe than the Europeans wanted. 

The failure to give Biden credit for his achievements has become chronic. Under Biden, the economy created 6.5 million jobs last year and the Gross Domestic Product grew by 5.7%, highest in four decades. We have received over 550 million vaccinations and COVID is receding. Biden engineered the largest investment in roads, bridges, public transit, and water supply systems in our history, and got significant bi-partisan support for it, over Trump’s objections.

With the midterm elections looming, and the natural advantage they afford the party not in power, we can’t afford this under-recognition of the President. Hopefully the polling uptick he has received from the State of the Union and his firmness on Ukraine will be sustained. We will either give ourselves definition or it will be done for us.

Mitch McConnell’s efforts to retake the Senate for the Republicans in November are built around negative campaigning against Biden, making up positions for him on countless issues, McConnell is trying to make certain his party’s candidates don’t get defeated by being Putin apologists or by showing their true beliefs on tax policy or governmental programs that help people. Luckily, Senator Rick Scott has precipitated a blow up with McConnell by freelancing his agenda to “rescue America”, which includes a plan to build the wall on the Mexican border and name it after Donald Trump! How is that for toadying? Scott’s plan would increase taxes for tens of millions of low-income taxpayers so they would have “skin in the game.” Neither is McConnell’s least favorite Rick Scott idea. Scott proposes to subject each federal program to a “sunset” every five years, meaning it would have to be reauthorized to continue. Scott neglected to exempt Medicare and Social Security from this treatment, thus meaning he would put these ever-popular programs in great jeopardy. 

This position will be a gift that keeps on giving all summer long. Hopefully Trump, Rick Scott, and others will think of other helpful ways to decrease Republican turnout and drive away independents. We need to help that along.

Even though our outlook for the fall remains a huge concern, there are positive signs beyond America’s support of Joe Biden’s international leadership. Joe Manchin has just outlined what a scaled back “Build Back Better” budget package would look like. It would require wealthy companies to pay a minimum corporate income tax, and use the money to reduce the deficit and provide incentives for carbon reduction. Leaders of the progressive wing have welcomed discussions. The special Congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has indicated in a court filing that Trump was a part of a “criminal conspiracy”,

There’s no denying that the movement that got Joe Biden more than 81 million votes in November 2020 needs to generate more energy than it has mustered to date. Let’s build upon Biden’s international leadership and do these three things to help accelerate our mutual project to protect America:

1) Target Sedition Caucus Members
	The Progress Action Fund has established its Sedition Caucus PAC to defeat Members of Congress who voted to overturn the election on January 6, 2021. Recently, they have singled out five Sedition Caucus members whose past results demonstrate they are especially vulnerable in November. They are already running ads in their districts. An outstanding way to respond to Donald Trump’s position on Ukraine is to defeat five of his favorite Members of Congress. Their first choice of the PAC is overturning Mike Garcia in California’s 25th District. He defeated former California Assemblywoman Christy Smith by only 333 votes in 2020. She is a very capable candidate, boosted further by redistricting, which removed part of the conservative Simi Valley from the district. Help her out today if you can.
2) Have a Heart to Heart with Rashida Tlaib
	Democratic U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib appointed herself to give a “progressive response” to President Biden’s State of the Union. Her timing was surprising, since Joe Biden has devoted enormous attention to keeping progressives and liberals on the same page since he was elected. One of her colleagues noted that she was “keying her own car” in calling out Biden. The predicted virulent public schisms between the party’s wings have not emerged. Leaders like Representative Pramilla Jayapal (chair of the 97 member House Progressive Caucus) have been unflinching in the advancement of progressive proposals, and trust Biden. Why would Tlaib interject herself on the one day Democrats most need to stand together? How could she possibly believe taking the microphone at that moment would advantage any idea she raised, or help Biden get things done that she insists need to be done? Call Rashida Tlaib’s office at 202-225-5126, thank her for working hard, and ask her to stand with Biden.
3) Get Some Guidance from Swing Left
	Even though we took back the Senate in 2020, there are lessons from those times. One is that we need to invest in campaigns with the greatest of care. We poured money in, and it was a critical factor in our getting to 50 seats. But in the case of Amy McGrath in Kentucky, our antipathy to Mitch McConnell caused us to spend money where we had no chance to winning. Swing Left has been touted in these missives previously. From the beginning, they were shrewd about targeting the races where we have the best chance. They were innovative in setting up “district funds” to provide resources for candidates on the first day they became the nominee. Now, they have improved their educational and organizing efforts to have even more impact. On the Senate side, they are starting with defense of our incumbents in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, and our excellent chance to flip seats in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Most importantly, their new Blueprint tool will help discerning donors sort out where to put their dollars.

From now to November, it is all about getting better one week at a time. Our country is opening up again. Heartsick over Ukraine and worried about the future, we can do something now to shape it.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#22: This is How Trump Can Help Us Win in November

We are pleased to bring to you the next of a 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 receiving our emails, please click here to be added to the 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 always been difficult to figure out which are the worst of Donald Trump’s offenses. If you pay attention to it all, the numbness sets in. You can be tempted to dwell on his boorishness and malevolence, gathering material for “did you hear?” exchanges with your friends. You could use the House of Representatives as your guide, focusing on the specific offenses leading to him being impeached twice. You could select one or more of the things that are most likely to make him a felon.

But isn’t it easy to identify the absolute worst behavior, that which has been most destructive for our country? 13 presidents before Trump were denied re-election, each conceded to his opponent, and each participated however ruefully in the orderly transfer of power. In Trump’s era, Mauricio Macri of Argentina did it, as did Peter Martharika of Malawai and Jose Mario-Vaz of Guinea-Bissau. Why couldn’t Trump muster an ounce of character to step aside? It’s a rhetorical question, we know the answer.

It became much worse than the failure to concede. Our darkest suspicions and predictions have now been realized. Trump prepared his lies about the “steal” months in advance of the election. As the House select committee will eventually conclude, Trump helped plan the insurrection, advanced fake electors, illegally interfered in the recount in Georgia, and stood between a country and its Constitution. He attempted a coup. 

Luckily it is not correct that we are in greater danger of a coup being successful in 2024 than we were in 2020. Trump was in control over the agencies of government during his last attempt and he would not be in 2024. It will be beside the point since he won’t be running in 2024 anyway. His permanent fade has begun. The con is being recognized. 70% of American voters don’t want Trump to run again. 

The Republican bootlicking will diminish one Ted Cruz style self-debasement at a time. The signal for its sure decline came from an unlikely person, Trump loyalist and South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds. The chance is zero that Rounds upbraided Trump on his own without advance consultation with Mitch McConnell and fellow South Dakotan John Thune. This is what Rounds said:

"We looked -- as a part of our due diligence, we looked at over 60 different accusations made in multiple states." 

"While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state." 

"The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency. And moving forward -- and that's the way we want to look at this -- moving forward, we have to refocus once again on what it's going to take to win the presidency." 

"And if we simply look back and tell our people don't vote because there's cheating going on, then we're going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage. So, moving forward, let's focus on what it takes to win those elections. We can do that. But we have to let people know that they can -- they can believe and they can have confidence that those elections are fair.”

As important as the statement itself is that Rounds was unafraid that Trump would execute him. Of course, one of the reasons McConnell chose Rounds for this duty is that he isn’t up for re-election until 2026. And their motivation is that they are petrified that “Stop the Steal” will cause Republican voters to lose so much confidence in the integrity of the process that they won’t vote this fall. They think that it could all be a repeat of the Ossoff and Warnock victories on January 5. And it might be.

This gives us an all-new strategy, which goes beyond Representatives Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney exposing Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection. It is beyond Trump being charged by the New York Attorney General, and/or the lower Manhattan District Attorney, and/or the Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor. It even goes beyond Attorney General Merrick Garland charging Trump with abetting or planning the attack on the capitol.

Our strategy includes Joe Biden standing behind the American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan, and a new version of Build Back Better that Democrats will pass in the next few weeks. It includes the pandemic waning to the point that normalcy will return before the November election, perhaps even by late spring.

Happily, our political fortunes now involve us taking advantage of the increasing public schism between Republican leaders and Trump over his insistence that the election was fraudulent. Deeply ironic is the fact that Mitch McConnell (himself a god in the annals of the suppression of minority voters) is petrified that Trump is suppressing the Republican vote.

Beyond Chris Christie, John Thune, Mike Rounds, Roy Blunt, and Mitch McConnell, we need to help Republican leaders speak their truth about the election. And when they do, Donald Trump will call them names, threaten to run candidates against them, and repeat all the Stop the Steal lies. The more they say the election wasn’t stolen, the more he will do to say it was, and the more his core supporters will shy away from the November ballot. It won’t take very many supporters staying away to significantly increase our chances to win Senate seats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, all of which are held by Republicans.

The disclosures will keep on coming. Sean Hannity texted Trump on January 6 “no more stolen election talk” and implored his staff from enabling “crazy people” from entering Trump’s orbit. We will hear much more about which insiders were imploring Trump to stop. There will be more and more ways to keep Republicans debating both the failed coup and Stop the Steal all year long. Let’s do these three things:

1) Demand Leadership from John Barrasso
	As chair of the Senate Republican Conference, John Barrasso of Wyoming is the Senate’s third ranking Republican, behind Mitch McConnell and John Thune. When asked about Mike Rounds’ declaration that Biden won the election, Barrasso, who clearly has not read Profiles in Courage, said “Noting to add to what’s already out there.” Of course, he didn’t say which thing that is “out there” doesn’t need additional improvement. That is a bit of a moral fiber problem. It is good to let him know the world is watching. Let him know at 202-224-6441 that we are all out here waiting for him to defend the Constitution.
2) Tell UPS They Promised to Deliver
	The United Parcel Service was among the companies that stopped giving campaign contributions to the 157 members of Congress who opposed certification of the election results. This “Sedition Caucus” has seen a drop in their support, but companies like UPS are starting to wobble, as documented by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW). It’s time to call the UPS Media office and tell them you will not give them your business as long as they fund campaigns of the seditionists. Call them at 1-404-828-7123.
3) Remind Trump Who Won
	There’s hardly a billboard in the world which better serves the public interest than the TRUMP LOST billboard that has been up in Times Square. This billboard is in a score of other locations as well. It is the work of the Republican Accountability Project. Because they are a group of Republicans, this organization is is ideal to fight Trump’s false claims. You can sign up on the mailing list, or help pay for more billboards, which will goad him into even further false claims.

What a bizarre, awful human being. Trump just announced that the insurrectionists would be pardoned if he becomes the 47th president. Grover Cleveland was the only president who returned to office a term later after being defeated for re-election. Donald Trump, you’re no Grover Cleveland.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#21: The Law Is Closing in on Donald Trump

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.

You get to decide what the story is that you want to tell. You are within your rights under the Constitution to be miserable about American politics all through 2022. Just know as you sort through the Trump led mean-spiritedness that we are not going to keep the Senate and the House in November unless we have a positive way to articulate how Americans can move forward.

Joe Biden has such a way. He expects that by June that we will have 9 or 10 million more jobs than when he started, bolstered by the infrastructure law. He will get people to notice his historic economic performance. 

He thinks that in January he will get a Build Back Better bill from Joe Manchin (with whom he is still negotiating) to match with the American Rescue Plan and the American Jobs Plan. He believes that the new law will cover a huge increase in Pre-K education and hundreds of billions in incentives to decrease carbon emissions. He thinks that this bill coupled with already voted infrastructure improvements to the grid will signal an all-new day on climate change.

Joe Biden is hanging on to reports from South Africa that contracting the omicron variant quadruples protection against the more virulent delta variant. He is looking for our public health crisis to fade by spring.

He believes that the antipathy of independent voters to Donald Trump and his con will grow. He has made a note that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has called Trump “ignorant, or one of the most evil men who ever lived” for the sin of recommending that people get vaccinated and boosted. There is irony here, no? 

Joe Biden sees a path not to civil war, but to civility. He believes that 2022 will be the year that the law will catch up to Donald Trump. He and Merrick Garland are tracking every one of these investigations and legal actions, each with its own significance and collectively a huge storm cloud on Trump’s horizon.

• There is the question of whether the Department of Justice will use evidence gathered by the Congressional panel investigating the insurrection to charge Trump himself for conspiring to cause the felonious assault on the Capitol by several hundred people. Or perhaps the DOJ will charge just some of Trump’s hench-people, like Steve Bannon. Laurence Tribe and an exasperation of other tv commentators have called out Merrick Garland for not signaling any such intentions publicly. Isn’t that the way we would want an Attorney General to act?

• New Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is giving high priority to the Trump case. A previous grand jury filed felony tax evasion charges against Trump financial manager Alan Weisselberg. Any charges against Trump would involve fraudulent valuation of commercial real estate to secure favorable loan terms. The appropriate tax returns and financial records have been secured now that Trump’s records-hiding appeal to the Supreme Court has been unsuccessful. The District Attorney’s office is getting regular assistance from New York Attorney General Letitia James. Since a second grand jury has been empaneled, it is very likely that additional people will be charged. The medium to high level possibility is that Trump will be one of those people.

• In what may eventually prove the most compelling case, Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis is considering bringing criminal charges against Trump for election interference. Trump twice called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, looking to “find” 12,000 votes. The District Attorney has sent out letters to multiple parties warning them not to destroy records.

• There are several civil suits filed against Trump over his role in the January 6 insurrection, each taking a different approach. One case has been brought by injured Capitol police officers and the other two by members of Congress. There is a hearing in federal court in three weeks on a motion to dismiss the cases. Disclosures by the Congressional committee on such matters as Trump’s connections with the January 6 “War Room” in the Willard Hotel is helping keep these cases alive.

• There are several other lawsuits in progress. Former columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit is still alive. The issue is whether Trump defamed her when he said in response to her rape allegation that she was trying to sell her book and was “not his type”. The federal court is determining whether Trump was acting as the President when he made the defamatory comments, which would shield him. They are skeptical.

All in all, these and scores of other lawsuits show a man who has flaunted the law his whole life. Bringing the law to him would be sweet justice for the rest of us. Whether or not he ever is incarcerated, or pays considerable damages in a civil suit, the criminal and civil lawsuits are closing in on him. They give strength to the argument that he is slowly losing his grip on America, not too soon. 

This is evidenced by the uneven prospects of the candidates he has endorsed for the U.S. Senate, the increase in Republicans who have conceded the results of the 2020 presidential election, the fact that Chris Christie has not been pummeled over his criticism of Trump, the votes of 17 Republican Senators for the infrastructure law, and the positive resolution (over Trump objections) of the debt ceiling battle.

So, we are called to get more firmness in our grip and confidence in our stride, with the off-year elections just a year away. We could do a lot more than these three things, but let’s do these three things now.

1) Setting Ourselves Straighter
	The best of us can get it wrong. When the outstanding Heather Cox Richardson meditates that Republican counties and Congressional Districts have lower economic outputs, pay lower federal taxes, and thus are supported by blue counties, it is a misstep. Our argument is different from that. We are right to say instead that wealth and economic power should NOT generate political influence.  Which district generates a higher level of federal income tax should be irrelevant to us. Let’s sort out these kinds of claims a little more clearly. For instance, Joe Manchin’s current (but not necessarily final) opposition to Build Back Better is disappointing and misguided. However, one element of his intransigence is well founded--- Congress should not be increasing the child tax credit for couples earning $200,000-$300,000 a year. The eligibility level should be lower. We should not borrow funds to give money to people who do not need it.
2) Help Republicans Help Themselves
	It doesn’t seem like a bad idea to hope that the remaining tiny band of Republican moderates will shrink to nothing, since their efforts have been meager. But any Republicans calling out Trump helps our candidates with independent voters, who we won over in the 2020 presidential election but whose support is impermanent. Thus, we should be happy that the Republican Accountability Project has shown the stability and longer-term potential that has not been demonstrated by the Lincoln Project. The “Trump Lost” billboards that the Republican Accountability Project has dotted across the country are themselves evidence that they are worthy of support. Their leadership includes Sarah Longwell, the best Republican anti-Trump strategist there is. To sign up and/or donate, click here. Former Republicans are told “Don’t sit quietly and surrender one of America’s great political parties.” That may seem like an overreach, but they were instrumental in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1963.
3) Get Into This Exciting Race
	Val Demings has been an intriguing candidate from the beginning. She was a very well-spoken floor manager during Trump’s first impeachment in the House. She is the former police chief of Orlando. This rising star is running to unseat Florida’s principle-free Senator Marco Rubio and has come across a strategy that is now getting traction. She has been using Facebook as the key tool in attracting small and medium donors. She now has 172,000 donors and raised $8 million last quarter. You can keep infamous Mark Zuckerberg out of the equation, give directly, and become donor 172,001. With key races in Pennsylvania and Ohio, we need to open up a new front in Florida, helped by significant efforts to register Latino and African-American voters.

What better time for you to jump back in (or jump higher) than the one-year anniversary of the insurrection? What now stands between Trump and the shredding of the Constitution is you and the people across the country who share your views and your commitment.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#20: We're Standing Behind This Bet on America

See below for information on our special Zoom session with Mi Familia Vota on fighting voter suppression.

This is the next of our 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.

Either way you look at it is appropriate. On the one hand, you could check in on American politics and climb the same wall of worry you tried to scale the day before. It goes something like this--- With his big lie, planned from the outset, Trump has gravely damaged the integrity of the electoral process, and he hasn’t gone away. It is dismaying and does not portend well that we lost the Virginia governorship a year after Joe Biden won Virginia by ten points. It is unbelievable that Trump still owns that party after starting the insurrection of January 6, and scary that the party’s “leadership” has let its Q-Anon courting members run free.

It is a tough wall to climb, but of course you can accomplish it if you try. The story of the election is more about how the process and the country withstood the attack. Virginia’s Glen Youngkin could not be less like the candidates Trump is pushing across the country. Republican leaders are letting Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz run free, but 19 Republican Senators and 7 House members voted for the infrastructure bill. The understandably unloved Mitch McConnell will find a way to allow the debt ceiling to be lifted. 

On the other hand, we could set the worry wall aside and focus much more attentively and intensively on which party is in power, and what they have done so far. The education/climate change reconciliation bill will be passed and signed before the holidays, because every elected Democrat in Washington D.C. from Joe Manchin to Pramilla Jayapal to Bernie Sanders knows that it must be. It will represent the third element in a colossal legislative strategy which has lifted what government intends to do to boost the lives of its people. In the category of stepping up to specific, well identified challenges it will be as impactful of a legislative session as we have had in decades.

The advances in responding to the Covid economy, addressing unemployment, decreasing child poverty, rebuilding roads, bridges and transit systems, incentivizing carbon reduction and providing universal Pre-K will be monumental, without even including a myriad of other overdue measures. Unfortunately, the huge movement that took back the House, Senate and Presidency is so caught up in the conventional liberal/progressive narrative that activists can’t seem to form complete sentences about what has been achieved. You would think these things were accomplished in secret. The fact that there are maniacal people pushing the Republican “agenda” makes this year’s long list legislative successes more consequential, not less.

So far, many a polled American voter is not associating Joe Biden with much of any of the good news. We have been averaging almost 600,000 new jobs a month. Last month, new unemployment claims were at their lowest level in 52 years. The infrastructure plan has had public support of over 70%, but Biden is learning that even the most richly deserved credit is difficult to gain. 

Of course, this is unfortunate, since many of those who thus far are not offering credit to this point are the independent voters we need to vote with us less than twelve months from now. But our upside potential for November 2022 is high, because independent voters in battleground states have already walked away from Trumpism and show no signs or heading back in Trump’s direction. They like the approaches that Biden is behind, although not crediting him. The situation is entirely unlike the aftermath of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, where independent voters walked away from the substance of the law.

We are faced with enormous pandemic and post-pandemic economic, social, environmental, and international challenges. Wouldn’t you want the specific ways in which we meet those challenges to be at the apex of the daily national political discussion? We are making the bet the voters will ultimately recognize that what the government does with and for us is what counts the most. We are making a big bet on the importance of new investments in America.

That’s a bet that doesn’t allow for any venal tweet to sear your synapses. It is a bet that requires all of us to get back to work. We know the ten things we need to do. Why not go ahead and do them?

Joe Biden’s legislative actions match up well with the key Senate and House races. Republican Senators are retiring in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Blue collar women and men have been waiting for some time to see what Democrats will do which touches their lives, and Joe Biden has given them the right answer. Also to our advantage is the dumpster fire nature of Republican discourse. Independent voters don’t believe Trump when he says the insurrection was “peaceful” and the insurrectionists were “great people”.

We can make November 8, 2022 the right kind of big day in America. That means forbidding malaise from creeping in, and it means not waiting until January. Let’s give our country a holiday gift by doing one, two, or three of these things:

1) Get Behind La Familia Vota
	The less told story of the 2020 Biden/Harris campaign is the impact of the growing Latino vote. The news media got fixated on many Cuban-Americans from Dade County in Florida voting for Trump. They missed the larger truth that Latino voters put Biden over the top in Arizona and Nevada and were consequential in every single state that we won by a narrow margin. White male voters are on a permanent decline as a percentage of the total voting population, but Republican operatives continue their worship of those guys. America’s changing demographic is a huge opportunity for Democrats when they do not take voters of varying ethnicities for granted. The best way of all for activists to make certain these opportunities are seized is to support Mi Familia Vota. In 2020 Mi Familia Vota had the largest field operation in the Latino community. This report describes their monumental impact on the 2020 election and how you can give them a boost today. You should also sign up for this blog’s special appearance of Eduardo Sainz, Mi Familia Vota’s national field director. Email me if you would like a link to hear and participate in Eduardo Sainz’ discussion of this year’s plans. The Zoom is from 7-8 pm Pacific time on Sunday, December 5.
2) Pick Your Organizing Platform Now
	Many of us have already selected regional or national organizations to be our guide for our political activity. A lot of Indivisible cells are still active, and our blog followers swear by such organizations as the Movement Voter Project and the giving network Focus for Democracy. There are thousands of local working groups doing calls, writing postcards and doorbelling where possible. If you are without someone to organize your activity, sign up for Common Power which mobilizes volunteers from across the country and is active in every battleground states. They partner with the most vibrant of local activist organizations and campaigns, following the idea of “our boots, your ground.”
3) Present Your Views to Ron Johnson
	Unbelievably, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson called the holiday parade tragedy in Waukesha, Wisconsin "the reality of Democratic governance". That was before he issued a statement with Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin urging outside groups not to exploit the event. Email the Senator’s press aides and tell them they should help him to select his second idea over his first.

There are countless commentaries about the current high level of political tensions in America. It isn’t an all-new thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t diminish our nation in an all-new way. We won’t let that happen.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#19: Do This After an Alarm Goes Off

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.

You woke up with an awful feeling on Wednesday, November 9, 2016. From then on, everything you feared about Donald Trump transpired. There were temporary moments of relief, as when three Republican Senators refused to terminate the Affordable Care Act. For the most part, the four years were filled with venality, with Trump’s partially successful efforts to wreck our government, and with his final unsuccessful coup.

Five years is a long time to fight back. For the most part, we have been relentless. We won Virginia in 2017, the House of Representatives in 2018 and the Senate and the Presidency in 2020. A year ago, we mustered by far the largest presidential vote total in our country’s history.

However, our loss of the Virginia governorship Tuesday night was not even close to inevitable. Pundits will read more into to it than is there is to read, but it still represents an alarm going off. Post-mortems are emphasizing the electoral success of the Youngkin focus on education and parental participation, which certainly was a voter interest. But you wouldn’t be hearing nearly as much about it if Democrats in Congress had given Joe Biden (and Terry McAuliffe) the legislative victory that he needed the week before Biden left for Europe. The fact that the “human infrastructure” and climate change bill will be passed in the next week or so is insufficiently consoling.

Regarding that bill, it was standard negotiating practice for Bernie Sanders to start with a very large number, for Joe Biden to camp out with a smaller but still huge spending amount with plenty of new domestic policy initiatives and for Joe Manchin to insist upon a much smaller number. Biden has known all along that he only has 50 Senate votes. In the political battleground, he has been seeking more at the outset in order to get more when he settles for less. In the meantime, the House Progressive Caucus has also done what comes naturally, holding up the bipartisan infrastructure bill to get traction on Medicare expansion, drug prices, universal pre-k, and strategies to decrease carbon emissions. Joe Manchin, Nancy Pelosi, Pramilla Jayapal, Chuck Schumer, Krysten Sinema and Nancy Pelosi all know this must be resolved soon. Manchin’s newest roadblocking statement is just an effort to gain a little more leverage.

All of this makes sense, except that the messy strategy for governing ran into what should have been a cleaner and clearer political message on why we should be selected to govern. In that sense, it was an unforced error at a time that such an error can’t be afforded. The margins for next year are too tight. Independent voters are happy to turn against the party holding the White House in off year elections. They didn’t need another reason. And there are other unhappy circumstances. No one is thinking right now that it is morning in America. We are worn down by the pandemic and the changes it has wrought in our daily existence. We wake up each morning to social media generated wars and the continued presence of the Big Lie, which in other generations would have been immediately dismissed by both political parties.

What do we have going for us? 

• We have demographic destiny behind us. The only demographic reliably voting Republican is white males, who represent their smallest percentage of the American electorate ever. That’s why Val Demings in running even in the polls in Florida in her challenge of Marco Rubio, and why Beto O’Rourke has a real chance to defeat Greg Abbott and become Governor of Texas.
• The continued presence of Donald Trump wounds our souls but helps our chances. Glen Youngkin won by distancing from Trump, which Trump will not permit in most races. The Senate seats being contested include several swing states where Republican Senators are retiring, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. In all four cases, the Republican winning the primary will be much closer to Trump than was Glen Youngkin. These candidates may well send independent voters fleeing.
• The resistance has not gone away. We still have the capacity to field millions of donors and campaigners, and most everyone still has the intent to be fielded.
• One might wish that more of Joe Biden’s 81 million voters would understand what he will have accomplished before Congress adjourns for the year. Among the initiatives in the American Rescue Plan, The American Jobs Plan, and the framework for the soon to pass expansion of the social safety net are:
• A child tax credit that over time could decreases child poverty in America by over half.
• The single largest investment the United States has ever made in public transit.
• Provision of pandemic-related unemployment insurance to a quarter of America’s workers.
• Building, preserving, or retrofitting over two million homes and commercial buildings
• Providing pre-school opportunities for all three- and four-year-old children.
• Reducing greenhouse gases by over a billion tons.

It would be perfectly fine for this liberal or that progressive to lament what is missing from the Democratic legislative agenda, especially since the Congress will not be passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. However, a little less sorrow and a little more pride would be in order. After the pride is mustered and we understand that the alarm just went off, we can do these three things.

1) Expand Our Efforts to Increase Voter Participation
	A previous missive outlined ways in which we can support registration and voting in the African-American, Latino/a and Asian-Americans communities that Republicans are seeking to exclude. The missive emphasized national organizations. Walk the Walk USA has done better, identifying local organizations with an excellent track record with targeted populations in targeted states. They include the Arizona Coalition for Change, Georgia’s Asian-Americans Advancing Justice, Casa Pennsylvania, the North Carolina Black Alliance ncblackalliance.org, Make the Road Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin’s Voces de la Frontera If you were to use that magnet to affix one list to the refrigerator this would be a great choice.
2) Every Week, Call the Lie a Lie
	On the one hand, it is exciting to have Donald Trump say his supporters may not vote in 2022 unless the 2020 election result is reversed, and he is declared President. On the other hand, we need to continue our work to prevent his continued desecration of the American political process. One way to do that is to support those of his party who publicly insist that Trump lost, an exceedingly patriotic thing to do. The Republican Accountability Project is the ticket now that they have placed TRUMP LOST billboards in New York’s Times Square and in seven swing states.
3) Work to Revive John Lewis’ Bill
	Alaska’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski worked with Democratic Senators this week to develop a compromise version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. She turned out to cast the only Republican vote to halt her party’s unconscionable filibuster. When John Lewis died, Susan Collins memorialized him as a man who “changed history at great personal sacrifice.” Let’s call her Senate office to remind her of her sincere admiration of John Lewis, and her clear path to honoring him now. Call Senator Collins’ office at (202) 224 2523.

It is just a year now before we decide how much support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will get from the House and Senate in the final two years of this term. There is no point in talking about Mitch McConnell and his contemptuous approach to Democratic presidents unless we are willing to do something about it, which we are.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#18: Do These Ten Things and Trump Will Fail

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.

The threat to America from Donald Trump has been huge since 2016. For getting your attention, there is nothing like having a malevolent, narcissistic, anti-constitutionalist on the scene. Though there are predictions that his forces will get a rebound in 2022, the formula for continuing to push him toward history’s dustbin is simple. However, it needs to be attended to with more intensity than we are presently mustering.

We need clear-headedness as well as tirelessness. Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan set Trump resisters on fire weeks ago by insisting that the constitutional crisis is no longer threatened, that instead it has arrived. Luckily, Kagan is overstated on all fronts as he details Trump’s various coup attempts, and the dramatic actions in Congress on January 6. Yes, Mike Pence ultimately did the right thing, but Kagan makes it sound like Pence stood alone in insisting upon the constitutional transfer of power. He was on the same page as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Barr, acting attorney Jeffrey Rosen, Chuck Schumer, Mitt Romney and yes, Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. As Politico senior editor Jack Shafer notes, Trump’s current rages and lies which seem to impress Kagan could well be more a sign of weakness than of strength. 

Surely, eternal vigilance is demanded, since it is the price of liberty. Rather than lamenting that the constitutional crisis has arrived, we should be recognizing that it has been averted (for now) and will be avoided for as long as Democrats remain in power, and perhaps even longer than that.

Kagan also details the discomfiting circumstances that have emerged after January 6. He emphasizes the attempts by Republican state legislators to “audit” the 2020 ballots, their assaults on voting rights in Texas, Arizona and Georgia, the continued existence of the big lie; the large cohort of anti-vaxxers, Trump’s continued dominance over his party, and the sinkhole that social media has become. But voting laws have been improved in 25 states, non-vaxxers are dwindling by the week, and none of the big lie “audits” have a chance of success.

Ross Douthat got it right in the New York Times. He tells liberals and progressives that they are in the process of securing the America they have sought. Of course that seems odd because there is so much more than must be done. But the American Rescue Plan (focusing on COVID, the economy, and child poverty), the bipartisan American Jobs Plan (centering on physical infrastructure), and the upcoming $2 trillion American Families Plan (addressing education and social welfare) will all be law by mid-November. This is an enormous set of legislative accomplishments. It was planned by Joe Biden from the outset. It has been made possible in part by the maligned Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, and in part by Trump’s January 5 Georgia election nosedive.

Perhaps a celebration seems a bit premature since there is no guarantee that we will maintain control over the House and the Senate in November 2022. There is even less certainty that we will be able to get many more Democratic Senators, which would be beneficial because Manchin wouldn’t be able to hold us back on reducing carbon emissions.

There are simple strategies for expanding the House and Senate margins and getting ready for the November 2024 presidential election. We know exactly what to do. It would be an unbelievable if we didn’t do it at all, or at enough scale. Many of these matters have been discussed in previous missives. Here are the ten strategies that we should affix to our refrigerators and act upon each week:

1) Boost Latino/a Registration and Voting
	Republicans are working hard at voter suppression because the 2020 Census has reconfirmed their demographic destiny. White males are now the sole major demographic group that supports Trump, and their share of the voting population is the smallest it has been in American history. Democrats must not take any ethnicity or population segment for granted, as they proved in 2020 when they lost Florida because Cuban-Americans voted for Trump. For an organization that will stay focused on Latino/a registration and voting from now until November 2022, you can’t beat Mi Familia Vota.
2) Increase African-American Registration and Voting
	Not to revisit a wound, but a major reason the blue wall did not hold in 2016 is the lower than expected African-American turnout in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which was reversed in 2020. There are numerous local and statewide organizations attending to these matters, but it is never a bad idea to start with Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight. We would not have 50 United States Senators without her, and with our help she will be the next Governor of Georgia.
3) Increase Asian-American Registration and Voting
	Democratic vote totals among Asian-American voters have not been as considerable, but Democratic candidates have still benefited from these margins in nearly every state. Asian and Pacific Islander-American Vote is the national go-to organization.

4) Fight Ongoing Voter Suppression
	There is hardly a political strategy more redolent of moral decrepitude than impeding another citizen’s intention to vote. Republicans have shamelessly invented voter fraud problems to suppress the vote. The unlikely strongest force standing in their way along with the American Civil Liberties Union is the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Subscribe to their Briefing and support them any other way you can. Keep in mind the ultimate goal is voting by mail.
5) Target Seditionists
	In the midst of an insurrection, there are those in Congress who voted to refuse to accept electoral vote reports from targeted states. These are members of the “Sedition Caucus”. There is hardly a better test of unsuitably to serve in the United States Congress. At least two Political Action Committees have been organized to unseat the most politically vulnerable of these members. These are Defeat the Sedition Caucus run by the Progress Action Fund and the Treason Caucus by the Voter Protection PAC.
6) Convince Companies not to Support Seditionists
	For a time after January 6, large American corporations steered clear of members of Congress who had tried to take down our country. Now their feet are starting to get cold, because they don’t want to lose influence with those members. Deserving of your participation and support is the number one monitor of those companies and advocate for steering them away from seditious elected officials. That is Citizens for Ethics in Government (CREW).

7) Reform Republicanism
	Whatever one can say about the Lincoln Project, its attack mode was not targeted to draw in whatever moderate Republicans are left in the land. The most effective organization on that track is Sarah Longwell’s Center Action Now. It is not for liberals and progressives, but for those who might once have been a Republican and who want to help Center Action Now expand a middle ground. If one is of that disposition and wants to use that frame to defeat Trump, “taking the pledge” is encouraged here.
8) Fight Back Against Lies on Social Media
	After you have seen the thousandth misinforming article on social media on vaccination or elections, you could resign yourself. Or you could be a part of the growing number that expects social media to develop and apply standards. Use stronger.org to report misinformation on COVID and vaccines.

9) Target and Support Selected House and Senate Candidates
	Between now and November of 2022, several organizations will promote lists of targeted candidates. They will focus upon races we can win to add to our fragile majorities in the House and Senate. The appeal of being guided by such lists or donating to all or some of their targeted candidates is to avoid wasting donation dollars by supporting candidates who have no choice to win or those who are sure to win by a wide margin. Among the very best of these lists (and funding portals) is that of Swing Left They are starting with six Senate races and will update every quarter. Postcard writing has also become a key strategy for those who are not doing in-person campaigning. Often the most aggressive postcard writing is through the cells of Indivisible.
10) Pick Your Own Excellent Candidate
	It’s important to give candidates who need money the resources they must have at the time when they can most benefit from those resources. At this moment, one could already identify candidates who are certain to do excellent work, are very likely to win any primaries they have, and are in important races to expand our lead in the House and the Senate. The wise thing is to do our research and not get swept away by an unwinnable race, such as Amy McGrath’s candidacy in 2020 trying to unseat Mitch McConnell. She lost by 19% of the vote. In 2022, a good race to start with is Rep. Tim Ryan’s very promising effort to fill the vacant Ohio Senate seat.

It has been difficult to stay focused on defeating the cult of American mean-spiritedness and misdirection that Trump exemplifies. As the pandemic recedes, the temptation will be to ignore Trump, revel in life, and experience love, adventure, and compassion. Sometimes we need to share the time spent on those splendid activities with the most difficult thing. In this case, that thing is making certain every single week to do the work that will make Donald Trump fail.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#17: Donald Trump, Please Keep Doing What You Are Doing

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.

The idea that California regularly leads the nation down inventive or progressive new paths is a shibboleth. California has certainly been a leader in clean air regulation, but Minnesota has been ahead on fighting poverty. It was Washington’s cities that started things going on the $15 an hour minimum wage. Fighting the pandemic, both Washington’s Jay Inslee and Ohio’s Mike DeWine have stood out through firmness and consistency more than has California’s Gavin Newsom.

However, California just distinguished itself. It became the first to significantly test and improve the formula for beating the forces of Donald Trump in the fall of 2022.

This counts for a lot. Rarely are mid-term elections positive for the party that is in power. At this point. the “generic” Congressional ballot presently shows only a 2% lead for Democrats, putting Nancy Pelosi’s majority in peril. Even though there are several Republican Senatorial retirements and promising races redound, there is no comfort to be had with the elections just over a year ahead. Thus, any strategies that can be perfected today will bode well for keeping both the Senate and the House behind Joe Biden where they belong.

Political analysts think they have found something in the California recall that will provide a blueprint for Democratic campaigning in the next year. The recall race looked much closer six weeks before election day. In the final weeks, leading Republican candidate Larry Elder changed his mind after initially declaring that Joe Biden won the presidential election “fairly and squarely”. Beset by Trump and Trump’s supporters, he altered his course. He started talking about “shenanigans” and absent evidence of fraud refused to say whether he would accept the election’s outcome. It is widely believed that his Trump style election denialism cost him dearly in the polls. The “no on recall” ended up winning by nearly three million votes.

The Republican former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, who trailed Elder, had it right when he said that the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud depressed the Republican vote. Meanwhile the Democrats increased their turnout by effortlessly tying Elder to Trump’s now endless fraud claims. Since those claims became dominant only during and after the fall of 2020, their electoral impact is only now being tested. The California recall provides early and positive news that “stop the steal” is old news that appeals only to Trump’s core supporters, and not even all of them. 

More than ever, and even among independent voters, Trump turns out voters who are against him more than he does those who are for him. In part, that is because he is incapable of taking himself out of the story, so it would be impossible for aides to convince him to step back if he is hurting a candidate. Plus, his cries that even the clearest election result is “rigged” makes Republican voters think their vote is worthless, so they are less likely to cast it.

As important, the Newsom forces made Elder the MAGA candidate on vaccine denialism and COVID non-management. Unluckily for the Trump backed candidate, the majority of independent voters favor vaccine mandates and related government efforts to defeat the pandemic. It wasn’t difficult for Newsom to make Larry Elder Trump’s political brother, since Trump insisted on it. And Trump will keep on making himself the issue across the country in 2022.

In California, COVID management became the second part of the “Name the villain, describe the stakes” Democratic strategy. If someone can be accurately labeled the MAGA candidate, it follows that they will be apologists for anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. These MAGA candidates will be running against candidates who are treating the pandemic like the public health emergency that the public recognizes. For the majority of the besieged populace, these stakes are huge. They want the pandemic to come to an end. Trump long ago ceded the ground of recognizing the pandemic’s ravages and deploying government to conquer it. Through all of challenges of the Delta variant, Biden has seized this ground.

“Name the villain, describe the stakes” will not be a winning strategy in every Congressional district. However, the California approach suggests that the number of districts in which it will be a winner is growing. Now more than ever, the strategies that Trump uses to gain the allegiance of his core supporters are anathema to the very independents that Republican candidates need. He is unlikely to run for President in 2024, but we should want his lying, felonious, malevolent insurrectionist self around for November 2022.

Let’s continue to confront him by focusing on the seditionists he loves most of all, and otherwise joining the battle he has framed:

1) Virginia Hinges on Battling for the Right to Choose
	Virginia is one of two states (the other is New Jersey) that have gubernatorial elections this fall. Since Governor Ralph Northam is term limited, former Governor Terry McAuliffe is the Democratic Candidate. He is in a close race with businessperson Glenn Youngkin, endorsed by Trump. Democrats are using the widespread oppositition to the Texas abortion law (which allows neighbors to file civil suits against women getting an abortion) to increase the votes of independent suburban women. Candidate Youngkin was caught on tape saying that he was waiting to get elected to “go on the offense” against the right to choose. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia is fielding campaign teams in the DC suburbs to increase the turnout of independent voters. This is the right time to make an investment.
2) Yes, the Lincoln Project is Still Telling the Truth About Trump
	To some, the Lincoln Project has been a bit annoying, because they are staffed by former Republican operatives who cannot abide Trump or his brand, even though some of them helped pave the way for his arrival. However, this former inside position makes their political ads even more inventive and creative and relentless. You can share these ads with every list you have and everyone you know and help expand the Lincoln Project’s impact. Have a look at the Lincoln Project's site. Here is an example of a Lincoln video that could benefit from your distributional assistance.
3) Report COVID Misinformation Every Day
	On the human side, we can and must save lives. Every day, lies about the vaccine and even about masking prevent people from protecting themselves against severe illness or death. On the political side, we cannot maintain our majorities in the House and Senate unless we defeat the virus. Reporting misinformation should be our daily duty. Stronger.org provides this guide to reporting false information you receive through Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Do not count upon this social media companies to do the right thing on their own. They won’t.

You have already made a pledge to yourself to not take November 2022 for granted. You have promised yourself to start increasing your activity week to week. It is time to keep the promise.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington