#30: How Could the World Not Be Watching Us With Trepidation?

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Well, at least you can appreciate Donald Trump’s sense of history, since his tax bill has revived the medieval practice of selling indulgences to the rich. It is an awful new law, revealing the emptiness of past Republican protests about deficits. Its underlying philosophy boils down to this - get while the getting is good. If you are Paul Ryan, it is an additional bonus that you have created new pressures on Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare spending.

Did any of us even need this new motivation? Our resistance was continuing to grow either way, spurred by the excellent results first in Virginia and now in Alabama. The electoral lessons in November and then in December couldn’t have been clearer. In those states, our enthusiasm and commitment and relentlessness increased registrations and promoted turnout. We swept away Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for Governor in Virginia even though he got 300,000 votes more than the Republican candidate from four years before. Because of the focus on getting people energized and getting them to the polls, the Democrat Ralph Northam got 600,000 more votes than the Democrat from four years before and won by a wide margin.

We could get used to this. What we are doing is working. The level of our own personal motivation matters, hugely. Certainly, one great force inspiring the resistance is Trump himself. He has insisted that a massive transfer of riches to the wealthy from funds we must borrow (for our children and grandchildren to pay back) is a middle-class tax cut. So, now that we know that he will say anything and do anything, we don’t have to worry about being distracted by some positive action Trump might take. But with or without Trump’s tweets and Trump’s headlines, we will grow our resistance every week and every month until November 6, 2018. There are scores of ways to accelerate. If we haven’t found local friends or associates to work with, groups linked to Indivisible, Swing Left, and several other national organizing efforts are everywhere.

There are years in American history that are critical to understanding who we are as a people. In 1776, ragtag revolutionaries declared our independence. In 1865, we ended a war amongst ourselves and the institution of slavery that begat that war. In 1963 we passed the Civil Rights Act, an indispensable but insufficient tool to fight discrimination, and in 1968 we lost Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy and almost unraveled as a nation.

Do we now understand that 2018 could be a year of that level of consequence? Don’t we know that we are a part of a great resurgence, an effort to restore the never fully realized promise of a great democratic experiment? Do we realize that we are on the verge of doing something unprecedented, something that will send a signal to the people of an entire planet?

How could those people of the world not be watching us now with trepidation, as our own United Nations Ambassador steps forth and insults the world? She says their country’s vote in the World’s General Assembly should be for sale to us? She says that the $26 billion we provide in foreign aid to make sure the hungry are fed and disease is eradicated is less important than this anti-democratic stance of a country that purports to be the greatest democracy of all?

And our own elected officials and our own news media fell silent. Either they were distracted by the tax bill or numbed by other daily offenses. It’s time for each of us to attend to these matters of our place in the world by doing these three things.

1) Become an Advocate for Nations Working Together
	The management of the United Nations has been fraught with problems for decades now. Paraphrasing the adage about democracy, the United Nations is the worst way for nations across the world to get together, except for all others. The U.N.’s Millennial Development Goals established by the world community in 2000 provided the grounding for extraordinary progress in poverty alleviation and disease eradication. The U.N. has provided the underlying structure that lead to the Paris Climate Accords. However limited its success has been in preventing conflict, it’s a place that the quest for peace finds a home. All nations use the United Nations to advance national self-interest and well as identify and pursue collective global interest. Unfortunately, the President of the United States has stressed the former all out of proportion to the latter. Since the United Nations was founded in 1948, there has been an organization for Americans to go to provide active support for the United Nations, sending a signal to the world that we intend to be a part of the world community. That’s the United Nations Association of the United States. You can utilize it as a way to support advocacy that can protect the U.N., educate yourself about what is happening in the world community, and learn ways to involve yourself in the international health and welfare agenda. UNA-US is a vigorous opponent of the U.N. budget cuts that Donald Trump and Nikki Haley have proposed.
2) Get Behind the Bi-Partisan Consensus on Foreign Aid
	During the debate in the U.N. General Assembly over the United States action recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, Nikki Haley said that she was “taking names” of nations who would “disrespect” the United States and that this vote would be remembered when the United States allocates foreign aid. If another nation had said anything of the sort, the United States would be outraged. Embarrassingly, we were lectured to by the far less democratic Turkey about our “blackmailing” behavior, and only nine countries voted with us --- Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.   In February, Republican Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona successfully defended foreign aid as the exercise of “soft power” essential to America’s role in the world. Perhaps the bipartisan consensus in Congress that is against direct ties between the granting of aid and General Assembly votes will hold. We must help make it so. In the House, the relevant appropriations subcommittee is State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. Their views on the Haley threats will become much clearer by mid-January. Please call subcommittee chair Hal Rogers of Kentucky (Republican) and ranking minority member Nita Lowey of New York (Democrat) and indicate how much it matters to you that the Congress send a bi-partisan signal that aid will be protected from the administration’s disorderly conduct. Call the office of Representative Hal Rogers at 202-225-4601 Call the office of Representative Nita Lowey at 202-225-6506
3) Don’t Forget to Show Your Lack of Love For the Wall
	Democrats and some Republicans have hopes of re-enacting DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in some form as a part of a mid-January bi-partisan budget deal. Because of this excellent prospect we have a fresh risk that someone will think it is a good idea to give Donald Trump his wall as a part of the complex give and take of negotiations. This cannot be allowed. Donald Trump wants the wall because it sends a global signal, with levels of meaning going way beyond the significance of the structure itself. For exactly the same reason, we cannot accept the building of the wall. The wall would be an emblem for the world of the failing of America. If you haven’t communicated with your own members of Congress on this, you should do so in the next week. And, you should boost an unlikely player. The more high-quality advocacy organizations battling the wall, the better. The Sierra Club’s borderlands project is concentrating the environmental arguments against the wall, opening up an all new political front. This is the rationale: “Walls and barriers have already been constructed across more than 650 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. These barriers block wildlife migration, cause flooding, and damage pristine wild lands, including wildlife refuges, wilderness areas and national forests." Here is where to learn about and donate to the borderlands project.

The New Year awaits. In Congress, the Senate has nearly exhausted the ways that they can use the rules of budget reconciliation to pass measures with 50 votes. Instead, the need for Trump and McConnell to get 60 votes will put Charles Schumer and Democratic leadership in play in all new ways. It will also provide some new chances for fresh, would-be presidential candidates who also happen to be Democratic Senators to put themselves forward, such as Cory Booker, Kamela Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Chris Murphy. It’s a good discussion to start having. Let’s see who among these and others have the dreams, the staying power and the strength of character to help rebuild a democracy.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#29 A Party Launches A Search For Its Soul

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.

Unbelievably, this is all going to get even more bizarre and even more complex. There are three separate swirls that are robbing the Capitol and White House of all equilibrium.

First, Donald Trump’s most abiding desire is to be seen as a legitimate President. Perhaps there will never be sufficient evidence that there was collusion to swing the election between Trump and the Russians, but Trump understands that the indictment of his aides and the allegations of collusion is de-legitimizing his presidency. This de-legitimization will have electoral consequences in November 2018. In addition, the future action special prosecutor Robert Mueller takes means it will be more difficult to get any legislative victories after this awful tax bill is completed, signed and trumpeted. Most important to Trump, successfully calling into question the way he won changes his place in history, and not at all in favorable ways. The stain is permanent.

Second, Trump’s henchman, Steve Bannon, has wanted to break down the Republican Party since long before he found Trump to front the effort. Where once Republican Senators like Jacob Javits, Charles Percy and Hugh Scott stood tall in the Senate and advanced civil rights and social welfare reform and shaped new environmental laws, leading Republican Senators Mitch McConnell, John Thune and John Cronyn stand less tall and advocate positions far to the right of their predecessors. Not far enough for Bannon. There were wars for the soul of that party when Reagan was president, and Reagan allies dumped the “moderates”, state after state. That was nothing compared to what will now ensue. The election of Doug Jones in Alabama signals an all-out war among Republicans, to be fought state by state. Bannon bet big in the most Republican state in the country, taking down Luther Strange just to see if he could. Even before the storm over Roy Moore and teenage girls, Bannon knew that Moore was hugely flawed as a public figure, and he didn’t care. The loss will put McConnell and others back on offense against Bannon, leaving one to ask, “This was once the party of Lincoln. What and where is the soul of the party they will be trying to defend?”

Third, after the passage of the tax bill, Republicans will be almost out of ways to use the budget reconciliation process to gain passage of bills with only 50 votes in the Senate. Return to the “regular order” that John McCain treasures will force McConnell and the White House to regularly engage with Charles Schumer and Senate Democratic leadership to get to the 60 votes that close debate. Because Republicans thus need Democratic votes to increase defense spending, and will need Democrats on several other issues going forward, the dreamers will end up being protected. Whether it happens as a part of a late December bi-partisan budget deal, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) ultimately will be reworked in a bipartisan deal, and Trump will pretend that he was working for that outcome all along.

The weeks going forward will make past abnormal weeks of 2017 seem normal in comparison. Trump’s tweets on media coverage regarding Mueller, Russia and collusion will become even more frequent and desperate, as he fears charges against Jared Kushner or one or both of his sons are imminent. In short order, he will blame Richard Shelby and other Republican Senators for Doug Jones’ victory, rather than blaming Roy Moore and Bannon.

How can our resistance take advantage of all this turmoil? We can continue do all of the early support for the elections in November of 2018 that we have been doing, and up that ante month by month. It should have reached obsession level for each of us when the campaigns are running full tilt. If at this point a Trump resister doesn’t know what targeted races interest her or him most, personal adjustments must be immediate.

In addition, we can and must expect more from Democrats in developing and delivering a coherent message than the little we have seen so far. On that score, we can take heart that Democratic factions are working together on adjustments to the Democratic presidential nominating process, including reducing the role of super-delegates.

We can energize ourselves with despair over the Trump induced decline in the vitality of our democracy at home, or our despair over the dimming of the beacons through which our nation sought (however problematically) to brighten the world. But the better way to propel ourselves is to see the lights ahead of us and to work our way toward them.

Today, we need to attend to the numerous and hugely consequential Congressional matters still in play between now and the end of the year:

1) Dealing With Democrats on the Budget
	In the Senate, Mitch McConnell needs 60 votes to pass the increases in the Defense budget. Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer is willing to provide those votes, depending on budgeted levels for such programs as CHIP (children’s health care), opioid treatment, funding for State Department positions and relief for Puerto Rico.   The complication is that no one wants to shut the government down if talks reach an impasse, and if there is even the hint of a shutdown, neither party wants to be assigned the blame. In the face of this, 44 Democratic Senators have said that they will not vote for a budget that fails to include domestic spending increases, which would deny McConnell the 60 votes he needs. This is a bad time to blink. Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have done well when McConnell and Ryan have needed their votes, and we must expect that again. We all call and write Republicans Senators a lot. It is time to write Democratic Senators underscoring these views: no budget agreement without significant attention to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and other domestic needs no budget agreement without movement to continue Dreamer protection now provided by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) no wall, not now, not ever Write to all (1 or 2) of the Democratic Senators your state has. Because you are in-state, you will be able to use their on-line email form. Then, be sure to be counted by calling the main number at your Senator’s DC office. If there is no Democratic Senator in your state, pick one from nearby.
2) Focusing on Susan Collins
	Susan Collins is in a bind. She provided the key vote to deny Republicans their destruction of the Affordable Care Act. Then, trying to stay within her party, she provided Republicans their key vote to pass the Senate’s version of the tax bill. She continues to maintain that unless Mitch McConnell and President Trump follow through with various promises they made to her, that she will vote against final passage of the bill after the Conference Committee's reconciliation of the House and Senate version. Among other things, she wants Affordable Care Act insurance markets shored up, because the tax bill is likely to eliminate the individual mandate. It is okay to recognize Susan Collins for trying harder than every other Republican Senator to support health care for Americans in the face of dangerous political forces. She will have a little more leverage when the Democratic minority grows to 49 votes when Doug Jones is seated. It is also okay to let Susan Collins know that we are all a force too. Please write her aide Steve Abbott, Chief of Staff and tell him that Susan Collins must insist that health care be fully protected in the tax bill and the effort to eliminate the individual mandate be jettisoned. Tell her that only then will she be true to her past refusal to be a part of denying care to many millions of Americans. Then call Susan Collins’ office in Portland, Maine at 207-780-3575 and deliver the same message.
3) Fighting Over Bears Ears
	Donald Trump went to Salt Lake City recently to announce the slashing of Bears Ears National Monument from 1.5 million acres to 230,000 acres, an action strongly urged by the fossil fuel industry. This is a major first battle over the integrity of the national monument system and other preserved lands. This battle is not over. With regard to the Bears Ears action, there are five lawsuits pending. In a key lawsuit, the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain, Zuni and Ute Tribes are arguing that Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke do not have the power under the Antiquities Act to decommission a National Monument. You can track this effort, add your name to an online petition and support this lawsuit today.

The Republican leadership of the House and Senate are fully aware of Donald Trump’s dysfunctions -- the bullying, incuriosity, falsehoods and lack of any kind of core values and compass. Certainly, it is a difficult choice for an elected official to walk away from her or his own party. However, when you signed up for the job and took your oath you said that you would put your country first.

These leaders also know that all of us are battling back. They know that we are out there in great numbers. The Virginia results in the November elections and the news from Alabama have already demonstrated to them that their turning a blind eye to Trump’s innumerable and daily dysfunctions is not working. We have within our power from now to next November to make that even more abundantly clear.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington