#45: You Know That You Can Make This Man a Footnote

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.

When Donald Trump is asked about Russia killing journalists and answers that “our country does a lot of killing also,” and when he calls a Putin plan to interrogate a former US Ambassador an “incredible” idea, he’s lost touch with the magnificent quest for self-determination that sent the colonists to Lexington and Concord. It has become clear that Donald Trump has bought into an equivalency based upon power, but Americans have not. His greatest praise for another nation or its leader is “strong” and ours is “free”. We know the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. The fact that our President does not recognize that difference is the scariest thing we can say about him, among a host of scary things.

This cannot, must not, and will not stand. Collectively, we have it within ourselves to make this man a footnote, a figure from an awful time who will have wounded our nation greatly but from which we will resolutely recover. Through our efforts together, we can set the stage for a celebration on November 6, 2018 which will shake our nation, and mark the beginning of Trump’s political demise.

Through Comey’s late announcement, Putin’s interference, our own slipping and sliding, and lack of voter enthusiasm, in November of 2016 we fell 70,000 short of the votes we needed in the places we needed them. The firewall was breached, and the man who did not expect to be president and who was not ever been for a minute qualified to be president became the President.

Why would we let that become a major moment in our planet’s history? We won’t. The coming blue wave does not depend upon you to convince your Fox addicted cousin to share your political beliefs. It depends upon your efforts to flood this election with committed voters: millennials who didn’t make it to the polls last time, women who have figured out what Trump stands for in their lives, independents who in special elections have turned away from Trump in huge numbers, and the Democrats and progressives who have been obsessed with creating a blue wave since the fateful day.

It is all within our reach. Consider this:

• There is daily consternation that Trump’s “base” remains loyal to him. Most often, that base is defined as self-identified Republicans, and much is made when they are undaunted by Trudeau taunts, Playboy Playmate payoffs, or NATO negativism. However, at this point, only 27% of registered voters identify as Republicans. As Nate Silver emphasizes, the fact that as many as 90% of Republicans support this or that Trump action should never be the news lead - the significance of Trump’s high level of disapproval is in the broader electorate.
• The overall disapproval of Trump has shown an important dwindling over time in his support among people who identify themselves as “moderates” or “independents”. You can’t win an election without doing well with them. These voters have registered their disapproval on issues like Trump’s choice to believe Putin’s denial of election meddling. 
• As important as Trump’s low approval ratings (around 42-43% of voters) is the unlikelihood that he will be able to do anything to give those levels a significant boost. Unemployment levels are already low, and these levels would worsen during a trade war. Polls show more voters disapproving of the tax bill and Trump’s health care approaches than those that approve. He is a known quantity - where is his potential upswing, especially as Mueller moves forward? Digging deeper into these low levels of approval provides even more good news for resisters. The percentage of people who strongly disapprove of Trump is twice the percentage of people who strongly approve. This is the enthusiasm gap that is driving the nearly unprecedented level of political activity by Indivisible, Swing Left, the Democratic Party itself, and countless independent organizations and individuals.
• Special elections for vacant seats have a different dynamic than the elections that will be held in November, which should cause Republicans to be extremely thankful given the returns so far. Even in very solid Republican districts the shift to Democratic candidates that we have all generated has been very significant. 
• Even better, Congressional districts where there has been high quality polling of this year’s races have delivered excellent results for those of us who are trying to generate a wave. When conservative Republican Dana Rohrbacker is on the ropes in conservative Orange County, California, you know that times are changing.
• Since the Parkland slayings, youth registrations have become even a higher percentage of new voter registrations, especially in swing states. The intensive voter registration drives across the country will help generate the blue wave, because young voters overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.
• The generic vote tests who voters would select between an unnamed Democratic congressional candidate and an unnamed Republican. At this point the polling average gives Democratic candidates a 7.4% advantage. At election time, that is consistent with taking back 40-50 House seats. Of course, we can do better than that if we make sure our voters turn out. 

Once we have considered these data points, we can’t help but be focused on November and generating the wave. Of course, there remains the small matter of what we were believing in November 2016 - that Donald Trump had only the tiniest chance of being elected. That was true, but it came to pass. How can we give ourselves over to this painful, dangerous process one more time? How can we dare believe that if we act tirelessly, we can start to stop this destruction of America? Because it is all of us, together, and we are more dedicated to this outcome than we ever have been.

So, let’s do these three things right now.

1) Take Voter Registration to An All New Level With Michelle Obama
	Happily, the new force in the national voter registration effort is Michelle Obama. The emergence of her national effort called “When We All Vote” takes nothing away from such stalwart national organizations as Rock the Vote or countless local efforts. Instead, it will draw new attention to the need to register and keep us oriented to this mission from now to November. Increasing the participation of millennials is especially important to creating the blue wave. The appeal from Michelle Obama is simple and pointed. When We All Vote is set up to recruit you as a volunteer, provide links for easy voter registration, take your donation, and keep you posted about national or local events. Some of the races we are contesting will be decided by a thousand votes or less. It is not hard to imagine a situation in which voter registration alone will spell the difference. As Frank Bruni writes in the New York Times, “We got it wrong in 2016. We can get in right in 2018. There’s a far side to the American disgrace, a way to contain the damage, and it’s both utterly straightforward and entirely effective. It’s called voting. And from now until November 6, we must stay fantastically focused on that--- on registering voters, turning them out, donating time in the right places.” While we are working on voter registration, we should remember that the list of newly registered voters is available in most states. A small group could take on the task of writing notes to those people in their community who have just signed up.
2) Devote New Efforts to Gubernatorial Races, Including Supporting Stacey Abrams
	The intensive efforts by resisters and the political climate that Donald Trump has created has opened up more gubernatorial races this fall. This would be important in many years, but it is especially important because congressional and state legislative district lines will be redrawn in response to the 2020 census. In many states, Governors will be in a position to veto redistricting plans that hijack the electorate with gerrymandered maps. This is what happened in many states after the 2010 off year elections.  The Democratic Governors’ Association is hoping to take back several states, including Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, and Wisconsin (where Scott Walker is seeking a third term.) A special prize would be Georgia, where lawyer, politician, author, and businesswoman Stacey Abrams is aiming to become the first African American woman to become governor of that state. Thanks to Donald Trump, Abrams is facing the weaker of the two Republican candidates, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, rather than the candidate backed by the outgoing governor, Nathan Deal. It would be nothing but a good thing to help Stacey Abrams. If you are in a state that has no meaningful gubernatorial race, you could adopt her race as your own. If you aren’t yet in a position to donate, sign up and keep an eye on Georgia.
3) Recommendations from Your Co-conspirators
	Readers of this missive have good ideas. One encourages attention to state initiatives that reform legislative redistricting processes, which will be before the voters in Michigan, Missouri, Utah and Colorado. The story here is that beyond Republican shenanigans in 2010, parties in some states have worked together on redistricting that is intended to increase the number of safe seats (making trades to protect incumbents) and reduce the number of swing districts. This is not in the interest of voters. It would be a good thing to look at your state’s redistricting process and find out who is trying to make it better and who is not. A friend writes urging we all read and support Robert Reich’s lucid appeal to four Republican Senators.  Another reader of this missive who is worried about obsessing on the news recommends Krista Tippett’s advice: “The news is never the full story of our time. It’s not the last word on what we’re capable of. It’s not the whole story of us.”

We have a huge opportunity, right now, between now and November 6, to write an all new chapter in the story of our time. There are elections coming up. Powerlessness is a fiction. Get back in the driver’s seat, please.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#44: Any Flagging is Sending Donald Trump a Kiss

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.

On some days, you are just worn down. You have been focused on being a part of the resistance for over 600 days, since November 2016. On the best days, you allow yourself some recognition of the progress we have made together. You permit yourself to talk with your friends about the excellent opportunity to take back the House of Representatives in November 2018, and that brightens you further. You even allow yourself to think about the much longer shot prospects of taking back the Senate. Jon Tester fights back! Beto O’Rourke gains momentum! 

Then there are the other days in which you cannot even believe this is happening. When this history is written over the next couple of decades, we will discover that things within the Trump presidency were even worse than we knew. Last week, we found out that Trump consulted with Latin American heads of state over how they would feel if we invaded Venezuela! Now he has tweeted “I have confidence Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed and even more importantly, our handshake. We agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea.”

Well, Donald Trump of course you didn’t. You agreed in a made for TV event to “work toward” denuclearization. Your faith in the honor behind a handshake with a murderous dictator is absurd, given he just accused you of “gangster-like diplomacy.” You swell with great pride over your show meetings with Kim and with Putin and save your invective for Justin Trudeau and NATO. You want more than anything to never be duped, but you are “played” on a regular basis.
Donald Trump, this is what making America greater than it is would look like if we had a president who was seeking such an outcome.

• We would be a beacon for the world in the exercise of individual freedoms. Rather than seeing a free press as an enemy, we would have a president who celebrates it as a key element of our strength.
• We would have a president that skips the “trust” of Putin and Kim and Duterte and remembers that they preserve power by jailing and killing dissidents.
• We would invoke “national security” in our trade dealings only when national security is at issue. We would be ashamed to utilize these presidential powers against the Canadians, who have died to defend our security.
• We would eagerly participate in international climate change efforts to prevent irreversible environmental harm.
• We would see NATO as a fundamental defense against countries who wish us ill.
• We would demonstrate global leadership. Who would have ever predicted that the number one foreign policy achievement of a Republican president would be to expand and accelerate the global leadership of China?

In the next two months, it will seem like the resistance is being swamped by tactical decisions. How will the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanagh influence the fall elections? Over time how can we protect choice, and gay marriage and countless other human rights now newly vulnerable? (Yes, we can and must). With the Supreme Court nomination under debate in the Senate drawing the interest of conservative voters, can we still expect an enthusiasm gap in our favor? (If we work hard enough to secure it). Will our own anti-Trump movement divide over issues like impeachment? (Sure, but we will stay together in all the most important ways). Will we remember to underscore health care as a central issue for the fall? (Yes, we will).

We don’t need to over-think this. First, we focus on what is before us--- putting a brake on the mindless destruction of the environment, human rights, equal opportunity and our position in the world by this president. We must increase our intolerance of distraction. It does not matter whether Alan Dershowitz is getting along with his neighbors. Or that Kelly Ann Conway had intemperate words with Anderson Cooper or anyone else that Kelly Ann Conway gets deployed to talk to.

Second, we work much, much harder than the other side, which we have been doing now since November of 2016. Any flagging is nothing more than blowing a kiss to Donald Trump, don’t you think?

And while we are attending to election year politics, Congress is in session. Here’s three things we need to do to try to keep them from having a weekly drawing on the House floor to determine which program to eviscerate:

1) Join the Fight to Save SNAP
	Well, you knew that eventually the House of Representatives would get around to doing something mean-spirited about the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) which is the United States Department of Agriculture program that provides food stamps. A reader of this missive urges us to respond to this effort by the House to establish a work requirement for 5-7 million food stamp recipients. She says “there is so much racial injustice in food and discrimination of the poor that we need to be vigilant and do our part to change our own attitudes." The work requirement is drafted in such a way that one wonders if the supportive House members ever met a food stamp recipient. There are already plenty of ways that USDA helps up-skill food stamp recipients and takes into account the multiple factors that drove them into poverty. There are already provisions that severely limit the issue of food stamps to able bodied persons. The new House approach seeks to change a hand up to a hand slap. Luckily, the Farm bill is subject to Senate rules and thus will require 60 votes to close debate. Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and the other Democrats who will serve on the Conference Committee will have a lot of leverage. Please call Debbie Stabenow’s office at 202-224-4822. Tell her how grateful you are that she stood up and tell her that you are counting on her to continue to do so.
2) Get the Senate Some Fortitude on Trade
	Donald Trump has been such a misinformation machine on trade that it would be easy to conclude that he is misrepresenting everything. It’s not the case, but we aren’t going to go back any time soon to quieter, more productive bilateral or multilateral talks to resolve specific, legitimate claims. So, in this period of escalation we need to remember that it isn’t true (as Trump has maintained) that it is easy to win a trade war. Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union each have their own political stake in not being seen to capitulate. Also, identifying modest trade deficits or trade surpluses with a particular country is an awful way to figure out whether unfair trade practices are occurring. Trump does not seem to be caught up to date on the ways in which global manufacturing investment has changed in the last two decades. When Harley Davidson announced it was going to shift some manufacturing to Thailand because of Trump’s steel tariffs, Trump said “Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country - never!” But Harley already has manufacturing plants in Brazil, India, and Australia, so never wasn’t going to be possible. And innumerable foreign companies have manufacturing plants in the United States. Of all the disputes, the Canada trade war is the oddest, because Trump went into the first discussion admitting he didn’t know which country had the trade surplus. Trump is clearly reacting to Justin Trudeau’s refusal to bow. His use of bogus “national security” grounds to impose tariffs on Canadian steel is what has Senator Bob Corker doing battle on the Senate floor. He was able to get an 88-11 vote for a non-binding resolution calling for Trump to have Senate review before using national security as grounds for imposing a tariff.  Senators are happy to have Corker be the one to feel Trump’s tweet-tirades. But ultimately other Republican Senators from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees will have to step up if we are to maintain any international standing at all. Call any or all of these for tell them our place in the world matters and then it falls to them to protect it: Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado (202) 224-5941 Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (202)224-5972 Senator Marco Rubio of Florida (202) 224-3041 Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska (202) 224-4224
3) Our Fellow Resisters Have Some Good Advice
	We are heartened to receive notes from recipients of these missives offering their own counsel on how to move forward in these times, including the above counsel on food stamps. One activist recommends this David Leonhardt column. It argues that our understandable opposition to Brett Kavanagh could cause us to forget the issues like health care which are most likely to generate a blue wave. I agree that we should always put health care in a dominant position, but I believe that any number of Supreme Court confirmation issues could generate an electoral boost, including choice and gay marriage. From Vermont we have heard a seconding of our recommendation that we all participate in projects where we customize and send postcards to voters in swing districts. This writer notes that there are several suppliers of names for postcards--- resisters should find one that works for them. Here’s another: Sister District Project. Two other notes of note, one commending a recent David Brooks speech at Davidson College for its thoughts on way forward. The other demonstrates that Donald Trump’s approval rating has declined in every state of the union since January of 2017. That isn’t so surprising, since January 2017 was the apex of his approval, but it is delicious information nonetheless.

One could weary of being urged in these missives to be focused and relentless in one’s contribution to the blue wave. If there was any other way (besides focus and relentlessness) to win back the House and (possibly) gain control of the Senate, this missive would recommend that action early and often. We are doing the only thing we can do, and the rewards will be reaped.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington