#25: By Summer, Merrick Garland Will Indict 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.

History is not repeating itself. When elected in 1856, 15th President James Buchanan was highly respected, but he sympathized mightily with the slaveholding South. When Abraham Lincoln was elected four years later, Buchanan did nothing to discourage the various plots to block Lincoln’s inauguration, scheduled four very long months after the election. Buchanan was tempted but didn’t participate in a coup, and instead the southern states seceded.

Sixty years earlier, as Lin Michael Miranda has taught, Aaron Burr’s political estrangement began when Alexander Hamilton blocked his path to the Presidency. Subsequently, he committed treason by plotting to establish a new nation in the Southwest. No coup there either.

Millard Fillmore, no way. Rutherford B. Hayes or James Monroe, not a chance. Not even a faint notion in the mind of William Howard Taft. Except for Donald Trump, the singular sensation, our 230-year record of peaceful transitions of power is unblemished. The seemingly never-ending stream of disclosures from the Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection will provide much of the evidence Merrick Garland needs to indict Trump. In addition, the Justice Department has charged 820 people in the breaching of the Capitol, and 260 have pleaded guilty, including pleas of guilt to the charge of “seditious conspiracy”. We know the identity of the seditious conspirator in chief.

The Committee’s upcoming public hearings will establish that Donald Trump endeavored to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election and thus sought to overthrow the government of the United States. 

Did you ever think you would hear such a thing? Donald Trump orchestrated the selection of bogus electors in seven states, all of whom submitted false affidavits and thus committed election fraud. In advance, he sought the creation of a mob to send to the Capitol to prevent the election’s certification, and he chortled over their temporary success. He invented powers for the Vice President which did not exist and tried to make Mike Pence his coup partner. He pressed the Georgia Secretary of State to ignore his Constitutional responsibility and change the outcome. Through it all, he demonstrated enormous contempt for our country.

The Select Committee has already shown that Trump was not just being swept along by the maniacal disregard of the law by Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. Through it all, as everyone from Bill Barr to Sean Hannity have since observed, he sought a new set of acolytes every time someone informed him that he had lost. This set of actions by any other American elected official in the past century would have resulted in their immediate departure from public service.

Trump has numerous, distinct problematic legal problems across the country, as CNN has outlined. The Fulton County Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis has convened a grand jury. But all the cases pale against being indicted by the Attorney General of the United States.

Democrats are bumping into each other claiming that Merrick Garland is too cautious, or insufficiently vocal. The truth is, we are out of practice viewing how an Attorney General should show restraint in public in circumstances like these. If nothing else, Garland is displaying the behavior every appellate court is expecting of him. But he did say this, which seems pointed:

“The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law—whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

The two most likely potential charges are obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people. The first charge involves Trump’s instigation of the insurrection, made more difficult (but not impossible) to establish because he did not physically enter the Capitol. The latter charge might well depend on proving that Trump knew he had lost. There is also the matter of the fraudulent submission of electors, which has attracted considerable attention from the Special Committee.

Surprisingly, some things are happening in Congress even with the distraction of the work of the Special Committee and the political primaries that are underway. A bipartisan effort led to the passage of the Postal Reform Act of 2022, which will save the U.S. Postal Service $50 billion over the next ten years, thus increasing its viability. Also destined to pass is the Innovation and Competition Act which among other things seeks to resolve America’s microchip shortage. The Senate version received support from 18 Republican Senators.

 

It isn’t outlandish to imagine and work for a future where former Presidents are brought to justice when they attempt a coup, and where Congress works together on major legislation. With such goals in mind, let’s do these three things. 

1) Fight to Protect the Right to Choose
	The disclosure of Supreme Court Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade does not guarantee that the Court has made its final decision, but it does signal a highly likely outcome. Still an issue is whether the Court will end up protecting even the most limited constitutional right in states bent on banning access to abortion entirely. This will change the battleground away from both the states that have passed restrictive abortion laws and the 16 states and the District of Columbia that have clearly protected the right to choose. Almost all the states that are in play already have important Senatorial and Gubernatorial races this fall. These are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. All have Republican control in the Legislature, but all but North Carolina voted for Joe Biden. There will also be intense battles in Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, depending on the Governor.  Protecting choice will instantly become the number one issue in countless state legislative races, especially in the above states. There will be plenty of chances to make targeted contributions. In the meantime, a very good place to send money would be NARAL Pro-Choice America, which fights for choice in partnership with Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List.
2) Follow Republican! Candidates for President
	There is a good argument that Donald Trump being on the presidential ballot in 2024 would be a gift from the gods. On the other hand, allowing America to bleed every day can’t be such a good thing. So, it is interesting to watch present and former Republican Governors brave Trump’s wrath by exploring their own candidacy. These include Larry Hogan of Maryland, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, and now Asa Hutchison of Arkansas. All these people have the wrong ideas most of the time, but some are not intentionally and mind-numbingly mean spirited.
3) Don’t Forget to Register Voters
	You have friends who are becoming eligible to vote, and perhaps some others for whom are losing the protections of Roe v. Wade will motivate political action. Now is the time to evaluate who in the world is not registered. Rock the Vote has everything you need to know about election law in each state and how to register online.

The unfinished work is monumental. We don’t have any choice but to adopt an approach of relentless attention to what needs to be done. We can do that, no?

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#24: Which Republicans Have Summoned Moral Courage?

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.

Moral and political courage have been on our minds for six years now. Watching Republican cabinet officers and elected officials, many of us wonder: If you were an elected official, and you knew your friend or ally or leader was diminishing your country, or imperiling it, or falsely claiming election fraud or even considering a coup, would you say something? When would you say it, and to whom? Like so many, would you instead keep your lips tight, fearing recrimination from Donald Trump that would be so severe that your own career would be threatened, or ended?

Would you hope that someone else steps forward, in your mind thus relieving you from doing so? In the meantime, would you offer veiled criticisms of Trump, hoping that those listening would read between your lines? Would you tell yourself you were still looking for the best opportunity to stand up? Would you convince yourself that your silence about the huge threat to American helps you move otherwise useful things forward?

Maybe you are Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, carrying out most orders and resisting some, all of the time shaking your head, lasting as long as you can but never letting the press and public know the awful things you know. Maybe you are Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, privately questioning the President’s basic intelligence, finding him uninformed and dangerous, but walking away silently. Or, you are Attorney General Bill Barr, peeping but once as the Big Lie grew and grew, now remembering your one moment of truth and forgetting all else.

You are Mitch McConnell garbage feeding month after month to get your Supreme Court Justices. You are Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, easiest with your criticisms when you aren’t running, or Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, capable of moral outrage but providing the votes in the Senate when the Republican caucus needs them. 

Moral courage has been absent from nearly the entire Republican party. Every reason to not step forward has been exercised, even in the face of the threat to the peaceful transition of power. Mercifully, there have been a few members of Congress who are willing to put their careers in the balance to combat the insurrection and attempted coup. Several are from Congressional districts that Trump won by a large margin. All are as “conservative” as Trump in the normal usage of the word. They include Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who voted to hold the always contemptuous Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress, farmer Dan Newhouse of Yakima, Washington, who never said a bad word about Trump until he voted to impeach him, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming who has been at the center of the Congressional effort to bring justice forward.

All three are running in contested primaries, Mace in June and Newhouse and Cheney in August. All three have Republican opponents endorsed by Trump, none supported by him for any reason but that they have bought into the Big Lie. Thus, this summer we finally have the uncommon test of whether a small number of courageous conservative elected officials can stand the tallest among their colleagues, brave the greatest retribution, and help our country right itself. Even though it is not the intent of these Republicans to boost us in the November election, their success will do so.

In the meantime, Joe Biden is trying to get people to notice two monumental things events that took place this week in America. First, 431,000 new jobs were reported. This eleventh consecutive month of gains over 400,000 has returned employment back to pre-pandemic levels. Second, COVID hospitalizations sank to their lowest point in the pandemic. Joe Biden’s role in these two outcomes should be extolled.

Biden has been the leader of the resurgence of NATO and the emergence of far greater sanctions of Putin and Russia than had been thought possible. Russia’s economy is broken. Distinguished appointee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson survived her Ted Cruz/Josh Hawley sliming ordeal and will soon become the first African-American woman on the Supreme Court. Millions have returned to the workforce as schools have reopened, Democrats are hoping that the American voter will notice all these things during the midterm elections in November.

It is certainly possible that voters will recognize Biden’s considerable achievements, but it is not inevitable. Independent voters are even less approving of Trump than they are of Biden, but they have been slower to turn away from Trump’s acolytes like Kevin McCarthy, who would run the House if Republicans take it back. The most likely Republican leadership in the House is made up of McCarthy, Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, far to the right of the Republican leadership in the Senate. With these Trump enablers waiting in the wings, it is the challenge of the next six months to speed up the recognition of who they are. Many independent voters like the idea of divided government, but these “leaders” come from a Republican party the independent voters will not recognize if they look more closely.

Meanwhile the millions of resisters who have stood in Trump’s way for six years need to spark themselves before November is upon us. Let’s do these three things:

1) Find One More Republican of Conscience
	Roy Blunt of Missouri is retiring from the Senate after thirty years in Washington. On numerous occasions he has called for Trump to stop re-litigating the November 2020 outcome. He has said the election was properly certified based upon the reported results. He works across the aisle, often with Amy Klobuchar. He sides with Mitch McConnell and against Trump as he recruits candidates for the Senate. He purports to love the Constitution. Is he really going to walk away from the Senate in November without ever underscoring and seeking to minimize the damage caused by Trump’s claims of a stolen election? The very least we can do is remind him that shying away from a threat to his country contradicts the service he has sought to provide. He will be back in the state quite a bit over the next month. Call his St. Louis office at 314-725-4484.
2) Figure Out How to Walk the Walk
	Now vanished are the millions of dollars from Democratic donors who supported Amy McGrath’s Senate candidacy to unseat Mitch McConnell in 2020. The bitter realization is that Amy McGrath did not have a chance to win the race, and that donors got so overwhelmed by their antipathy to McConnell that they ignored that fact. Of course, the lesson is that when seeking the most favorable results we have no choice but to target our dollars carefully. That is why Swing Left is starting by emphasizing only six Senate races. Under Swing Left's plan we would start by emphasizing the opportunity to flip the Senate seats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and seek to defend seats we hold in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Further targets may appear in Ohio, Florida and Missouri but Swing Left wants us to make certain not to get ahead of ourselves. Another important approach is to support the underlying work that makes victories in these states possible. The volunteer organization Walk the Walk is intent on supporting the organizations that undergo organizing efforts on the community level, emphasizing disenfranchised communities. This is an outstanding focus in response to the voter suppression efforts that Republicans are advancing in the same states. Check out the specific partnerships that Walk the Walk has forged and give this initiative a boost.
3) Turn Yourself into a One Person Campaign Team
	You could live in a community where people of similar political persuasion are few or difficult to find. It is also possible that your schedule makes participating in group projects difficult. In these cases, you can dive into campaign projects on your own. One good bet is the Progressive Turnout Project. Among other things, they have been engaged in producing 27 million personalized postcards. As a part of a broader array of campaign strategies, they are a proven tool that is associated with the high turnout that we have achieved of late. You can sign up in a minute and adopt an outstanding, useful alternative to fiddling with your phone. If you do ten a day starting now you will have sent 2,000 to swing voters before the election.

Joe Biden is 78 and he isn’t tired. It is time to give our efforts an upgrade. The other option is to stay the course while Donald Trump is calling Putin a genius.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#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