#56: We Will Extricate a Country From a Morass

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 where you can read and share these messages. 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.

This missive will be shorter than has been the custom. It isn’t just that it is the holiday season, but that we all need a little time to sort through the new crises. Budget politics and the wall are not the least of the issues, but they pale in the face of new deal between Donald Trump and Turkish premier Recip Tayyip Erdogran.

We knew Trump would try our souls, but this is the selling of a nation’s soul. Kurdish fighters have been in Syria successfully fighting ISIS with our help. That Trump would agree to abandon the Kurds in the face of Erdogan’s desire to kill them all is our nation’s new shame. Defense Secretary James Mattis proved he could bear a lot of things, but not this.

There have been plenty of other major challenges in the last two years as we together have sought to protect a nation from its president. We have had some considerable success:

• As Trump has sought to treat Putin as a special friend, Congress has resisted. Our policies and sanctions have remained in place and in some cases they have been strengthened. True, there is disarray in Europe, but the NATO alliance will hold, and we will remain an essential part of it. Angela Merkel has been replaced by her like-minded colleague Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer. If Theresa May’s government falls over Brexit, her nation will turn to the center and left, not to the right.

• Robert Mueller has been protected sufficiently by Congress and is expected to issue his report by mid-February. If Trump had been able to devise a way to stop Mueller, he would have done so. It hasn’t just been Democrats who have been protecting Mueller, it is Republican Senate Intelligence Chair Richard Burr. Whether or not Trump is impeached, the multiple tracks of justice-seeking will continue. Notably, this is not just about Mueller’s powers, but those of various state and federal prosecutors. Talking to Mueller and prosecutors, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen know things Donald Trump doesn’t want you to know, which soon will be revealed in detail.

• We took back the House by 40 seats, and generated the largest gap between Democratic and Republican votes in the history of midterm elections. We have filled our House with a new generation of younger, accomplished, principled, diverse Americans who are nicely distributed among the “wings” of Democrats. Over time, we will be as thrilled that we have them as we are overjoyed we have subpoena power. And, that’s saying a lot because the subpoenas will expose the con man at the highest level of his conniving.

It’s important to remind ourselves of these things daily because we need to be steady as this disgrace of a presidency exposes itself layer by layer, and the resultant wounds of the United States become even more apparent and in need of healing. The response of a nation to the Syria action and the Mueller report will reveal who Donald Trump is, and who we are. We are not having a minor dispute over small things. We have known for many months that these battles are about the very future of a country. It is a time that will demand something extra from us, and that’s what we will give. 

In less than two years, our resistance will win back the Senate and the presidency. We are unbowed.
Between now and when the new Congress convenes on January 3, let’s concentrate on one huge element which has been missing up to this point:

Motivating Republican Senators to Act on Behalf of Their Nation

During a constitutional crisis, a bi-partisan response is indispensable. Thus far the willingness of Republican Senators to step forward has been underwhelming. These days, there is no Arthur Vandenberg helping start the United Nations, no Jacob Javits fighting for civil rights, no Howard Baker standing up to Richard Nixon.

It’s good for us to understand that it is not a trivial matter for a sitting Republican Senator to face off against a vituperative and vengeful president who controls their party. It can easily keep you from being re-elected, and all of your life you have wanted to be a U.S. Senator. You have also convinced yourself and those who love you that even though you have not stood up to Trump in ways that have counted, you have been a quiet force protecting the nation. John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski voting against the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act is the nearly singular exception. 

We can understand these things, but we can no longer tolerate them. There are glimmers. Senate Republicans do not intend to help Trump issue a free pass to Kashoggi-killing Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Previously unable to walk in Howard Baker’s Tennessee footsteps, Lamar Alexander has put his foot down on Trump’s proposal to change Senate rules to have fifty votes build the wall. The incredulous opposition of Lindsay Graham and the straightforward rebuke of Mitch McConnell over the Syria move and the resignation of Mattis may represent the first straw for a dozen or more Senate Republicans.

These are Republicans who do not love Putin at all in any way. They believe in international alliances anchored by friendship with France, Britain, Germany and Canada. It will not be easy to motivate these people to act, because the political cost to them could be great. They need to know that the cost to the country of them not acting will be far greater.

Please pick one of these vulnerable Republican Senators to target for your year-end activity. They are among the 22 Republicans up for re-election in 2020, compared to only 12 Democrats, who are mostly in safe seats. They Republican Senators know 2020 is coming.

Intensify. Please use the links to call the Senator, and call one or more of her or his district offices - all if you can spare some time. Do some internet searching and see if their legislative director or chief of staff has revealed contact information, and call or email them too. Do some research to determine their likely opponents in case you will need to use that information sooner rather than later.

Tell them that it is your strong expectation that they will defend our country today:
Joni Ernst of Iowa
Thom Tillis of North Carolina
Cory Gardner of Colorado
David Perdue of Georgia
Steve Daines of Montana

These are difficult times. One can disempower oneself as one ruefully absorbs the news. Let’s allow anger and bewilderment and sorrow to cause the redoubling of efforts instead. We will not let this man do these things. In the not too distant future, we will have new leadership for the troubled country that we love.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington

#55: We Will Be Able to Dream About What America Can Become

When I started this series of missives in November of 2016, I was despairing. I felt even then that we could take back the House in 2018, and that we had a shot at protecting the Affordable Care Act. But I did not imagine that our resistance would reach its present capacity. The reason we had the largest mid-term election margin since World War II is because we all obsessed about taking back the House. Certainly we were fortunate to have some outstanding candidates, but the Person of the Year for 2018 should be the Trump resister, who made those campaigns rock.

Responding to my own despair and that of my dear family, I pledged to provide a missive every two weeks until 2020, when we will no longer have to use the word President and the word Trump in the same sentence. Just think of how elevating that will feel, to once again start to dream about what America can become. In each of my 54 blog entries, I have tried to chronicle what has been happening in a way that cuts through the overwhelming amount of information available and which identifies matters of special importance. I have sought to provide important context about how certain decisions are made and have avoided the temptation to dwell on snarky things that one could say about Donald Trump. I have offered three specific things that my blog readers can do about all of this. I have been pleased at the number of people who act on these three things most every time they receive the missive.

I started with a list of 250 people. Gratifyingly, I have received a steady stream of “enrollments”. Now, between the e-blast, the blog itself and the Facebook post I have 2200 “followers”. This does not account for the further “reach” gained when recipients share the blog with their friends. If you will, please help me add those friends to our list and think of others who can join in on this adventure. The strength of the resistance is that there are hundreds of groups like ours who are intent on changing the world, and that we all just proved that we can. Please help us do even better by 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 where you can read and share these messages. You can also catch up on current and past missives on my blog page, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020.

Donald Trump made a very bad bet. In his previous life first as a real estate developer, and later as a marketer, he developed these habits--- promote your own brand aggressively, exaggerate as much as you can get away with, never apologize, and counterpunch against anyone who criticizes you, regardless of who they are and the significance or aptness of the criticism. He did not reckon that the brand promotion would be recognized as giving thanks for himself on Thanksgiving. As a real estate operative, he did not have to deal with fact checkers who keep posting and proving his prevarications. Once you are president, an ability to admit error and change course is essential, or you could get caught pretending that Kim Jong Un is your special friend who is ridding his country of nuclear weapons. He is not and they are not. Finally, the counterpunching eventually just makes you the world’s biggest bully. 

Many Republicans say that Trump’s political error in November was not talking enough about economic gains. They should be so lucky. He hemorrhaged votes in the suburbs not because these voters didn’t know what he has done, but because they did know both what he has done and, importantly, who he is and how he has done it. From the time that Ike was their uncle, Americans have judged a President’s character and voted as though character mattered. Too bad for Republicans that they have cast their lot behind someone whose tweets remind us of absence of character every single day.

It’s fair that in dying George H.W. Bush was remembered for his dedication to public service, and why wouldn’t we contrast it to Donald Trump’s lack of such dedication? And, it is fair that we find a lesson for these times around Bush’s gentler, kinder personal sensibilities which were seen as uncommon and were thus appreciated by other elected officials.
Of course, that’s why it was so disappointing that the father’s coalition effort to liberate Kuwait from Iraq morphed into the son’s made up war that has destabilized the Middle East. The senior Bush, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice got played by Dick Cheney, and the world has been paying for it ever since.

All of which provides lessons for us as we realize we need to evaluate both the character and the policy approaches of the score of Democratic presidential candidates that are emerging. This vetting will seem odd for a while. For two years all of us have been focused on making Donald Trump an un-president. We have not had to stand by our own candidate. When we start doing the sorting, we are going to rediscover some differences among us.

We can handle that, because there is not as much of a gap between Democratic “liberals” and “progressives” as media commentators would want us to believe. You would be hard pressed to place all our shiny new members of Congress and our presidential candidates on some kind of center to left continuum. We will be able to nominate a ticket that keeps most all of us fully engaged in this movement. This outcome will be even more likely because Democrat primaries award delegates proportionally to the votes received, which will mean delegate totals will grow slowly, and the winnowing process will be as orderly as any group of Democrats can produce.

Those of us who are themselves part of a generation that brought us Trump, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will understand why Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren still would deeply love to be president. It might be the hardest dream of all to put away. As kindly and gently as we can, we should let that them know that we are turning to younger generations, who bring a freshness to our party that will serve us well in November of 2020---- These candidates are Obama’s generation! Barrack Obama is 57. We could definitely stand more of that, no? Cory Booker is 49, Kamala Harris is 54. Amy Klobuchar is 58, Deval Patrick 62, Joaquin Castro 45, Michelle Obama 54, and Beto O’Rourke 46. There are others. Let’s see what their policy approaches are, and what character they can demonstrate.

Right now, it seems that all we are doing is waiting for Robert Mueller. There is no doubt that what he will have to say will be hugely consequential, and it is possible that it will mean that Trump will be unable to serve out his term. Here is a good place to never get ahead of ourselves. The fact that Democrats now control the House means that there will be evidence backing up some of our darkest suspicions about Trump and the Russians. And it could be that the evidence will be so strong that the House will be duty bound to pass articles of impeachment.

However, impeachment talk is political candy for some House members and they could stand to reduce their daily helping. They need to remember successful impeachment would require the votes of 20 Republican Senators. Without those votes, what would we be hoping to achieve? Now that we control the House, we have plenty of ways to expose the truth and support the upcoming indictments outside of the impeachment process. The real prize is not just in taking back the Presidency, but in restoring the American institutions that Trump has weakened and the rights he has trampled. Let’s keep our goals in the appropriate order.

And, in the meantime,we know the lame duck Congress is still sitting there in Washington D.C., and (for the moment) even worse, the lame duck Wisconsin State Legislature is still in session. It would be awful if those bent on whatever mischief they can get away with fell out of the habit of hearing from us. Here are three things we can do right now.

1) Stop the Perversion of the Democratic Process in Wisconsin
	The reason why the Wisconsin State Legislature is trying to limit the powers of incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers is they can, as long as outgoing Republican Governor Scott Walker doesn’t veto their cynical, anti-Democratic actions. Some of these late night measures now before the Governor have been vetoed by him before, back when he was feeling it wasn’t such a great idea for the legislature to limit his powers over mostly minor disagreements. Among the provisions under consideration are moving the state’s job creation agency out from under the Governor’s control, and changing how the state decides to participate in lawsuits against the federal government. Republican Scott Walker might veto some or all of this package, which passed the Wisconsin Senate by one vote. If he does, it will be because he suspects the package passing will put him and Wisconsin Republicans under a cloud for a decade. Call the Governor’s office at 608-266-1212 and tell them they are right about that. In addition, attend to the fact that the bill restricts early voting to the two weeks before the election, for no other reason than to suppress voters. The advocacy group One Wisconsin Now believes they have legal grounds for a challenge. You can hear their argument, and you may decide to help them out.
2) Pass Criminal Justice Reform in the United States Congress Right Now
	It is difficult to collect a lot of praise from resisters for Jared Kushner. But it is indisputable that he has been an advocate for federal criminal justice reform, including considerable improvements in drug sentencing and modest improvements in judicial discretion. His early understanding of these issues came from his own father being incarcerated. Though Democrats would have liked the existing bi-partisan bill to go much further, it is still a breakthrough, and it will still release thousands of people from prison who no longer belong there. Can you imagine how much that matters to them and to their families? Mitch McConnell has still not committed to bringing the bill to the floor so the Senate can pass it (which it will) and so the President can sign it. Write or call your own two Senators. If they are already supporting it, please ask them respectfully to not come home for the holidays until they get this done.
3) Members of Congress, Tear Down that Wall
	There will be a government shutdown battle over walling out Mexico that will culminate on December 21. The dispute is between the $5 billion the House provided for a section of the wall and border security and the $1.5 the Senate provided for border security. The Republican leadership is trying very hard to avoid even a partial governmental shutdown on this issue, because they have discerned that it will be blamed on their party. As of this point, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are not being helpful to the Republican leadership, because they agree with the Republicans that Trump shutting down the government will be blamed on Republicans. This wall issue will be with us until Trump returns to marketing hotel properties he does not own. So, it would be a good idea if organizations of which you are a member make their opposition formal. Here’s the list to which you can add your favorite organization.

One step at a time is the way that we need to go about all of this. Through the hardest of work, we won back the House. For our troubles, we saved our country from some but not even close to all of the worst things this highly unusual American presidency will bring us. Let’s keep on. Let’s see each of ourselves as a member of the first team that is carrying on this fight. And, let’s remember we will have some repairs to do even after we regain the Presidency less than two years from now.

David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington