#6: Powerful Movements Don’t Lose Their Energy

Powerful movements don’t lose their energy. Our following continues to grow. Please help share the word by having your friends email me to be added to our e-blast list, or enroll to receive the same ideas in my Path Forward Blog, or connect with me through Facebook.

The underlying question for any movement is its staying power, its ability to gather strength and maintain focus long enough to accomplish a meaningful portion of its goals. I have roots in the 1960s movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. I learned powerful movements can and must have multiple leaders and strategies, but they can’t lose their energy and they can’t derail themselves.

The extra ability to organize through the internet and social media can be a huge advantage, but all of us will need to remember what counts. Our interconnection has just made it possible for three million people to assemble worldwide on one amazing day. This demonstrates emphatically that this situation will not stand, that we will renew and even expand our nation’s quest for equality and justice. The marches bolstered the movement hugely, and there will be more such opportunities to come.

We must continue to hold ourselves to the highest standard in making certain that social media activity counts. Online discourses on Trump can gather people, provide important information, debunk misleading information from untrustworthy sources (including, as it turns out, the President!), help sort out strategies and organize, organize, organize. All these uses are worthy.

Online exchanges must ultimately generate action. Less than 1% of the million people who allied themselves through Facebook with Save Darfur in 2014 ended up donating, and their collective total was only $100,000. Similarly, other than fueling ourselves, a “like” responding to some clever anti-Trump trope is just a “like”, unless steps are taken.

And steps are being taken. Let’s choose relentlessness and let’s ally ourselves to the several efforts that are gaining traction. Notably, half the nation’s Republicans and nearly three quarters of all voters think that Donald Trump should release his tax returns. This is not going to go away. It will come to a new head with marches and heavy media attention on April 15, as the rest of us pay our taxes. The “We the People” website maintained by the White House is still up, and here is the chance to tell them exactly what Donald Trump should do. Over 346,000 people have signed this tax disclosure petition since inauguration.

And here are three other things we can all do right now:

1) Keep Focusing on Health Care Coverage
	Happily, the question of the extent of coverage under the replaced Affordable Care Act is in play. Republicans will either protect the ACA’s primary elements or suffer political damage in their home states if they do not so. In addition to the health care lobbying recommendations I made in missive #5, this would a good week to leave a message on the phone of Republican Senators who don’t know which way to turn. Start with any or all of five Republicans who have already pushed for alternative plans to be moved along before repeal:      Bob Corker of Tennessee - phone: 202 224 3344      Susan Collins of Maine - phone: 207-622-8414      Rob Portman of Ohio - phone: 216-522-7095      Bill Cassidy of Louisiana - phone: 337-261-1400      Lisa Murkowski of Alaska - phone: 907-225-6880 Don’t get misled by the language of the Republican leadership. When they talk about everyone having access to health care, they are not talking about everyone having coverage. Access means sending a bill (or providing much more limited help) to people who don’t have enough money to pay the bill. If you let them do it, coverage for as many as 20 million people could vanish. Democrats in the Senate (spurred by President Obama) are setting the stage nicely for the upcoming release of the replacement bill by Trump and Congressional Republicans. Will it maintain coverage, or won’t it? Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan want to change that subject and they won’t be able to do so. As noted by my friend Anita Rockefeller, Organizing for Action is a terrific source on the ins and outs of health care politics and provides excellent ways in which you can engage.
2) Help People Understand That This Isn’t Populism
	Populist is fast becoming the most misused word in the English language. Please accept the challenge of combating the media’s incorrect application of this term to Donald Trump.First, although the term can be used as advancing the concerns of the common people, it is often used to refer to the concerns of the common people in the face of an ingrained establishment. As you know, this context is meant to underscore the rightness of the cause. Thus, any politician will be happy to be called a populist. When the media is latched onto Brexit as populism the flaws in the usage are quickly revealed, because a lot of "common people" opposed Brexit. There are plenty of political movements in which both sides argue that they are driven by populism and the media is not exempt from sorting this out. However you define the “common people” (itself a challenge), they or we don’t want Donald Trump to make false claims about elections and they or we want him to release his taxes. Using the term to describe an elected official does feel like a bestowing a label of goodness, even though it is entirely possible that this or that “populist” movement could be homophobic or xenophobic, which has happened in this country. The other issue beyond that is it should not be bestowed at the request of the politician. When Trump was running, President Obama said that there was no evidence from Trump's record that he had ever cared about the common people at all. To me, that is the biggest of the problems. It is in General Motors’ interest to allow Trump to claim a role in a manufacturing decision, even though they made that decision a year ago. Trump’s true manner is anti-populist, since his specific tax and regulatory proposals comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. Please take it as a personal task to generate emails to media sources or reporters or letters to the editor saying that the term should be used only after review of the elected official’s actual positions.
3) Follow Up on Your Previous Political Adventures
	Those of us who are dedicated to four years of intensive political action will always face the challenge of trying to attend to a lot of things at once. It’s good to revisit some matters: I have stressed that it is possible for Democrats to win the 24 seats necessary to take back the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. I have noted that there are 21 seats in which Republicans were elected in districts that gave Hillary Clinton more votes than Donald Trump. I have pointed to the analysis by the Daily Kos on how to sort out which seats can be won. And, I have been concerned about how absent this possibility has been from the daily discourse of politically dismayed people. Now comes a new organization focusing entirely on this challenge. Swing Left needs to improve its analytics about which seats are vulnerable, and the Daily Kos is wary of their political knowledge and skills, but this is a start.  In previous missives, I have talked about gerrymandering and voter suppression and the various organizations that are fighting back against these misbehaviors. Now, Democrats are getting more serious about these matters, especially in the context of 2020 state legislative elections. It is those legislators who will approve redistricting plans after the completion of the 2020 census. The new effort is being run by former Attorney General Eric Holder and is called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. And, after reveling in a touching note written by a certain 12 year old I know about her “inalienable right” to march last weekend, I am including two remembrances of that day. From my friend, photographer John Snell, glorious pictures of marching in Montlelier, Vermont from his Still Learning to See blog. And, from my friend Barry Peters, a spreadsheet on who went where, from Friday Harbor, Washington to Antarctica.

Not only can we do this, we are doing it, but we have to be as unrelenting and as wise in our choices a year from now as we are now. Please help me find additional people who would be interesting in hearing this message.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#5 We Will Not Walk Away From the Best Within All of Us

We will not walk away from the best within all of us as Americans. Please continue the inexplicable strong growth in the market for these missives (sent every two weeks) by getting your friends to add their names to our e-blast, or enroll to receive the same ideas in my Path Forward Blog, or connect with me through Facebook.

This situation is not going to normalize. I once hoped that the President-elect would allow the importance of the office to lift him, but that isn’t going to happen. An excellent explication by David Brooks describes what will instead emerge --- the shifting tweet-interpreting battle within and between senior White House staff, the Cabinet appointments, and House and Senate Republicans.

There is good news amid this awful news. The possibilities for our collective efforts are going to come earlier and be ongoing. As always, we must sort our priorities, and there is a huge opportunity on health care and on reproductive freedom.

Because the American Medical Association and others have insisted that the Affordable Care Act be replaced almost immediately after it is repealed, the chance that major elements of the Act can be preserved has grown. This has previously been the case with coverage of pre-existing conditions and young adults. The new news is that traction can be gained on maintaining coverage of 20 million health care recipients. The Pottery Barn rule -“ You broke it, you own it” will apply. As the Republicans remove mandated inclusion of healthy persons, they will face the need to find another way to finance the newly covered population, and they don’t have an answer, except for the tax increase they have already rejected. They will either save Obama provisions or damage themselves politically by rejecting them. Similarly, they will extend their own problems if they include banning funding of Planned Parenthood as a part of their repeal, as Speaker Ryan intends.

Right now, it is all about the Congress. We know that we have a powerful agenda to pursue at the local and state level and with Executive Branch agencies. But, we will be benefited from this point forward if Congress gets the early signal that Trump has generated an unprecedented, relentless movement with which they must deal. We are here. We are not going away. If you support the Trump agenda, whether or not you lose your specific seat, you will lose your majority. In the size and the principles of our efforts, we will make the Tea Party look like a tea party.

Here's what we can do:

1) Obsess about Congress
	Calling Congress over the next two weeks should come right after coffee. Missive #4 included a first meditation on why members of Congress care about calls, even if they live in safe districts and even (within some limitations) if you are not their constituent. There is nothing wrong with being a part of their tally, but you are trying to get beyond the tally if you can. a) Start with your own member of Congress, and your two Senators. Always tailor your message. Never send or read someone else’s script. Study their website to see who are the best points of personal contact. On the Affordable Care Act issue, see if somewhere on the website you can find the name of their legislative assistant who covers health care as one of her or his staff assignments. If you can find their number or email, use those in addition to calling their main number, or using the email comment function on the site. Whether or not you get a human or a tape, be positive and concise. If you don’t want 20 million people to lose their insurance, say so, firmly and compellingly. b) Turn around and do the same thing with one of the District offices of each of the Senators and the Congressperson. If you live anywhere near the office, stop by.  c) It is true that members of Congress are focused most on their constituents, but there are ways around that. Take advantage of every connection you have---- if you are a health care professional, or you used to live in their state, or visit it frequently. Don’t misrepresent your state if asked, but look for comment opportunities where you aren’t asked. d) Consider what groups or professional associations you can rally. If you have a circle of people who share your views on these matters, give them a name and ask the Member of Congress for a meeting next time she or he is in the district. e) Write letters to the editor to the newspapers that still exist, commend members who are doing the right things and ask people to contact members who are not.  f) Start learning more things that will be useful to your argument, this Washington Post article is a good resource. Always tailor your message.  Never send or read someone else’s script. How many people in your state will lose their insurance if Affordable Care Act markets and subsidies are going away?What are the dangers to insurance markets and consumers if the Republicans repeal and fail to replace? In which states that voted for Trump would replacement without repeal mean hundreds of thousands of people would be thrown off the roles? These Trump electing states who could lose the partial or fully expanded coverage they previously adopted include Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
2) Find National Leaders Who Can Get Us to 218
	We will be a quart low on sufficient national leadership for a little while, which is a little disquieting because we should be working right now on the elections of 2018, to add 3 Senators (difficult, because of which seats will be on the ballot) and 24 House members. This is not as far-fetched as you might have thought. To start, there are 14 Republicans holding seats in districts where Clinton beat Trump. Whomever leads the Democratic National Committee should quell the unhelpful back and forth between former Clinton and Sanders partisans. People who plan to work through the Democratic Party have a right to expect that this party will get better in every way and on all levels. However, casting the effort to make it better as a Sanders-Clinton second chapter is a splashy gift to Donald Trump and Paul Ryan. Even after the DNC there is a need to figure out which of any national political efforts you want to support, such as MoveOn.org. There are arguments to be made for each national organizing vehicle, and MoveOn is a good one. Just make certain to check where each organization is spending its energy, and make certain that their recommendations are current, well-formulated and not snarky. Also, remember that on such issues as voter registration, the best work may be being done at the local level. Missive #4 includes material from Daily Kos which is the best site for understanding which individual members of Congress are most vulnerable in 2018. Move beyond the map to the tables that provide the vote totals in specific races in states where you have interest. You are comparing the vote total and percentage for the Republican member of Congress in 2016 with the vote total and percentage within that district for Obama in 2012 and/or Clinton in 2016. What you are doing is finding districts with a lot of people who want to protect President Obama’s achievements but which have members of Congress that Speaker Ryan is deploying to unravel those achievements. Targeted races will develop.
3) On That Day
	It now seems clear that there will be enough people in the streets before and after the Inauguration to send the signal that Donald Trump’s present and future actions are not acceptable. Pointed public protest is an important tool going forward, as long as it does not substitute for the rest of the work. Thanks to Jon Bayley, we have a reminder that we need to attend to our own celebration on January 20. Some of his counsel: Don’t watch the inauguration and boost its ratings. Buy a good newspaper to support the free press. Do something good for your community. Give blood. Volunteer at a shelter or a food bank. Wear something to indicate your distress, like a black armband or the previously discussed safety pins that are worn across America. Participate in a local demonstration. Donate to organizations that are fighting the battle, like the Democratic Party, immigrant rights groups, Planned Parenthood, and voter registration efforts.

We can do this, together. We already remember that we can’t afford to lose focus. This situation that we are in is not a good thing, and the dangers to our country and world are significant. But, this situation also provides us the opportunity to again elevate the things that are important, and to successfully oppose those who would make our country small.

Best regards,

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington