#25: Republican Senators Say a Prayer for Mattis, Tillerson and Kelly Every Day

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It has been almost a year. If this was a merely a presidency without grace, we would bear up under it with aplomb. But it is a bullying, incurious, relentlessly dishonest, scary presidency. Hence, our resistance.

For most of this year, the number one thing we need to do has been clear. We need to and plan to take back the House of Representatives on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. It is now just over a year away and the races are emerging. Our chances of getting the 24 seats we need are excellent. A new poll shows Democrats significantly leading the “generic” Congressional vote. We have more than a year to go, but our prospects are the best they have been. Of course, our prospects are good because of the awful damage that has been wrought upon our nation. That makes it a bit more difficult to celebrate.

Recently, Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said the greatest danger of this presidency is that its disdain for diplomacy and resultant reliance on “binary” options could lead us in the direction of World War III. This is the most serious of business, forcing us to BOTH take back the House and adopt a new number one project. That project must increase the number of Republican leaders who are actively speaking out to check the President’s excesses. As outlined most recently in missive #18 this is no easy thing.

One might think that Donald Trump’s unpopularity would give any Republican leader some “cover” under which to criticize him. After all, the narrative that Donald Trump has a solid, unquestioning and unflinching base is false. Somewhere around 20% of the Republicans who voted for him are not with him anymore, and he has hemorrhaged support from independents.

However, the remaining Trump supporters are of sufficient number to punish Republican officeholders not only for real slights, but for imagined slights. All of the recent Steve Bannon adventures recruiting candidates to oppose the Republican “establishment” are a Trump-blessed demonstration that there will be retribution for those that stray. Note that none of the primary Republican Senate critics of Trump (Murkowski, Corker, McCain, Collins, Sasse, Paul) are up for re-election in 2018. And, all have given him important support at critical junctures, though not on health care.

Corker maintains that there are a lot of Republican Senators who share his worries about global conflict, which is hard to doubt. But they are also glad that it is Corker who is talking, not them. Senators like Jeff Flake of Arizona toed the line on the health care votes, but all he has earned is an alt-right opponent in the primary and a strong Democratic candidate in the general election.

How do we increase the number of Republican dissenters? First, we develop a richer understanding of why they don’t want to do what we want them to do. Officeholders vary widely in how they seek to establish justice and promote the general welfare, but all of them think that’s what they are doing, and none of them want voters to tell them they can’t do it anymore. They vote with Trump for reasons of self-preservation, so that they can continue to serve, so that they will be able to do the good that they are doing, or (in some cases) that they think they are doing.

It gets complicated for them when their interest in self-preservation pulls them in two distinct directions. In an increasing number of states, Senators fear that the retribution from independent voters if they vote with Trump will outweigh retribution from the Trump “base” if they vote against Trump. Loud, intense, well-resourced, concerted opposition from all of us changes the equation. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska wanted to do the right thing on health care, but you can bet that she was also weighing who she was going to make the maddest and how long they are going to stay mad.

Even with all of this weighing, it is important to remember that a Senator can always step forward out of pure principle. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is an example of this. He would be better off politically if he hadn’t asked if Trump was “recanting his oath of office” when he said NBC should have its broadcasting license (which it doesn’t hold in the first place) challenged.

Certainly, Senators are worried that Trump will start a war and that a lot of people will die. They say a prayer for Mattis, Tillerson and Kelly every day. Because they have these worries, you can ask them (or a Representative) to oppose Trump on foreign policy so that the republic will stand. But it never hurts to also be able to say that if they do not oppose Trump on foreign policy, there will be political consequences. Just be sure to follow up and help make it so.

There will be time to take on tax “reform” efforts and with them the re-kindling of the novel Republican notion that decreasing revenue by $2 trillion in tax cuts will not increase the deficit. For now, let’s do three things that will reinforce the signal to Republican Senators and Representatives that it is time for them to be counted:

1) Start Counting On Nebraska Senators
	Ben Sasse of Nebraska followed up with his criticism of Trump with this response to Sean Hannity of Fox News, who had taken him on for criticizing Trump: "Some of us still believe in the constitution".   Sasse has potential that all of us need to help him realize. Let’s thank him for standing up for the First Amendment and thus give him some positive reinforcement. Let’s make sure we get through my leaving a phone message, sending an email to him, and trying to get a personal message through. First, call the main line at: 202-224-4224 Then, email the Senator Finally, to make sure you get a human, call his Lincoln office at 402-476-1400 After that, take an interest in the other Nebraska Senator, Deb Fischer. She has supported Trump almost without exception, though she was somewhat troubled by his order regarding transgendered persons in the Armed Services. For all of her unyielding support, she has been attacked by Steve Bannon for failing to criticize Bob Corker when he criticized Donald Trump.  We aren’t going to turn Deb Fischer in our direction, but it would be good to show her she has been noticed. If you have extra energy on the Nebraska front, send her an email telling her that it will be a political test that America is watching for her to stand up to Bannon.
2) Thank Senator Bob Corker Profusely and Follow Him Closely
	Senator Bob Corker has a year left as the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He can do an enormous amount of good for America if he doesn’t start getting worn down by the attacks he is receiving.  Reinforce the good. Be a part of the “count” by emailing the Senator himself.   Then try to find your way around the curtain by writing a note to his foreign affairs counsel John Rader and tell him how important it is that the Senator attend to these matters on a daily basis: John Rader, Counsel Senate Foreign Relations Committee 423 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington D.C 20510-6225
3) Make Sure Our Side of the Story is Well Articulated
	A year after Donald Trump was elected, the main voices of the opposition remain Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. These two people were elected by their fellow Democrats as managers of their caucuses. They are imperfect national spokespeople to be the lead respondents to Trump. Email Michael Tyler, spokesperson for Democratic Party chair Thomas Perez and the Democratic National Committee. Tell him you are sitting out there hoping that they are working aggressively to groom and advance other elected officials to comment on the daily happenings in Washington D.C. Ask him what the DNC is doing on this front.

The rest of the fall will be all about the budget bill, keeping the government open, and tax “reform”. The central tax issue must remain the enormous and growing disparities in wealth distribution in America. The best thing you can say about the tax debate and related media coverage so far is that almost every story refers to the distributional impact by income level of various tax proposals.

On the global front, we need to persuade some Senators to imagine themselves as a part of Profiles in Courage. Or, in the alternative, let’s continue to show the political intensity that will make the principled stand of any Republic senator less courageous and more practical. Let’s make them more worried about our reaction than they are about Donald Trump’s reaction.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#24: In No Way is Donald Trump a Populist

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 on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, 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.

As this bizarre Presidency unfolds and unravels, the media has grown accustomed to labeling Donald Trump’s beliefs. The most accurate such description is “Trumpism”, which one imagines means the collective policy and political positions of Donald Trump. Of course that doesn’t get us very far in predicting behavior or establishing coherence.

Two other terms have come into vogue, both false and both affording Trump greater credence than he has earned. The first, “economic nationalism”, implies that much of Trump’s primary platform is to put the economic interests of the United States and its people far ahead of any economic interests of other countries and people.

This “truth” is not self-evident. Its genesis comes from Trump’s re-negotiation of some elements of NAFTA and his current trade battles with China, Canada and others. But putting our economic interests first requires us to have economic success over time, which we can’t achieve without having robust markets for our products. Being in constant conflict with other countries weakens us as a trading partner, recasts us as the bully in the marketplace, and risks serious trade wars that will cost us.

The even more problematic untruth is calling Trump a populist. The word populist is conveyed on someone “seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.” Even the venerated New York Times cannot keep itself from calling Trump and his supporters “the populist wing” of the Republican Party as opposed to the “establishment wing.” So, the word populist conveys authenticity, pretending that the ultimate self-dealing, self-aggrandizing President is “of the people”. The real situation is that he is attending to the pretense of being of the people. With his approval levels declining significantly, the people are not so sure about it.

If Donald Trump is all about advancing the lives of ordinary people, see if he can pass this test:

• A populist wouldn’t propose “tax reform” that would personally save him a billion dollars by eliminating estate taxes on the wealthy.
• A populist would never spend each weekend using taxpayer dollars provided by ordinary people to fly to his various properties so that has can promote them.
• A populist wouldn’t think of filling his cabinet with billionaires who could not be more removed from America’s neighborhoods and communities.
• A populist would not use his presidency to regularly attack any woman who dares to stand up to him.
• An authentic populist would not ignore and leave us vulnerable to the enormous impacts of climate change, which will have the greatest impact on people with fewer resources.

This fall will be all about tax reform. It begins with the fiction as well that huge tax reductions for the very wealthy and for corporations will produce economic growth and tax revenue so great that it will wipe out the $1.5 trillion shortfall that the tax cuts create. This is being said with a straight face by Republicans who cut taxes six times in the days of George W. Bush and never saw such revenues appear. Reagan budget director David Stockman calls Trump’s tax proposals an “aspirational air ball”. That is being kind.

It’s the new battle, and one worth fighting with everything we’ve got. The fundamental question is whether we want the awful wealth maldistribution in America to get even worse, because everything Ryan and Trump have thrown out so far would make it so. The present Trump sketch would give 50% of the tax relief to people making over $700,000 a year. From the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities comes this succinct review of what would be wrought. 

Let’s accelerate. Republicans have already set in motion a reconciliation process which means they will only need to get 50 votes in the Senate. This will be hard to do, because John McCain is a likely no, and a number of other Republican Senators including Rand Paul are worried about increasing the deficit. Much like the successful battle that lead to the survival of the Affordable Care Act, we will need to start with “moderate” Republicans in the Senate as we insist on a fair and equitable tax reform bill. Because 20 or so Republican House members are upset with spending cuts insisted upon by the Freedom Caucus, there may some insisting that we can do in the House as well.

Here are three things that we can do today:

1) Spread the Truth About the Estate Tax
	There is no federal taxation on estates of less than $5.5 million for an individual and $11 million for a couple, and the marginal tax rate has been lowered over the years. Donald Trump just told a very big lie. He said that “millions” of farmers and small businesses would be freed from having to sell their holdings to pay the tax if we only eliminate the tax. The number of farmers and farms that would be subject to the estate tax next year will be around 80. These are huge multi-million dollar farm operations, and even those are afforded an extended payment schedule so that they can keep their farms within their families. The bulk of the benefits from estate tax elimination would instead go to people who have assets like Donald Trump, not the farmer with some plentiful acreage and row crops near you. As noted, Trump himself would save an estimated billion dollars. Nice work if you can get it. It is critical that we set the record straight, and this analysis can help you do that. You could write a letter to your local newspaper, which is still out there. You could advance the politifact.com posting through social media, or email the link to your friends. Either way, this misinformation cannot be allowed to stand, and the wealthiest Americans should not be allowed to hide behind the American farmer.
2) Focus on Key Moderate Republicans
	The vote of Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee may determine whether a Trump-like proposal makes it through the Senate Finance Committee and is sent to the floor. That’s because politically proportionate representation on that key committee yields only a one vote edge, with 10 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Corker has already expressed concerns about the tax proposal but he has also agreed to let the budget process go forward at least temporarily. It includes a predicted tax reform related $1.5 trillion revenue loss over the next ten years. Famously, he has called into question Trump’s “stability” and “competence”, and he has already announced he is not running for re-election. He is against adding to the deficit. He is as free to do the right thing as he is ever going to be. You can help him think about what the right thing is. Since he has already argued against increasing the deficit, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell will try to make certain he is fine with the proposition that $1.5 trillion in revenue losses will be offset by revenue gains from a boosted economy. It has never been so. Please write and call to tell Bob Corker that. Senator Bob Corker Email Phone: 202-224-3344 In the House, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania is leader of the Tuesday group. These are “moderates” but not at all in the way that moderation used to be in the heart of the Republican party. Charlie Dent and some of his colleagues are feeling badly that some of them were driven by Republican leadership to “walk the plank”. They voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which turned out to be all pain and no gain since repeal didn’t pass the Senate. To make things worse, Donald Trump called the House Republican version “mean” after he got their votes. All this means that these Republicans are feeling wronged, and they are being asked to accept social welfare and other spending cuts that Senate Republicans will never ratify. Charlie Dent is already used to being criticized by Trump, and he is not running for re-election. Please write and call him and say that it is time for him to be counted and to lead the Tuesday group Republicans down a new path. Representative Charlie Dent Email Phone: 202-225-6411
3) Support Tax Justice Advocates
	Some battles need relentless advocacy, and that is what Citizens for Tax Justice has been providing for years. This would be an outstanding time to click and donate. They won’t necessarily be in the room when final decisions are made, or when the 50th Senate vote is gained by one side of the other. But they will have fueled the arguments for tax equity. The case for tax reform that doesn’t upend the American people would be far less powerful were it not for their efforts.

Certainly, this has become a slog. The good news about Donald Trump’s day to day behavior is it never creates self-doubt in all of us on whether we should resist! Let’s all keep doing what we are doing. Don’t forget to choose a Congressional campaign or two. This is no time to let up.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington