#10: Let’s Go With Relentless, Aggressive, Principled, Despair-Diminishing Positivism

Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends, if you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course. 

It is not within our collective powers to uncomplicate these troubled times, or to assuage all the fears we share. In the short term, we cannot magically create a responsive, justice seeking national government that will seek to boost and protect all of the people. But we can and we do stand together to make things far better than they otherwise would be, and to work to end this spell of governmental malfeasance as soon as possible.

Donald Trump’s awful 37% presidential approval rating in the Gallup Poll (down 7% in this past week) is good news of a sort, because more and more citizens are aware of what he has been sowing. And we all understand it is bad news of a sort, because he is rending democracy’s fabric. A college classmate of mine from 48! years ago wrote ruefully “hoping for dysfunction is not the world’s noblest goal” and I said “Yes, let’s go for---- it’s the noblest goal available to us under these circumstances.” It’s what’s we have fallen to out of necessity and we have no apologies.

Presidential approval ratings can fluctuate. President Barack Obama was at 40% in early 2014, even after years of steady economic growth, and his Gallup-measured approval had increased to 59% by the end of his presidency. What is difficult to see is how Donald Trump’s low following can increase significantly. The questions and disclosures about Russian hacking in the election and ties to Trump campaign officials are just beginning. And, in what could end up being more consequential, Trump’s own party is headed toward fracture.

That’s what happens when all that you really share is the fact that your party won. Republican leaders are staying with Trump (while contradicting his day to day statements) because he was supposed to be their path to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, and because he was expected to be an indispensable force for the tax reform that they have advocated for years. They have been cleaning up for him daily because those two goals are so important to them.

For certain members of Congress, we can make this a self-defeating proposition. Because of Trump’s declining popularity and because of the bundle of intentional misrepresentations that is his health care proposal, his coalition is fraying. Rather than it being just Lindsey Graham or John McCain or Susan Collins questioning a Trump proposal in the Senate, now its Tom Cotton of Arkansas or Ike Blunt of Missouri or Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. The next two or three weeks will tell the tale on health care, and will shape almost everything that comes after. Can we be emphatic enough to Senate Republicans that they must not pass the Ryan-Trump decimation of health care coverage? As outlined below, there is much to be done.

Organized efforts to resist are growing in their quality and quantity. I think some are still too indiscriminate in sorting out what resistance actions are most critical and how chances of success can be enhanced. I am going with Cocteau: “When you smash a statue, you run the risk of becoming one yourself.” Rather than appealing but self-defeating snarkiness, let’s go with relentless, aggressive, principled, despair-diminishing positivism. Just in time is this good review of which national organizations are cropping up and what they hope to accomplish. 

Here’s three things that we can do, right now:

1) Lets Change Both Health Care and What Comes After
	Obviously, providing health care to Americans is a monumental issue onto itself. But it is also a first big test of whether Trump can pass legislation and whether all of us together can guard against the worst disassembly of Obama era progress. In the face of current turmoil, the idea that tax reform will be passed this year is now in doubt, and it is already being conceded that any major infrastructure bill will wait until 2018. Trump and Ryan need House passage of their American Health Care Act, and I predict they will achieve that. I also believe that to achieve that, they will accede to so many conservative demands that they will force Republicans in swing districts to “walk the plank” and vote for something that will ultimately be politically dangerous to them. It is important for us to understand where the debate will head if the Ryan-Trump amended proposal squeaks by in the House. As passed, it will contain certain guarantees regarding coverage of pre-existing conditions and allowing children under 25 to stay on their parent’s policies. In a terrible move, it will shift from the current subsidized coverage model to a system of refundable tax credits. It will try to adjust these credits to address the costs for people aged 50-65 (much higher than with the Affordable Care Act) because it can’t pass the House otherwise. But it will leave alive the pernicious fantasy that refundable tax credits are workable. Paul Ryan already knows these credits are far more responsive to the situation of families with steady employment and strong cash flow, so the credit can be reflected in withholding taxes and the net paycheck. As bad as that idea is, it will not be where we can get political leverage if this proposal heads to the Senate. That leverage can be secured because the plan will prey upon the 14 million people in 30 states who have received their coverage through Medicaid expansion their states elected after the ACA passed. Perversely, Republican Senators such as the very conservative Tom Cotton of Arkansas are not necessarily focused on the specter of people with sick kids suddenly not having access to a doctor. Instead, they are worried about new holes in their state’s health and social welfare funding, the plight of rural hospitals and the transfer to the states through capped block grants of what heretofore has primarily been a federal responsibility. There are eleven Republican Senators who are very worried. They are up for election in 2018 or 2020 and their states would lose their present Medicaid coverage by 2020 or earlier if the Ryan/Trump proposal passes. Dean Heller- of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona are up in 2018. In 2020 it is: Shelley Moore Capito - West Virginia Cory Gardner - Colorado Tom Cotton - Arkansas Joni Ernst - Iowa Dan Sullivan - Alaska Steve Daines - Montana Bill Cassidy - Louisiana Mitch McConnell - Kentucky. If you live in one of these states you and your friends should be contacting your Senator right now and tomorrow and the day after. If not, keep the pressure up with your own Congressional delegation. Or take a flyer on a man respected on both sides of the aisle, chair of the relevant Senate committee, who once saw himself as a moderate Republican and still thinks that way now and again: Senator Lamar Alexander (of Tennessee) 455 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone 202-224-4944
2) Revisit Past Behests
	Sometimes, the ideas in these missives age nicely. If you haven’t acted on some of the previous ideas, three in particular should grab your attention this week. First, as I outlined in #9, we must Stand Up for Mexico. This is a country and a people that have counted on our country and people as friends. Donald Trump has become a personal wrecking crew of that political, economic and cultural relationship. There are Mexican international experts who think this situation will reach an acceptable equilibrium. May it be so. See what you can do on Cinco de Mayo (May 5) to kick start your own personal campaign to reach across the border. Second, as I underscored in #6, we must Help People Understand That This Isn’t Populism. To this day, in the media, Donald Trump is referred to as a populist. This term is generally used to mean “standing up for the common people.” Since 24 million common people are scheduled to be removed from health care because of Donald Trump, could you make your personal mission to cry foul about labeling Trump a populist? Please be on alert for such usage in the media and write to correct. Third, at this point the single most important thing we can do together is to win back the House of Representatives in November of 2018 by taking back just 24 seats. It is time to Start The Congressional Campaign Efforts as discussed in #8. Groups within Indivisible and numerous other organizations are mounting district-specific efforts right now. Please join up.
3) Learn Where to Reach Out
	Even with the pre-election Comey announcement and the Russian hacking, the candidate I supported for President got more than 3 million votes more than the man who was elected President. Even that large margin could have been expanded with better campaigning and participation. I don’t subscribe to any notion that American progressive thought is in a decline or that we are some kind of new and persistent minority in the political system. We are a new, persistent, better organized majority. In that context, you may want to read Adam Gopnick’s strong but dense recent commentary in the New Yorker where he decries “presentism” and reminds that waiting and forever are actually different things.  As a persistent majority, we could go through our days of waiting and resisting in a bubble where we only connect with like-minded people, not just in the context of Republicans, independents and Democrats but all places on the political spectrum, and on the human spectrum. And that wouldn’t be such a good idea. So now comes a way to reach out, called Make America Dinner Again.

I hope you don’t feel tired. I hope you feel energized by our growing collective efforts and the possibilities those efforts offer. Even in this phase where we are thinking and responding to a single term president, we are going to be doing this for what could seem a very long time. We are strengthened by doing it together, and we know how much it matters in our country.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#9: If All We Do is Watch This Unfold, The Joke Will Be On Us

The first thing we did in our house after the election was turn off the news and listen to classical music for a week. We felt profound sorrow for our country. Now we are in the midst of 100 consecutive missives (one every two weeks) leading up to the next Presidential election and describing in detail specific steps we can take to help the republic for which we stand. Those wishing to receive this series can ask to receive the e-mail blast, sign up for the blog, or follow me on Facebook. You can also read and share past missives on the blog page. We started with a list of less than 300 friends, and now have well over double that number, with many others sharing these thoughts through social media. Please continue to help spread the word!

It seems like forever since Donald Trump became President. It’s difficult not to have our sole response be to just watching, or exchanging “he said what?” jokes, or spending an inordinate amount of time viewing the various comedic bits that have been developed in response to the worst or most bizarre actions of the president.

If that is all we do, the joke is on us. This situation is not going to normalize. It demands that we sustain an every week activism that was probably not our previous pattern. If we sort our actions wisely, if our movement continues to grow, the republic will withstand the blows it is receiving. We will block and parry and resist and propose and advance. You can take a health-restoring break from this now and again, but please don’t stay away for very long.

The flood of calls and emails and letters to Congressional offices matter, as do the big crowds at town hall meetings. The House “replacement bill” for the Affordable Care Act is totally unacceptable, since it will Make America Sick Again. But, even that proposal begins with an opening position on coverage that House Republicans would have found unthinkable before they started getting very worried about angry voters. For instance, it maintains until 2020 the expanded Medicaid coverage that brought 11 million people health insurance. Obviously, that is not acceptable, because this coverage of low income Americans should be expanded to the states who did not initially select the option, and it should be made permanent. However, before this movement started, there was zero chance even this provision would have been included. That’s real evidence that the national movement counts, and we will make it count even more.

This replacement bill and whatever alternative the Senate leadership proposes must be fought on every level, because even outside of the Medicaid coverage issue the refundable tax credit it is built around is ethically bankrupt and will jettison millions from coverage. Paul Ryan already knows it is far more likely to work for families with steady employment (so the credit can be reflected in withholding taxes and the net paycheck) and strong cash flow. With this provision and no long term Medicaid guarantee, the bill turns its back on millions of the people who desperately needed the Affordable Care Act.

It won’t be long before tax reform will be back on the table, requiring us to display the same intensity of effort we have displayed on health care. What can we do beyond keeping unprecedented pressure up, issue by issue? As has been underscored in previous missives, we must embrace other essential elements of resistance to a president who is devoid of principle. We must continue to strengthen the political organizations that fight against Trump excesses, such as Indivisible, with its many thousands of new chapters. Now that Tom Perez and Keith Ellison have formed a partnership to lead the Democratic National Committee, let’s celebrate the notion that the DNC will become a stronger and more productive force.

Let’s keep it up with supporting the immigrant and refugee and assistance programs that have been buffeted, the organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union that are fighting unconstitutional Presidential orders, the organizations like Mi Familia Vota who are registering Latino voters, and the organizations like Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee that are starting to work on battling gerrymandering in 2020.

And, let’s target these three actions right away:

1) Stand Up for Mexico
	Of all the positions taken by candidate Trump and President Trump, the assault on Mexico may be the most preposterous and galling. In two weeks just spent in Mexico, I personally witnessed the hurt and bewilderment from citizens of a country which has long ties to ours and which has benefited (as has the United States) from an important, mutually productive trade agreement. It is painful to travel in Mexico when you know our own President has been a bully. What do you say? My friends and I apologized for Donald Trump. However, we heard Mexican experts in international relations predict that our countries will not estrange and that the State Department, international companies and reason itself will carry the day. May it be so, and may we all help to make it so. Senator Lindsey Graham has indicated that Senate Republicans who value this friendship and trade relationship will not accept the 10% import tax on Mexican goods that is being bandied about in the House and advanced by Trump. Let’s start by calling Lindsey Graham’s office at 202-224-3808 and thank him for being a leader on this. Then, try to reach someone who isn’t flooded by mail. Write a personal appeal on behalf of sanity in Mexico-United States relations to Christopher Tuttle, Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 423 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington D.C. 20510. Finally, start getting ready for May 5, Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the unlikely defeat of French forces by a smaller less experienced Mexican army of liberation in 1862. Let’s make it the day when those of us north of the border throw a party to celebrate Mexico’s exported products, its ties to the United States, and to publicly reject the mean-spirited Trump attacks.
2) Focus on Each Off-Year Election
	There are two off-year gubernatorial elections in 2017. Chances are great that Democrats will take back New Jersey, where Chris Christie is both unpopular and term-limited. Democrats will seek to hold the governorship in Virginia, where Terry McCaullife is term-limited. Here’s an initial handicapping of 2018 races, which will soon come into greater focus. Remember that states can be laboratories of democracy and are strong tools in fighting Trump excesses, especially in social welfare and environmental protection. There will also be six special elections to fill Congressional vacancies in 2017, including the Montana election to replace newly named Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on May 25. The special election that has attracted the most attention so far is in Georgia’s 6th district, vacated by new HHS Secretary Tom Price. Even though this is a Republican district, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by less than two percentage points. Support is building behind Jon Ossoff, who has been endorsed by John Lewis. Here’s where you go to donate. Any seat we can pick up now decreases the 24 we need to take back the House on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, which already looms as a critical day in the history of our country.
3) Make Some Choices in Supporting Environmental Organizations
	In missive #4, I emphasized that the President’s overall executive powers and the ability to issue executive orders are especially problematic in the area of environmental policy. This is because Trump is a climate change denier and because many environmental statutes intentionally left room for executive discretion to improve enforcement and keep pace with advances in scientific knowledge. There is hardly an area of governmental action where Trump can do more damage more quickly. He added multiple additional insults to injury by naming long time EPA opponent Scott Pruitt to be the agency’s administrator. The fox has a room in the hen house. For the time being, the underlying pillars of environmental protection in the United States (including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation Recovery Act) will retain their huge value because major changes are only possible through Congressional reauthorization processes. But under Pruitt’s leadership, each will be under-enforced or subject to creative misinterpretation. Thus, the case is strong for lending immediate personal and financial support for two kinds of environmental organizations, above all others. First, we can select organizations which are doing the best work in our state capitals, where new efforts must be advanced to counter reduced federal enforcement. The types of environmental organizations that lead in state capitals vary by state, but often they are a state environmental council bringing together several disparate environmental nonprofits. On the national level, it is time to emphasize environmental litigiousness. Where an unacceptable Presidential action or EPA decision can be vigorously challenged, it should be. Two litigation focused national nonprofits come immediately to mind, EarthJustice (“Because the Earth Needs a Good Lawyer”) and the even larger and very highly respected Natural Resources Defense Council.

It is not time for our energies to wane. Nor is it time to become so interested in the variety of ways we can express our horror to each other over day to day events that we set aside the arduous work of day to day activism. We all get it, so now we have to get it done.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington